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| George Reedy | |
|---|---|
| Name | George Reedy |
| Birth date | March 24, 1917 |
| Birth place | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Death date | April 21, 1999 |
| Death place | Evanston, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, Press Secretary, Professor, Author |
| Employer | Chicago Daily News, United States Navy, White House, Northwestern University |
George Reedy was an American journalist and political aide who served as White House Press Secretary under President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1964 to 1965. A veteran of the United States Navy and a longtime correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, Reedy became a central figure in communications for the Johnson administration during a pivotal era marked by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Great Society, and the escalation of the Vietnam War. After leaving the White House he returned to journalism, taught at Northwestern University, and wrote several influential books on the Presidency of the United States and executive power.
Reedy was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in an environment shaped by the urban politics of the Great Depression and the social currents that influenced figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. He attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and later worked toward graduate study connected to institutions like the University of Chicago and the Harvard University community of scholars, joining networks linked to journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press. His early educative contacts included alumni and faculty associated with the Chicago Daily News, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and professional circles overlapping with the Pulitzer Prize community.
Reedy's reporting career began at the Chicago Daily News, where he covered municipal and national beats alongside reporters who would move between outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy, an experience that connected him with veterans who later worked at the State Department, the Department of Defense, and in congressional staffs for members of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. After the war he returned to the Chicago Daily News and later reported from Washington, D.C., where he developed professional relationships with correspondents from the Christian Science Monitor, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, and the wire services including United Press International. His work intersected with coverage of leaders such as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Adlai Stevenson II and major events like the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Reedy joined the staff of Lyndon B. Johnson first as a speechwriter and then as an aide in the White House staff structure that included figures such as Clark Clifford, Walter Jenkins, McGeorge Bundy, and Robert McNamara. He became White House Press Secretary following the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Johnson's succession, operating within an environment shaped by legislative initiatives including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and policy debates over the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and military operations in Vietnam. In his role he handled briefings involving members of the United States Congress, interlocutors from the National Security Council, and journalists from outlets such as the NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and the New York Herald Tribune. Reedy's tenure overlapped with domestic programs advanced by Hubert Humphrey and advisers who shaped the Great Society, even as tensions over the Tet Offensive and antiwar demonstrations in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles began to mount.
After departing the White House, Reedy wrote books and essays examining the Presidency of the United States, executive privilege debates involving the Watergate scandal, and the role of the press in democratic societies. He joined the faculty at Northwestern University and taught students who would enter careers at institutions including the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and Time (magazine). As an author he engaged topics tied to scholars from Harvard Kennedy School, the Brookings Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and his work was cited by historians working on biographies of figures such as Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and advisers like H. R. Haldeman.
Reedy's personal life intersected with American public affairs networks that included family and friends connected to the Illinois political circles of Adlai Stevenson II and national figures like Eleanor Roosevelt. He died in Evanston, Illinois in 1999, leaving a legacy reflected in archival collections consulted by researchers at the Library of Congress, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. His influence is acknowledged in histories of the Johnson administration, studies of White House communications practiced by later press secretaries under presidents such as Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and in scholarship published by the American Political Science Association. Category:1917 births Category:1999 deaths