Ron Nissen, who was pledged as the press president of President Gerald R. Ford from 1974 to 1977 with a new era of openness after the Watergate scandal died, but had a rocky relationship often with the White House Press Corps, on Wednesday in Betsda, Maryland. It was 90.
He confirmed his death by his son Edward.
Mr. Nessen, a former NBC News correspondent, joined the White House in an extraordinary time: President Richard M. Nixon, who faces the isolation of Watergate crimes, resigned; Ford Vice President Ford had replaced and pardoned; A nation and its newspapers, tired of lies and deception, waited for the new president and his spokesperson with varying degrees of doubt.
This barely helped in the option of Mr. Ford I as a press secretary, JF TerhorstHe resigned a month later, saying that he could not support the President’s decision to pardon Mr. Nixon, and to avoid him from criminal charges and prison terms faced by other officials in the Watergate case, as well as by young people who escaped from military service in Vietnam as a conscience issue.
In an attempt to restore confidence after covering up for two years, he started storming the offices of the National Democratic Committee at the Watergate Complex in Washington, Mr. Nissen said his first loyalty would be for the public. He promised to “bring out as much news as possible” and told his former colleagues, “If you lie or make a mistake, I think you are justified to question my continuous benefit in this job.”
He added, “I am Ron, but not ziegler” – a sign of Ronald L. ZaghlerThe press secretary of Mr. Nixon, who was widely criticized for blocking information and misleading the press during the Watergate scandal.
Mr. Nissen confirmed from free hand and daily access to the president, and arranged more news conferences and photos; Mr. Ford persuaded to conduct individual interviews for reporters; She gave the Press Corporation to surrounds and quotes from the presidential policy meetings.
But journalists are working for their presidents, not the audience, and the correspondents soon strained on Mr. Nissen. He was not accused of lying, but rather shading and deleting the facts. At the meeting of Mr. Ford with Soviet leader Leonid Brinv in Vladivostok, Russia, in 1974, Mr. Nissen angered American correspondents by saying they are “dazzling” by the Summit on Weapons. On Ford’s visit in 1975 with the leader of China, Mao Zaidong, reporters said that Chinese officials were more useful than Mr. Nissen.
“Mr.. Nissen has become a target of hatred or the growing correspondent,” James M. Nuton He wrote in a comment in the New York Times. “As long as he is ready to be the subject of contempt that may be directed to his boss, Mr. Nissen serves the president’s purposes.”
In April 1976, Mr. Nissen “Saturday Night Live” hosted And it appeared in a drawing with Chevy Chis, who, as he did in the show, in the show, Pictures of the president as Clotz. The image of Mr. Ford as an accident of accidents has proven difficulty in shaking: Although he was a football star at the University of Michigan and golf and tennis, he became known for his retreat in the last step of the Air Force in Austria, and wiped on a skiing slope in Phil, Colorado, and they are of time.
“It was frustrated. Ford was one of our athletes, but he was photographed. He told me once, talking about a group of correspondents,” I will bet that these people practiced them on the righteous stools. “
Mr. Ford also made a veil in the show, previously recorded in the Oval Office, where he presented his signature line: “Live from New York, on Saturday night!” Record it at the request of Mr. Nissen, and it became A standard for presidential skillsThe ability to laugh publicly on himself.
Ronald Harold Nissen was born on May 25, 1934, in Washington, DC, by Frederick and Eda (Kaufman) Nissen. His father owned a diverse store.
Ronald and his younger sister Sheila grew up in the wealthy Park Park neighborhood. He graduated from Calvin College Secondary School in 1952 and from the American University in Washington in 1956 with a certificate in history.
In 1954, he married Sandra Fry, his high school girlfriend. They had a daughter, Karen, and Ibn, Stephen, who died at the age of 5 years. The couple divorced at a later time. In 1967, he married Young Hi Song. They had an Edward, and they were divorced in 1981.
He has survived by his son and daughter. His sister, Sheila and see; Friends; And three grandchildren.
Mr. Nessen began his career in the press in Montgomery County in Maryland in 1956. He brilliantly covered school integration issues, and was soon appointed by the United Press News Agency (UNITED PRESS International in 1958) as a Washington correspondent, covers Congress and public tasks.
In 1962, he joined NBC, where he covered natural disasters, Apollo Spaceflights and the presidential campaigns of Windon Johnson in 1964 and Mr. Nixon in 1968. He had five rounds in the Vietnam War and seriously injured a bomb prize in 1966. He started covering Vice President Ford in 1973 and became the journalist secretary After the resignation of Mr. Nixon and his successor, Ford.
He left the government when Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, Mr. Nessen was an independent writer for several years, and in 1980 he became the CEO of Public Relations Company Marson and Rottenberg.
From 1984 to 1992, he was the deputy head of the mutual broadcast of news. He was then executive at the Cellular Communications Industry Association, adding to the nostalgia TV and a journalist in the Brookings Institute, Washington Research Group.
“He certainly appears different from the interior” (1978), a record of his experiences in the Ford administration; Notes, “Making News, Taking News: From NBC to Ford White House” (2011), and a series of political novels and killing.
He was interviewed with the Gerald R. Ford project in 2009, Mr. Nessen said he was naive as a journalist to think about his duties as a kind of “billiards correspondent” at the Press Corps.
“I said that I will never lie, and I was never, and I think I kept this promise,” he said. But he added, “I think I may have delayed the announcement of some things from time to time when it seemed to be good reasons.”
Ash Wu The reports contributed.
