Donald Gregg
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Ambassador Donald Gregg |
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|---|---|
| United States Ambassador to South Korea | |
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In office September 27, 1989 – February 27, 1993 |
|
| President |
George H.W. Bush Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | James R. Lilley |
| Succeeded by | James T. Laney |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Donald Phinney Gregg December 5, 1927 |
Donald Phinney Gregg (born December 5, 1927) is a retired American politician, CIA employee, and U.S. Ambassador to South Korea. Gregg worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 31 years, from 1951 to 1982. He was a National Security Council advisor (1979–1982) and National Security Advisor to U.S. Vice President George H. W. Bush (1982–1989), United States Ambassador to Korea (1989–1993), and the chairman of the board of The Korea Society (until 2009), where he called for greater engagement with North Korea.
After graduating from high school he enlisted in the military in 1945 and received training as a cryptanalyst, but did not finish in time to be posted overseas. He then attended Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from 1947 to 1951, majoring in philosophy. Here he was recruited by the CIA.
Gregg's father was Abel J. Gregg of Washington, the national secretary of boys' work of the Young Men's Christian Association. His wife was Margaret Curry. Their daughter Lucy Steuart Gregg married the writer Christopher Buckley, the son of the celebrated conservative journalist and author William F. Buckley, Jr. His nephew is Adam Curry.
Gregg joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1951. He served in Japan from 1964 to 1973.
Gregg served as CIA station chief in South Korea from 1973 to 1975, an assignment he personally requested. During this time Gregg's personal complaint to the head of the presidential protective force about the Korean National Intelligence Service's involvement in the death by torture of a dissident U.S.-trained professor led to its chief, Lee Hu-rak, being replaced, and his successor enacting a prohibition on torture. Gregg, noting that his boss, Ted Shackley, had warned him against such interference, later described this as "one of the best things I did as a CIA officer".
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