Robert Keith Gray

Mr. Gray was an enabler and a sophisticated fixer. He worked for major corporations and socialites. . He graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., and received a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard. He taught business courses at Hastings College in his hometown in the early 1950s before going to work in the government, first as a special assistant to the secretary of the Navy. In the 1950s he was appointments secretary under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, then secretary of the cabinet. In 1961 he moved to the private sector, where for the next two decades he led the Washington office of the New York public relations and lobbying firm Hill & Knowlton. While building his stable of clients, he took time off during his years at Hill & Knowlton to serve as a top adviser on Richard M. Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and, in 1980, to serve as communications director of Mr. Reagan’s campaign. In 1981, he was co-chairman of Mr. Reagan’s inaugural committee. The afternoon Mr. Reagan was sworn in, Mr. Gray resigned from Hill & Knowlton to start his own firm, Gray & Company. In 1986, Hill & Knowlton bought Gray & Company for $21 million and put Mr. Gray in charge, again, of its Washington office. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story Advertisement Mr. Gray moved to Florida in the 1990s. Besides his longtime companion, Efrain Machado, survivors include a sister, Jean Miller, and a brother, Donald.