John Stephens Graham (August 4, 1905 – October 20, 1976) was a Washington, D.C., attorney and political appointee. He was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and commissioners for the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

and Atomic Energy Commission.

Early life and education

Graham was born August 4, 1905, in

Reading, Massachusetts Reading ( ) is a New England town, town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, north of central Boston. The population was 25,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History Settlement Many of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ...

, son of Joseph L. Graham, a R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company executive, and Margaret Nowell Graham, an artist. His older sister was Katherine G. Howard, an Eisenhower administration official. He was a cousin of

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel that was published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel ''Gone With the Wind (novel), Gone ...

, the author of

Gone With the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Wind ...

. Graham graduated from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

and attended

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

before graduating from

University of Virginia School of Law The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 as part of his "academical village", and now ...

with close friend

Frank Wisner Frank Gardiner Wisner (June 23, 1909 – October 29, 1965) was one of the founding officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and played a major role in CIA operations throughout the 1950s. Wisner began his intelligence career in the Of ...

.Athan Theoharis, Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted, and John Prados, "The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny", Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006. .

Career

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Graham served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

. Graham served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the second term of President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

and

Secretary of the Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

John Wesley Snyder. He served as the 30th

Commissioner of Internal Revenue The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is the head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), an agency within the United States Department of the Treasury. The office of Commissioner was created by United States Congress, Congress as part of the Reven ...

from November 19, 1952, until January 19, 1953. After

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

became president in 1953, Graham became a financial and business consultant in Washington, D.C., until 1956, when he served as national treasurer for Volunteers for Stevenson, the campaign to elect

Adlai Stevenson Adlai Stevenson may refer to: * Adlai Stevenson I Adlai Ewing Stevenson (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) was an American politician and diplomat who served as the 23rd vice president of the United States from 1893 to 1897 under President Gr ...

President of the United States, against incumbent President

Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

. On September 12, 1957, when Graham was 51, he was appointed as a commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission by Eisenhower, and as a delegate to the

International Atomic Energy Agency The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology, nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was ...

. The President, along with partisan

Lewis Strauss Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss ( ; January 31, 1896January 21, 1974) was an American government official, businessman, philanthropist, and naval officer. He was one of the original members of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946 ...

, both Republicans, appointed Graham, a Democrat, to fill out

John von Neumann John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...

's term following Neumann's death. This was done as a show of conciliation between the President and the Joint Committee Graham served as a commissioner on the commission until June 30, 1962.

Personal life

He married Elizabeth Foster Breckinridge (1911–2005), daughter of Henry S. Breckinridge and Ruth Bradley Woodman Breckinridge. Elizabeth's father was the

United States Assistant Secretary of War The United States assistant secretary of war was the second–ranking official within the American Department of War from 1861 to 1867, from 1882 to 1883, and from 1890 to 1940. According to thMilitary Laws of the United States "The act of Augus ...

under

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...

, and was a member of the prominent Breckinridge family. She was born in Monterey, Pennsylvania, grew up in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, and

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...

, and was a 1933 graduate of

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...

.Joe Holley
"Education Volunteer Elizabeth Graham, 94."
The Washington Post. Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive. October 28, 2005. HighBeam Research. Retrieved December 29, 2013. She was a tutor, teacher and founder of an after-school program, Tuesday School. Graham and his wife lived in Winston-Salem, N.C. before moving to

, in 1942 where Graham served in the Navy. The couple had four daughters: * Katherine Graham * Louise Graham * Margaret "Polly" Graham, who married Joseph Coreth (1937–2014) * Susan Graham Graham died on October 20, 1976, in Washington, D.C. His wife, Elizabeth, lived until October 25, 2005, when she died following a heart attack. Both are buried in New London, NH.

Notes

''Subnotes''

References

External links