Frank Shakespeare with President Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley and Henry Kissinger in 1970.
Ambassador Frank Shakespeare, a key member of Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign team and communications adviser in the White House, passed away on December 14 at the age of 97.
In 1968, while on leave as a CBS executive, Mr. Shakespeare worked on Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, developing a media strategy at the dawn of the television age, and advising the candidate on how to handle media appearances at hundreds of campaign stops. He told The New York Times that same year, “We wanted a program concept of what Richard Nixon is in a way in which the public could make its own judgment. We wanted to try to create electronically what would happen if five or six people sat in a living room with him and got to know him.”
Mr. Shakespeare went on to serve as Director in the United States Information Agency in the Nixon administration until 1973 and was later appointed by President Ronald Reagan as chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting, overseeing Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. He later served with distinction as the United States Ambassador to Portugal and, later, to the Vatican.
“Frank Shakespeare revolutionized Presidential campaigning and communications. He was a patriot who served his country under two presidents for many decades,” said Nixon Foundation President and CEO Jim Byron. The Richard Nixon Foundation extends sincere condolences to his family for his life of loyal service.