Mike Deaver, who I had the privilege of meeting briefly a few years ago has passed away on Saturday.
He was a key advisor to Ronald Reagan, both as Governor of California and President. Some people say he made Ronald Reagan, he says Reagan made him and ”I’ve always said the only thing I did is light him well.”
There is no doubt however he was a key influence on Reagan’s White House, one of the troika ( the others being Ed Messe and James Baker.) Memorably he was responsible for the striking visuals that complimented many Reagan speeches, for example the Pointe du Hoc speech
My two favourite Mike Deaver stories are
One of his [Deaver's] first jobs was working for California Republican George Murphy, a former actor, in his 1964 U.S. Senate campaign against Democrat Pierre Salinger, President Kennedy’s former press secretary. To present Salinger in his worst light, Deaver followed him to many a campaign stop, offering him a cigar as he stepped out of his car. Deaver later recalled that Salinger would stick the cigar in his mouth, giving photographers a ready shot of a fat cat – hardly the man-of-the-people portrait a Democrat might prefer.
and
Leslie Stahl, then the CBS White House correspondent, tells the often repeated story of writing what she considered a scathing report about budget cuts made by the Reagan administration. Stahl came to the White House the next morning expecting to be berated by White House officials. Instead she was greeted with compliments for her report.Finally, Stahl confronted a Deaver deputy who shed light on her bewilderment. “No one heard what you had to say in that piece,” Stahl was told. “They just saw the pictures.” And in those pictures, Reagan was glowing.
Here are a few links to obituaries of Mike Deaver.
