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I'm reviewing this this article as part of the WP:GAN process. Normally I use template {{ GAList}} to describe how various aspects of the article do/do not meeting the WP:WIAGA criteria. But in this case, the article has two big problems that need to be discussed first, before anything else:
Problem #1 is because the article is dominated by Watergate. Yes, this is the thing the subject is most famous for, and as a result it will be the longest section in the article, but that can't be to the exclusion of everything else. Even the sectioning should be a clue: "Early career" goes to the time the subject is 53 years old! That's not very "early" (I'm going to fix up some of the sectioning).
Some particular aspects that are underdescribed: Gray's World War II service needs more detail, including what boats he served upon, what rank he attained, what kind of combat/danger he saw, what medals he won. We need clarification of what part of the Navy was looking for trained lawyers. We need the boats he commanded during the Korean War, what action he saw if any, what medals he won, etc. We need a description of him first meeting Nixon and working for Nixon in the 1940s and 1950s, see this NYT story. We need a description of what Gray did in private practice in the 1960s.
Then, once Gray joins the Nixon administration, we need a description of what he did in each of those posts. What accounted for his rise in positions? What attracted Nixon to him? There are nine NYT stories that mention Gray even before he was named Acting Director FBI, maybe they will help fill in details.
Then we need a description of what he did as Acting Director that wasn't connected to Watergate. Hoover would have left the place in a total mess in many ways, and Gray's primary focus wouldn't have been how to deal with Watergate, but how to give the FBI direction in the post-Hoover era. That isn't described at all!
Even within the Watergate material, there's likely a bit too much of a focus on Felt and Deep Throat rather than other aspects. I realize that there's an endless fascination with this, but some of the speculation probably belongs in the Deep Throat article, not in this BLP.
Problem #2 is that many statements in the article aren't sourced, and worse, most of those that are, are sourced to his autobiography. Autobiographies are a primary source that are inherently exposed to the dangers of bias, skewing, selective reporting, etc. for obvious reasons. This isn't a knock on Gray or anyone else, it's just human nature, even among the best intentioned. Therefore in BLPs we try to limit use of autobiographies to supply quotes from the subject, to representing the subject's (claimed) state of mind, and to sometimes supply early-life details that aren't available anywhere else. For everything else we try to use reliable secondary sources.
Much has been written about the FBI and Watergate, and there's simply no reason for the Gray autobiography to be the main source in this article. The NYT has published 840 stories that mention him, for example. Time magazine's online archives are a good source for material, as is the Google News Archive, which has many stories about him from the 1970s on forward. Google Books also returns many references to him, which you can follow up on in "limited preview" mode or at a library.
I realize that you've put a lot of effort into this article, and that you've submitted it several times for GA. But these major aspects really need to be addressed before it can be considered for GA status. Wasted Time R ( talk) 11:40, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
There hasn't been any further action on this article over the last three weeks (the normal GA review period is one week), so I'm going to close it at WP:GAN. And the kind of additions that are necessary here typically take a number of weeks to research and make, so it shouldn't be done under any time pressure. Wasted Time R ( talk) 21:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)