Donald Edward Graves (Mr. X) (April 10, 1929 – July 2, 2008) was a

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

analyst who specialized in studying the government of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. As a Kremlinologist, Donald Graves tracked the personal history of individual Soviet officials. These files, profiled in the 1982 Washington Post story, "The Secret Files of Mr. X" consisted of hard-copy database of over 1600 index cards that held all of the information the US Government had on prominent political figures of the Soviet Union. During the 1970s and 1980s, it was a critical source of information for U.S. officials tracking the political situation of their Cold War rivals. Graves died on July 2, 2008.

Early life

Donald Graves was born April 10, 1929, in Rose Manor in

Bennington, Vermont Bennington is a New England town, town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. It is one of two shire towns (county seats) of the county, the other being Manchester (town), Vermont, Manchester. As of the 2020 United States Census, US Cens ...

, where he grew up next door to poet

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

. He had three siblings. He was the son of Frederick O. Graves Jr. and Marion Towsley Graves Potter. He later graduated

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

from

Dickinson College Dickinson College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1773 as Carlisle Grammar School, Dickinson was chartered on September 9, 1783, ...

in Carlisle, PA in 1953. He was awarded a master's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1955. In 1975, he married the criminologist and Sovietologist Louise Shelley, with whom he had two children before the marriage was dissolved.

Career

Donald E. Graves also edited the "Survey of the Soviet Press", for a decade, at the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

before being transferred to the

US Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

. From 1974 to 1976, Graves was at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as first secretary and head of the internal affairs branch of the political section. While there, Graves was one of the number of State Department officials to secretly assist Norton Dodge, a Maryland college professor, to collect 20,000 pieces of art by dissident Soviet artists and smuggle them out of the Soviet Union. The art, much of which is now on display at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

, and its retrieval were the subject of author John McPhee's "The Ransom of Russian Art" (1994).McPhee, John. The Ransom of Russian Art. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Graves, Donald E. 1929 births 2008 deaths Dickinson College alumni Harvard University alumni People from Bennington, Vermont United States Department of State officials American intelligence analysts 20th-century American political scientists