John Stephens Graham

John Stephens Graham (August 4, 1905 – October 20, 1976) was a Washington, D.C., attorney and political appointee. He was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and commissioners for the Internal Revenue Service and Atomic Energy Commission.

Early life and education Graham was born August 4, 1905, in Reading, Massachusetts, son of Joseph L. Graham, a R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company executive, and Margaret Nowell Graham, an artist. His older sister was Katherine G. Howard, an Eisenhower administration official. He was a cousin of Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With the Wind.

Graham graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended Harvard Law School before graduating from University of Virginia School of Law with close friend Frank Wisner.

Career During World War II, Graham served in the United States Navy.

Graham served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the second term of President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of the Treasury John Wesley Snyder. from November 19, 1952, until January 19, 1953.

After Dwight D. Eisenhower became president in 1953, Graham became a financial and business consultant in Washington, D.C., until 1956, when he served as national treasurer for Volunteers for Stevenson, the campaign to elect Adlai Stevenson President of the United States, against incumbent President Eisenhower.

On September 12, 1957, when Graham was 51, he was appointed as a commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission by Eisenhower, The President, along with partisan Lewis Strauss, both Republicans, appointed Graham, a Democrat, to fill out John von Neumann's term following Neumann's death. This was done as a show of conciliation between the President and the Joint Committee

Personal life He married Elizabeth Foster Breckinridge (1911–2005), daughter of Henry S. Breckinridge and Ruth Bradley Woodman Breckinridge.#tag:ref|During World War II, Ruth Breckinridge traveled via the SS Maasdam for England, where she was to work in London at a hospital as a house mother to Red Cross nurses. On June 27, 1941, the ship was attacked by a Nazi submarine near Iceland. Mrs. Breckinridge was lost at sea. In memory of her mother, Elizabeth Graham donated a family Concord, New Hampshire, residence to the Red Cross. Until early 2005 it was the Red Cross' Concord headquarters. #tag:ref|The Washington Post article states that Ruth Breckinridge was lost at sea on June 26, 1941, but the official sources state the ship was hit on June 27th. #tag:ref|Elizabeth and her father were familiar with the Charles Lindbergh family. In 1927 Lindbergh gave her her first airplane ride. Colonel Henry S. Breckinridge was made counsel for Lindbergh following the kidnapping of his young son. Susan Graham

Graham died on October 20, 1976, in Washington, D.C. His wife, Elizabeth, lived until October 25, 2005, when she died following a heart attack. Both are buried in New London, NH.