Gordon Gray Passes Away

Today in Masonic History Gordon Gray passes away in 1982.

Gordon Gray was an American politician.

Gray was born on May 30th, 1909 in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Woodbury Forest School for High school before going on to the University of North Carolina, graduating in 1930. In 1933 he graduated from Yale Law School. His father, uncle and brother were all heads of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

After graduating from Yale, Gray practiced law in New York City for two years before returning to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1939, Gray was elected for the first time to the North Carolina General Assembly. He was reelected in 1941 and 1947.

In 1942, Gray enlisted in the United States Army as private. He worked his way up through the ranks and left the service as a captain. During his service he served with General Omar Bradley's forces. In 1947 he was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to be the assistant Secretary of the Army. In 1949 he was made the Secretary of the Army serving until 1950. In 1951 he became the director of the newly formed Psychological Strategy Board which planned for and coordinated government psychological operations. He served there until 1952.

In 1954, Gray served as the chairman of a three man committee created by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. The purpose of the committee was to determine if Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance should be revoked. The accusation was Oppenheimer was not a "loyal citizen." Much of the evidence presented was a repeat of information presented in 1947, when Oppenheimer first received his clearance. The committee voted 2 to 1 in favor of revoking Oppenheimer's clearance. Gray, as the head of the committee, was criticized after the fact for running a "kangaroo court." It was claimed Gray as the chairman and therefore judge, just followed the prosecutor's lead.

It was also in 1954 Gray gave a speech on Founder's Day at Guilford College. In the speech he stunned proponents of public education in North Carolina when he said "if I had to make a choice between a complete system of publicly supported higher education or a complete system of private higher education, I would choose the latter as a greater safeguard of the things for which we live."

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Gray to head the Office of Defense Mobilization. The following year, after the Office of Defense Mobilization was consolidated, Gray was appointed as the National Security Advisor. He served in the position until 1961. The same year Eisenhower gave Gray the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Gray went on to serve on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board starting with President John F. Kennedy all the way through to President Gerald R. Ford.

As a footnote, in leaked documents Gray is alleged to have been part of the Majestic 12 (MJ-12). MJ-12 is a code name for a committee made up of scientists, military, political and industry leaders who were allegedly tasked in 1947, after the crash in Roswell, New Mexico of an alleged Unidentified Flying Object (UFO), with the recovery and study of alien spacecraft.

Gray passed away on November 26th, 1982.

Gray was a member of Winston Lodge No. 167 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

This article provided by Brother Eric C. Steele.