Horace Rowan Gaither Jr. (1909 – April 7, 1961),[1] was a San Francisco attorney, investment banker, and a powerful administrator at the Ford Foundation.
During World War II, he served as assistant director of the Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T.
[2][3] In 1958 and 1959, he served as the 1st Chairman of the MITRE Corporation Board of Trustees.
From 1959 through his death, Gaither was a general partner and co-founder of Draper, Gaither & Anderson, one of the first venture capital firms on the west coast of the U.S., together with William H. Draper Jr., a retired Army general and Frederick L. Anderson, a retired Air Force general.
He is best remembered today as the author of the controversial 1957 Gaither Report on the vulnerability of American defense.