The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

that he did not want to work for any- one who would wiretap his subordi- nates, noting that “loyalty goes both ways.” During the Carter administration, Bray served as deputy director of the U.S. Information Agency. Former USIA Director John Reinhardt spoke at the AFSA celebration, calling Bray a different kind of Foreign Service officer, not a “striped-pants diplo- mat.” He explained that when he became head of USIA, he turned to Bray as “someone who knew what to do.” With his leadership skills, “he led a number of people down the right roads.” In 1981, Bray was tapped by President Ronald Reagan as ambassador to Senegal. One of his many contributions out- side of diplomatic service was as a founding member of Princeton Pro- ject 55. Bray responded to a challenge posed by Princeton classmate Ralph Nader at their 1989 reunion, Ken Webster explained, “to attack systemic ills” by putting Princeton graduates to work in public interest programs and public service projects. Bray served as president and chief executive for the project, which is still going strong and has placed over 1,000 graduates in grass-roots and other nongovernmen- tal organizations. Charlie Bray was a leader in the purest, most organic, sense. He was a man who “thought everyone had a place at the table,” explained Tony Schaffer of Ten Chimneys, who worked with Bray to turn the Wis- consin home of Broadway legends Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontayne, which was a retreat for numerous art- ists, into a museum. He loved con- versation and “loved what each per- son brings to it.” Bray knew how to bring people together, whether it was to reform the Foreign Service, to explain administration policy to a feisty press corps or raise money to save a historic landmark. Bray later served as president of the Johnson Foundation Conference Center at Wingspread in Racine, Wis. He was also instrumental in establish- ing Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, and taught classes there. Though he accomplished so much inside and outside the Foreign Service, Bray was not all about the work. He enjoyed life’s pleasures and delighted in friends and family. He enjoyed birding, major league base- ball, poker, good food and wine, a wide variety of books and, most importantly, his wife, children and grandchildren. In a moving tribute, Chip Bray said that his father thought everyone had something to say, and he was “full of ideas and he put them to use for the common good.” He spoke of the way his father held an “unwavering belief in the power of human potential” as well as in the power of fate and the power to create your own luck. He also believed strongly in the importance of “travel as educator.” Charlie Bray was, indeed, in the words of Lannon Walker, “the best among us.” 58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope; and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. — Robert Kennedy (as quoted by Charles “Chip” Bray at the Oct. 17 AFSA celebration of the life of Charlie Bray) At the Charlie Bray Celebration Oct. 17, from left: Charles “Chip” Bray, Christopher Krogh, David Bray, Dean Peter Krogh. Inset: Charlie Bray with his daughter Katherine Bray-Merrell.