Patrick Buchanan (1938-)
Pat Buchanan has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, and twice a candidate himself for the Republican nomination. From 1966 through 1974, he was a confidant and assistant to Richard Nixon, and from 1985 to 1987, he was White House Director of Communications for the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan.
In 1992, Mr. Buchanan challenged George Bush for the Republican nomination for President and almost upset the President in the New Hampshire primary. In 1996 he won the New Hampshire primary, and went on to finish second to Senator Dole with three million votes.
Mr. Buchanan was born in the nation‘s capital, educated at Jesuit schools, and received his master‘s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1962. At twenty-three, he became the youngest editorial writer on a major newspaper in America, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
In 1966, Mr. Buchanan moved to New York to become the first full-time staffer in the legendary comeback of Richard Nixon. He traveled with the future President in the campaigns of 1966 and 1968, and served as the Special Assistant to the President through Mr. Nixon‘s final days of Watergate.
On leaving the White House in 1974, Mr. Buchanan became a syndicated columnist and founding member of three of the most enduring – if not most endearing – talk shows in television history; NBC‘s ”The MacLaughlin Group,” CNN‘s ”Capital Gang,”and ”Crossfire.”
In his White House years, Mr. Buchanan wrote foreign policy speeches and was present at four summit meetings, including Mr. Nixon‘s historic opening to China in 1972, and Ronald Reagan‘s Reykjavik summit in 1986 with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mr. Buchanan has written five books. His latest book is The Death of the West: How Mass Immigration, Depopulation & A Dying Faith Are Killing Our Culture and Country. A Washington best seller, Right From the Beginning, is about growing up in the nation‘s capital, in the 1940‘s and 1950‘s. His book, The Great Betrayal, explains the history U.S. trade policy, from the Revolution to the Battle of NAFTA.
Mr. Buchanan is married to the former Shelley Ann Scarney, who was a member of the White House staff from 1969 to 1975.