David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce (February 12, 1898 – December 5, 1977) was an American diplomat, intelligence officer and politician. He served as ambassador to France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the United Kingdom, the only American to be all three.
During World War II, Bruce headed the London Field Office of the OSS and coordinated espionage activities behind enemy lines for the United States Armed Forces branches. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning. He observed the invasion of Normandy landing there the day after the initial invasion.[8]
After leaving the OSS at the end of World War II, and before entering the diplomatic field, in 1948–1949 David Bruce was with the Economic Cooperation Administration which administered the Marshall Plan. It was during this time that David Bruce and his new 2nd wife became an early member of the informal Georgetown Set within D.C.
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.[11]
President John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) appointed Bruce as ambassador to the Court of St James's (i.e. the United Kingdom). After Kennedy's death President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) kept Bruce but ignored all his recommendations. Bruce sought closer ties with Britain and greater European unity. Bruce's reports regarding Britain's financial condition were pessimistic and alarmist. With regard to Vietnam, Bruce privately questioned U.S. involvement and constantly urged the Johnson administration to allow Britain more of a role in bringing the conflict to an end.[12]
Personal life and death
Bruce was an Episcopalian.[13] On May 29, 1926, Bruce married Ailsa Mellon, the daughter of the banker and diplomat Andrew W. Mellon.[14] 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.
The David K.E. Bruce Award was established in 2007 at the American School in London.[11]
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).
^Jonathan Colman, "The London Ambassadorship of David KE Bruce During the Wilson-Johnson Years, 1964–68." Diplomacy and Statecraft 15.2 (2004): 327-352. online
Colman, Jonathan. "The London Ambassadorship of David KE Bruce During the Wilson-Johnson Years, 1964–68." Diplomacy and Statecraft 15.2 (2004): 327-352. online
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).
Young, John W. "David K. E. Bruce, 1961–69." in The Embassy in Grosvenor Square (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012), 153–170.