Lyn Nofziger, Reagan spokesman, dead at 81

Nofziger was the aide who announced to the world that Reagan had been shot in the 1981 assassination attempt by John W. Hinckley Jr. Nofziger’s statement, to reporters in the driveway of George Washington University Hospital, blew away assurances by other White House officials that Reagan had escaped unscathed.

But the Nofziger wit and camaraderie did not disguise the fact that he was a bare-knuckled political partisan.

May have had role in ‘enemies list’
During his year in the Reagan White House, he saw one of his principal responsibilities as rooting Democrats out of the federal government and replacing them with Republican loyalists.

Earlier, he’d served on the Republican National Committee and as an aide to President Nixon. According to John Dean, Nofziger helped Nixon put together his infamous White House “enemies list.”

As White House liaison, Nofziger had mixed success with militant conservatives who early in the Reagan administration began chafing at the number of moderate Republicans given key jobs.

“Every time we appoint someone they don’t agree with to a job, they feel the victory trickling away,” he said in an interview.

Worked with Reagan in 1966
Nofziger, who had worked as a newspaper reporter and editor and then as Washington correspondent for James Copley’s chain of California papers, teamed up with Reagan in 1966 when the former actor was running for governor of California. After that successful campaign, Nofziger spent 21 months in Sacramento as Reagan’s press secretary.

While his distaste for government made him unwilling to be part of anyone’s bureaucracy for very long, Nofziger never was far from a Reagan campaign, whether for governor or for president.

His unorthodox manner grated on Nancy Reagan, a fact Nofziger never hesitated to confirm for any reporter who asked. But in the days after the president was shot, one of the messages Nancy Reagan received read: “The president was not the only one. You done good, too.” It was signed, “Lyn.”

In 1988, after he’d left the Reagan administration to capitalize on his ties to Washington’s ruling elite, Nofziger was convicted of illegally lobbying for two defense contractors and a labor union.

But Nofziger compared the offense to “running a stop sign” and remained unrepentant. He told the judge, “I cannot show remorse because I do not believe I am guilty.”

A year later a federal appeals court threw out the conviction, saying prosecutors had failed to show Nofziger had knowingly committed a crime.

Aversion to White House rules
Nofziger’s aversion to bureaucratic rules was best illustrated by the White House staff meeting early in the administration when James A. Baker III, the chief of staff, told everyone that even senior presidential aides must wear the distinctive lapel pins that would identify them to the Secret Service.

“I’m not going to wear my badge,” declared Nofziger.

Nofziger was born in Bakersfield, Calif., and was politically conservative by the time he attended high school, where he worked on the school newspaper.

He served three years in the Army during World War II.

Nofziger is survived by his wife, Bonnie, their daughter Glenda and two grandchildren. Another daughter died in 1989.

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