Notable Neighbors

Publicly he has been thanked by U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon for his work on behalf of our country. Privately he has lectured to or advised the FBI, New Scotland Yard and the New York City Police Department, among other institutions, on training, intelligence and security matters. And secretly he carried out special assignments for certain U.S. government agencies that were … well, secret, even now. Let’s just say his activities took place in Germany, Italy, Russia, Iran, Nigeria and Vietnam.

Born in 1935 during the Great Depression, Ray grew up in Wayland, Massachusetts as the oldest of three children in a middle-class family. He showed leadership skills early, serving as his senior class president, chairman of the student council, co-editor of the yearbook and a “straight A all the way” student. “I was a bookworm and a wallflower,” he avers. “I was shy, bashful and inhibited at the time,” traits that were to vanish in the years ahead. “My favorite book was Man of La Mancha, and I’ve been charging at windmills ever since.”

Ray was interested in politics. “I was patriotic, and I wanted to do something for my country,” he says. He was able to get an academic scholarship at Norwich University in Vermont, the oldest private military college in the country, and he majored in public administration, minoring in psychology. The school had an ROTC program under which Ray was given a commission as a second lieutenant when he graduated in 1957—but in the regular Army, not in the Army Reserve, thereby placing him on track for a 20-year career. It was during his military duty that, with the approval of his commanding officer, Ray was first tapped by an unnamed federal government agency for “extracurricular” activities.

After basic infantry officer training at Ft. Benning, Georgia he went on to paratroop and ranger training. After being posted to Ft. Devens, Massachusetts in 1960 as an officer in the 2nd Infantry Brigade, he volunteered for military police training at Ft. Gordon, Georgia in 1962. Why the MPs? “They were always working,” Ray says. “In the infantry you stood around and waited for something to happen. In the MPs, you made things happen.” And when he was posted to the Granite City, Illinois Army Depot as a Captain and Provost Marshal in charge of law enforcement and security, things did happen.

Granite City was on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, just north of a tough town: East St. Louis. “There was a lot of activity off-post – a lot of violence, and the Mafia was located across the river in St. Louis,” he says “I had to deal with this criminal element frequently.” Ray was one of the initial participants in the Mafia relocation program (later known as witness protection) during his three years in Granite City. “We were relocating Mafia members who were to testify against their bosses,” and would be dead ducks once they violated their oath of omerta unless they were whisked away and protected. It was a tricky business, dealing with the bosses while trying to keep certain of their underlings safe.

Shortly after Ray first reported for duty, there was a murder on post. A sergeant had killed his wife in their trailer and was holed up there with his three-year-old daughter, armed to the teeth. Ray, alone and unarmed, removed his uniform jacket and entered the trailer in an effort to talk the crazed and sweating noncom down. During their standoff, “I was just waiting for my help to arrive when a CID agent built like a tank crashed into the trailer and bowled everything over, including me.” The soldier was captured, his daughter rescued, and Ray received a medal for heroism.

 “I think that was one of the reasons I was recommended for the White House Fellows program,” he says. He was already on an accelerated promotion program as a result of numerous outstanding efficiency reports, thereby getting promoted ahead of his contemporaries even though he was an ROTC guy and something of a nonconformist.

The Fellows program had been founded by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to bring together exceptional young professionals and give them a year-long first-hand experience working with high-ranking members of the federal government. About 35 candidates emerged from the initial vetting for the program’s first year, and Ray was one of them. They spent two weeks at the White House during the competition and each evening convened for a session with a member of Congress, the Supreme Court or the Cabinet. “It was an exhilarating experience,” Ray says, “but I didn’t get to take a year off from the military. The Army sent me to Vietnam instead, on the grounds that I was critically needed there. Ironically, when I got to Saigon, the military unit I was assigned to was surprised to see me because they thought I was going to work in Washington!”

In Nam he moved up in rank to Major with the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), responsible for security, law enforcement, internal affairs and investigations of major corruption scandals – one of which, the My Lai massacre, was of such international significance that Ray went to Washington D.C. to brief the White House on it. Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley, Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted of murdering 22 villagers. He was sentenced to life in prison but actually only placed under house arrest until President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence.

Ray had three-and-a-half tours on active duty in Vietnam and achieved the rank of Lt. Colonel when sent to the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1972. Normally anyone sent there would be in line for eventual promotion to Brigadier General or higher. Ray completed his ACSG training and went on to become Provost Marshal of Ft. Devens before making an important decision. Xerox Corporation had been trying for some time to lure him into its ranks as Vice President for Global Security at a major league salary. He decided to first complete his 20-year career in 1977 and retire to the heady life of a well-paid corporate executive.

Ray stayed at Xerox for five years before moving over to Digital Equipment Corporation in 1982, where he remained for 18 years. During those years he continued to work with federal government agencies on highly classified projects that one writer later described as “almost James Bondish, filtering personal computers into Russia to allow its citizens to secretly see a world outside the Soviet Union … and countering tech theft by the Soviets” when our nation’s security was at stake. He was one of the founders of the anti-hijacking Sky Marshall program and led our government’s efforts to stem the activities of global drug cartels. Ray also put in some time as Chief of Industrial Security for the U.S. Army Command.

Ray “retired” in 2000 when he came to Englewood, but he has continued to be involved in major security issues. He spent three years consulting for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). He’s served on several federal commissions in the U.S. and was president (and later chairman) of the American Society of Industrial Security–International, the largest industrial security organization in the world. He’s a much sought-after speaker at assemblies and conventions related to international security. And he still gets phone calls from Washington, D.C. at odd hours and times.

For all that he’s done, he’s been given some great sobriquets around the world. “In Nigeria they called me The Black Man in a White Man’s Skin,” he says, and elsewhere he’s been dubbed “The Great Conciliator” and “Super Sleuth.”

That all begs the question: Was Ray Humphrey James Bond?  The answer is clear: No, James Bond was just another Ray Humphrey wannabe.

Dean Laux is exploring  interesting folks living in our community. If you know of anyone with an interesting background please send an email to: [email protected]. Include the person’s name, contact info and give a brief description of the person's background.