Gray, David (1870–1968), diplomat and playwright, was born 8 August 1870 in Buffalo, New York state, of Scottish parents; his father was editor of the Buffalo Courier. He graduated from Harvard University in 1892. Between 1893 and 1899 he worked as a reporter and leader writer for several Rochester and Buffalo newspapers. Admitted to practise at the bar in 1899, he nevertheless earned his living as a writer and was the author of several plays, articles, one novel, and an unpublished work, ‘Behind the green curtain’. In 1914 he married Mrs Maude Livingston Hall Waterbury (1877–1952), youngest sister of Eleanor Roosevelt's mother. She had been married to Lawrence Waterbury for twelve years and had two children, Lawrence and Anne. The Grays went to live in Maine, but US participation in the first world war disrupted their life. He served as a captain with the American Expeditionary Forces in France and received the Croix de Guerre and Chevalier de la Légion d'honnneur for his work as a liaison officer with the French army. Maude worked in one of the intelligence bureaux of the post office department in New York city. Towards the end of the war, Gray broke his leg in two places and was helped to return to the US through the good offices of Eleanor Roosevelt, who requested her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy, to have Gray return stateside with them on board the George Washington. Both he and Maude remained close to the Roosevelts, with FDR describing David as his ‘cousin’. After the war, Gray returned to writing; he received a doctorate of letters from Bowdoin College in 1925.
President Roosevelt appointed the 69-year-old Gray as US minister in Dublin on 16 February 1940 to replace John Cuddahy. An amateur in the world of diplomacy, Gray faced a difficult situation in a neutral state, at a time when Northern Ireland, as part of the UK, participated fully in the war with its ports, airfields, and manufacturing industries playing vital roles in the war effort. Gray held definite views about Ireland: he resented the influence exercised by Irish nationalists with those in Irish-America who were critical of Roosevelt's pro-British policy, and he opposed Irish neutrality. His views mirrored those of Roosevelt. Neither of them, nor indeed the US public in general, fully understood the rationale behind neutrality, despite the efforts of Robert Brennan (qv), the Irish minister in Washington. From the time he arrived in Dublin, and particularly from June 1940 to July 1941, when a German invasion of Britain was a real possibility, Gray worked in cooperation with British officials and ministers to persuade and intimidate the de Valera government into entering the war or, to use Roosevelt's words, ‘to fish or cut bait’ (Coogan, 543). But his effectiveness was lessened because Éamon de Valera (qv) came to detest him and Joseph Walshe (qv), secretary of the Department of External Affairs, believed he ‘brandished the big stick too much’ (Fisk, 305). Gray was actively involved in summer 1940 in moves to offer Irish unity in return for Irish entry into the war. Unusually for a diplomat accredited to Dublin, he tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade Northern Ireland government ministers to accept such a deal.
His relationship with de Valera was further damaged when the taoiseach blamed Gray for the negative reaction that Frank Aiken (qv) encountered from Roosevelt, from Dean Acheson, assistant secretary of state, and from officials during his arms- and equipment-buying trip to the US in April 1941. Although Roosevelt relented and agreed to sell two ships and wheat through the American Red Cross, it was clear the US government was unwilling to support Éire so long as it denied the military use of its ports to Britain and appeared to be tolerating Axis espionage activity (in fact, all German agents landed in Ireland were captured). Following the near-failure of the Aiken visit, Gray learned that de Valera was furious, blaming him for misrepresenting Ireland to Washington, and that he would ask for Gray's recall were it not for his connection to Roosevelt.
Once the US entered the war in December 1941 and the German threat of invasion to Britain and Ireland began to recede, the ‘testy old gentleman’ (as Ervin Marlin of the US Office of Strategic Services described Gray; Fisk, 531) refused to acknowledge the Irish policy of benevolent neutrality towards the Allied side. Gray contributed to Roosevelt's ‘absent treatment policy’ of Éire and the ‘American note’ affair that represented the crisis point in US–Éire relations during the war. On 21 February 1944 Gray delivered a note to de Valera requesting the recall of German and Japanese representatives in Dublin. De Valera regarded the request as an ultimatum and rejected it. Irish neutrality remained intact, but there was to be one last round to the de Valera–Gray match on 30 April 1945, when the US minister requested the keys to the German legation in Dublin before the German minister, Eduard Hempel (qv), could destroy its archives. When de Valera declined, it provided Gray with further evidence of Irish refusal to cooperate with the Allies. But the extent of de Valera's personal and political dislike of the US minister emerged two days later, when the taoiseach visited Hempel to express his condolences on the death of Adolf Hitler. This provoked Allied outrage but de Valera explained his action as part of the courtesies of neutrality, remarking that Hempel ‘was always friendly and inevitably correct – in marked contrast to Gray’ (Coogan, 610).
Roosevelt had believed that Gray was doing ‘exceedingly well’ in Dublin. He accorded him a go-between role between the White House and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. Despite Roosevelt's death in April 1945 and lobbying by Irish-American Democrats for his removal, Gray's personal connection with the Roosevelts allowed him to remain in office until June 1947. In his last two years in Ireland he supported the negotiation of the bilateral air agreement (for the sake of US security) and Irish requests to the Truman administration for food supplies, but he was furious at de Valera's efforts to ‘pressure-group our government’ (Gray memo, June 1947; Gray papers, box 9, file ‘Ireland’) on the anti-partition issue. After his return to the US he retired to Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, remaining interested in Irish politics. He died 12 April 1968.