Ron Nessen, former White House Press Secretary, NBC newsman and Club member dies at 90
Former National Press Club member Ron Nessen died Wednesday, March 12. He was 90.
Nessen joined the club in the spring of 2014 and, until his health declined, was an active member of the Club's Broadcast and Podcast Team. Before he retired from active journalism and communications work, he was press secretary to President Gerald Ford and was a correspondent at NBC News, including covering the Nixon White House and five stints reporting from Vietnam. In 1966, he was wounded while covering a battle.
On Oct. 1, 2015, Nessen recounted his career during a meeting of the Broadcast team. That event was covered in The Wire:
"Ron Nessen, President Gerald Ford's White House press secretary and long-time NBC news correspondent, recalled the night of Ford's loss to former President Jimmy Carter during the Broadcast Committee's monthly meeting.
Nessen recalled that he was in the Oval Office on election night 1980 watching the results on TV with Ford and other senior aides. As it became clear that Ford was going to lose his election bid to Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, the president announced he would go upstairs to the residence to watch the rest of the returns. As the president left the room, Nessen recalls he said, "Have a good night's sleep, Mr. President." Then he said he added in a much lower voice, "If you can."
Nessen believes Ford would have won the election were it not for the fact that Ford prospectively pardoned President Richard Nixon for Watergate crimes in an effort to save the nation the tumult that would have been caused by any prosecution of the former president.
Nessen revealed that his mother, who didn't even like the idea of his joining the Boy Scouts, would have really been upset if she could have seen him and his NBC crew bivouacked with a bunch of military men on a clearing in Vietnam, resting up until the daylight start of a patrol to seek out the enemy. Nessen was seriously wounded by grenade fragments during one of his multiple tours in Vietnam.
He reminisced about hosting "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) at the urging of Ford. The show's producers wanted Ford to appear, but the president's advisers frowned on the idea and offered up Nessen instead. Ford did record the iconic show opening shoutout - "Live from New York, It's Saturday Night." At the time SNL star Chevy Chase was popularizing his imitation of the president whom he portrayed as a stumbling oaf. "Nothing could be further from the truth," Nessen insisted. "He was an All-American football player."
In an aside after the formal part of the meeting, Nessen quipped, "I couldn't believe Ford lost to a damned peanut farmer," referring to Carter's family business in Plains, Ga."
In a podcast for the Club's Update-1, Nessen put voice to his story in February of 2017 as reported at the time in The Wire:
"National Press Club member Ron Nessen, who saw the relationship between the president and press from both sides of the lectern as a White House correspondent and later press secretary, discusses his experiences on the current National Press Club podcast, Update-1.
Author of the book, "It Sure Looks Different from the Inside," Nessen applied his varied experience to the current White House doings in a discussion with longtime broadcast journalist and National Press Club colleague Irv Chapman.
As an NBC News correspondent, Nessen covered President Richard Nixon's vice president Spiro Agnew, who denounced the news media as "nattering nabobs of negativism." Nessen then moved on to cover Gerald Ford when he replaced Agnew, and became White House correspondent when Ford succeeded Nixon.
Ford later asked Nessen to become his press secretary to deal with controversies such as the Nixon pardon and an economy in recession. Nessen also had five tours of duty for NBC News covering the war in Vietnam."
The Ron Nessen interview edition of Update-1 can be found here.