When I first met C. Boyden Gray it was the American Spectator's annual dinner in Washington. The way I recall it, at least, Seth Lipsky asked Paul Gigot if he knew Gray and if he'd be willing to make the introduction. And so we walked over, and Gray and I had a warm chuckle over the fact that two former presidents of the Harvard Crimson, an institution with a left-of-center reputation, were there being introduced by a Wall Street Journal editorial page editor (or columnist), at a dinner for the American Spectator.
I was barely 30, but Gray was at that point the fourth White House counsel I had met, the first three being Bernie Nussbaum, Abner Mikva, and Leonard Garment. Of the four, Gray was the tallest—a New York Times obituary puts him at six foot, six inches. Gray had the job in the administration of George H.W. Bush, while Garment served during Nixon and the other two men served during President Clinton's administration.
Gray was a member of the advisory committee of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard that publishes Education Next. I was glad to see that while Gray had made a career in the law, he also maintained at least some involvement in publishing. He'll be missed.