Herbert E. Gaston

Herbert Earle Gaston (August 20, 1881 – December 7, 1956) was an American newspaper editor who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States from 1949 until his 1953.

Early life Gaston was born on August 20, 1881, in Halsey, Oregon. He was the son of Maria Glasgow ( Irvine) Gaston and William Hawks Gaston, a merchant and farmer. His maternal grandfather was the Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Samuel Glasgow Irvine, D.D.

He attended schools in Tacoma, Washington before studying at the University of Washington from 1903 to 1904 and the University of Chicago from 1904 to 1906. Gaston became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under then Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, with jurisdiction over the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Narcotics. Gaston left the treasury in 1945, to become vice-chairman and director of the Export-Import Bank. In 1949, he succeeded William McChesney Martin as bank president and chairman, holding both posts until his retirement in 1953.

Personal life On October 16, 1907, he married Ethel Bell. Together, they were the parents of two children,

Mary Rainey Gaston (1912–1993), who married Robert Kramer in 1941; Kramer served as assistant attorney general during the Eisenhower administration and later became dean of George Washington Law School.

Gaston died on December 7, 1956, at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center in California.