David K. E. Bruce

David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce (February 12, 1898 – December 5, 1977) was an American diplomat and politician. He was the only American to serve as Ambassador to France, the Republic of Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Biography

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, his father was William Cabell Bruce. Bruce served in the United States Army during World War I. He went to the University of Maryland Law School and was admitted to the Maryland bar. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates 1924-1926 and the Virginia House of Delegates 1939-1942. Bruce graduated from the University of Virginia in 1920.

On May 29, 1926, Bruce married Ailsa Mellon, the daughter of the banker and diplomat Andrew W. Mellon. They divorced on April 20, 1945. Their only daughter, Audrey, and her husband, Stephen Currier, were presumed dead when a plane in which they were flying in the Caribbean disappeared on January 17, 1967, after requesting permission to fly over Culebra, a U. S. Navy installation. No trace of the plane, pilot, or passengers was ever found. Audrey and Stephen Currier left three children: Andrea, Lavinia, and Michael.

Bruce married Evangeline Bell (1914–1995) on April 23, 1945, three days after his divorce. They had two sons and one daughter, Alexandra (called Sasha). Alexandra died under mysterious circumstances (possibly murder or suicide) in 1975 at age 29 at the Bruce family home in Virginia.

During World War II, he served with the Office of Strategic Services operation in London and observed the invasion of Normandy landing there the day after the initial invasion.

He served as the United States Ambassador to France from 1949 to 1952, United States Ambassador to West Germany from 1957 to 1959, and United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1961 to 1969. He was an American envoy at the Paris peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam in 1970 and 1971. Bruce also served as the first United States emissary to the People's Republic of China from 1973 to 1974. He was the ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from late 1974 to 1976. Bruce was a candidate for director of its successor the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1950.

He is said to have written a secret report on the CIA for President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 that was highly critical of its operation under Allen Dulles's leadership. This claim likely has some basis, since in January 1956, according to Ira David Wood 3rd, David K.E. Bruce was among the very first appointees, by the 34th U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the new President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities which, years later, became known as the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

Bruce purchased and restored Staunton Hill, his family's former estate in Charlotte County, Virginia. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with Distinction, in 1976.

Bruce served as the Honorary Chair on the Board of Trustees of the American School in London during his diplomatic career in the United Kingdom. The David K.E. Bruce Award was established in 2007 at the school.

He died on December 5, 1977 of a heart attack at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Publications

Bruce wrote a book of biographical essays on the American presidents originally published as Seven Pillars of the Republic (1936). He later expanded it as Revolution to Reconstruction (1939) and again revised it as Sixteen American Presidents (1962).

Further reading

• Lankford, Nelson D. The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of David K. E. Bruce, 1898–1977 (1996).
• Lankford, Nelson D., ed. OSS against the Reich: The World War II Diaries of Colonel David K. E. Bruce (1991).

External links

• First Chapter of 'The Last American Aristocrat' published by the Washington Post with permission of the author
• Review of the book, "The Last American Aristocrat" from The Washington Monthly magazine
• Oral history interview with David K. E. Bruce, 1 March 1972, at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library

Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Jefferson Caffery	U.S. Ambassador to France 1949–1952	Succeeded by James Clement Dunn
Preceded by James E. Webb	Under Secretary of State 1952–1953	Succeeded by Walter B. Smith
Preceded by James B. Conant	U.S. Ambassador to Germany 1957–1959	Succeeded by Walter C. Dowling
Preceded by John Hay Whitney	U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1961–1969	Succeeded by Walter H. Annenberg
Preceded by none	Chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing 1973–1974	Succeeded by George H. W. Bush
Preceded by Donald Rumsfeld	U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO 1974–1976	Succeeded by Robert Strausz-Hupe