LYN NOFZIGER, BRASH AIDE, ADVISER TO RONALD REAGAN

SJSU Grad Helped Several Campaigns

Lyn Nofziger, the irascible and outspoken aide who served Ronald
Reagan most prominently as communications director during his two
terms as California governor, died Monday. He was 81.

Mr. Nofziger died at his home in Falls Church, Va., family members
said. For the past year, he had been battling kidney cancer that
spread throughout his body. Until his health took a turn for the
worse late last year, Mr. Nofziger was working as a political
consultant and contributing to his blog Lynnofziger.com.

Mr. Nofziger, who graduated from San Jose State University's
journalism program in 1950, left his post as Washington correspondent
for Copley News Service to join the Reagan campaign for governor
during the summer of 1965 -- and advised him through the rest of his
political career.

"He understood the press and how to weed out the important things
with the press," said Stu Spencer, a former campaign manager of
Reagan's. "He was a very important cog in the original Reagan effort."

Irreverent

A raucous man who often sported Mickey Mouse ties and other colorful
apparel, Mr. Nofziger was so irreverent at times that he was
considered ill-suited for the role of White House press secretary
after Reagan was elected president in 1980. Mr. Nofziger became
assistant to the president for political affairs instead.

But Mr. Nofziger's finest hour, Spencer said Monday, was after the
president and his press secretary, James Brady, were shot outside a
Washington hotel a little more than two months after Reagan took
office. Mr. Nofziger stepped into the breach for the fallen Brady and
served as press secretary during the early days of the crisis.

Franklyn Curran Nofziger was born in Bakersfield on June 8, 1924. He
served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he
enrolled at the University of California-Los Angeles but quit after
one semester over the university's foreign-language requirement and
transferred to SJSU.

He graduated in 1950, needing only three years to earn his journalism
degree. Mr. Nofziger paid his way at the university -- eventually
known for producing anti-establishment firebrands -- by working as a
part-time painter.

"I was married and working part time . . . as a painter," he told the
Mercury News in 1984. "I made $1.27 an hour, and that was good money
then. So I didn't party much and I wasn't involved in politics."

San Jose State's communications department eventually honored Mr.
Nofziger, in 1982, for his "achievements in journalism, public
relations and government service."

After joining Reagan in 1965, Mr. Nofziger became convinced the
former actor would one day become president, and he sought to prepare
him to run, encouraging a first, abortive bid for the GOP nomination in 1968.

"Back there when Reagan first became governor, I had to rid him of
four basic misconceptions," he later told the National Review. "That
right will always triumph in the end; that there is such a thing as a
presidential draft; that the cavalry will arrive at the last minute
and save the day; and that God cares who is president of the United States."

In 1972, he directed President Nixon's California campaign for
re-election. Although he later acknowledged helping Nixon prepare his
infamous "enemies list," Mr. Nofziger was not directly involved in
the Watergate scandal.

Mr. Nofziger was back with Reagan as press secretary in his campaign
for president as early as 1975 and later set up Citizens for the
Republic as Reagan's political action committee.

Legal Trouble

After leaving the White House, Mr. Nofziger had his share of ups and downs.

In what he described later as the lowest point of his life, Mr.
Nofziger was convicted of three felony counts of illegal lobbying for
the Wedtech and two other firms under a law prohibiting former high
government officials from lobbying ex-colleagues for a year on
matters of direct and substantial interest to their former agencies.

The 1988 conviction was later reversed in the U.S. Court of Appeals,
but Mr. Nofziger had run up more than $1.5 million in legal fees
defending himself, and during the process lost most of his
prestigious business clients.

But that didn't keep him out of the political arena. He was a
political consultant to George H.W. Bush in his unsuccessful 1992 run
for re-election. In 2000, Mr. Nofziger lent his political expertise
to the campaign of magazine publisher Steve Forbes. He also took up
the cause of legalization of medical marijuana after his 38-year-old
daughter Lindy died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

To the end, he never blunted his outspokenness. In 2002, he
discounted Republican Bill Simon's chances against incumbent Gov. Gray Davis.

"Californians are now going to have a clear choice when they go to
the polls to elect a governor this November," Mr. Nofziger wrote on
his Web site. "They can elect an inept, corrupt incumbent Democrat
named Gray Davis. Or they can elect an inept, weak and not very
bright Republican named Bill Simon. Take your pick. But be smart. Bet
on Davis. Simon is too dumb to win."

Davis won the election.