Larry Speakes
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Larry M. Speakes (born September 13, 1939) was the spokesman for the White House under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Speakes was born in Cleveland, Mississippi. Speakes is married to Laura Crawford, with whom he has three children.
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[edit] Early career
[edit] Mississippi Newspaperman
Speakes received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Mississippi. He served as editor of the Oxford (Mississippi) Eagle in 1961, and as managing editor of the Bolivar Commericail in Cleveland, Mississippi from 1962 to 1966. From 1966 to 1968 he worked as general manager and editor of Progress Publishers of Leland, Mississippi.
[edit] Senate press secretary
Speakes headed to Washington, DC in 1968, serving as press secretary to Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. In this capacity, he worked as spokesman for the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a coordinator of the senator's reelection campaign in 1972.
[edit] Work in the White House
The White House tapped Speakes in 1974 as a Staff Assistant and soon became the Press Secretary to the Special Counsel to the President at the height of the Watergate scandal. Upon Nixon's resignation, President Ford appointed Speakes to be Assistant Press Secretary to the President. Speakes served as Bob Dole's press secretary during his unsuccessful vice-presidential run with Ford.
After briefly serving as President Ford's personal press secretary in 1977, Speakes ventured into the private sector as vice president of the international public relationship firm of Hill and Knowlton until 1981. During the 1980 presidential campaign, he worked on the staff of the Reagan-Bush team, and was deputy spokesman for the President-elect during the transition.
[edit] Presidential Spokesman
When James Brady was shot in the assassination attempt on President Reagan on March 30, 1981, he was unable to return to work, though he retained the title of "Press Secretary" for the duration of Reagan's term. In Brady's absence, Speakes took over the job of handling the daily press briefings.
On June 17, 1981, Speakes was appointed "Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary."
On August 5, 1983, Speakes was appointed "Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Press Secretary," and remained in that post until January of 1987, when he resigned and Marlin Fitzwater took over the role.
[edit] Quotes
"Being a press secretary [is like] learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him."
"Those who talk don't know what is going on and those who know what is going on won't talk."
"You don't tell us how to stage the news and we don't tell you how to cover it."
"This job has probably got the most screwing-up potential in the world."
"When, at the age of seven, he blew up the family truck by dropping a match down the gas tank, we should have known he'd grow up to make his living hurling verbal firebombs at presidents."
"I would dodge, not lie, in the national interest."
Exchange with Lester Kinsolving regarding the AIDS epidemic during a White House Press Briefing in October 1982:
Les Kinsolving: Larry, does the president have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
Larry Speakes: What’s AIDS?
Kinsolving: Over a third of [the victims] have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (laughter) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the president is aware of it?
Speakes: I don’t have it. Do you? (laughter)
Kinsolving: No, I don’t.
Speakes: You didn’t answer my question.
Kinsolving: Well, I just wondered, does the president—
Speakes: How do you know? (laughter)
Kinsolving: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
Speakes: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester.
Kinsolving: Does the president, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?
Speakes: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any—
Kinsolving: Nobody knows?
Speakes: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.
Kinsolving: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping—
Speakes: I checked thoroughly with [Reagan’s personal physician] Dr. Ruge this morning, and he’s had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.
[edit] Trivia
His surname was often punned in connection with his job of being a spokesman. (see nominative determinism).
In 1994, Speakes assumed the top PR position at the U.S. Postal Service. When asked by a Postal Service subordinate why he decided to leave the corporate world specifically for the U.S.P.S., he shared a brief anecdote about his initial tour of Postal Service Headquarters in Washington D.C. "When Michael Coughlin (the Deputy Postmaster General) was through interviewing me, he took me around the HQ building at around 6 p.m.," Speakes said. "When I noticed how many people were still working in the public relations area, that's when I said to myself 'this place is for me.'" Within a few years, Speakes moved to assume the head of Advertising at the Postal Service.
[edit] References
- Donaldson, Sam. Hold on, Mr. President. New York: Random House, 1987. (ISBN 0-394-55393-4)
[edit] External links
- Announcement on Speakes receiving the Presidential Citizens Medal
- Announcement on Speakes becoming Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary
| Preceded by: James Brady |
White House Press Secretary 1981 – 1987 |
Succeeded by: Marlin Fitzwater |
| White House Press Secretaries |  |
|---|---|
| Early • Reinsch • Daniels • Ross • Early • Short • Tubby • Hagerty • Salinger • Reedy • Moyers • Christian • Ziegler • terHorst • Nessen • Powell • Brady • Speakes • Fitzwater • Myers • McCurry • Lockhart • Siewert • Fleischer • McClellan • Snow |
