Ray Price (speechwriter)

Ray Price
White House Director of Speechwriting
In office
December 31, 1970 – February 6, 1973
PresidentRichard Nixon
Preceded byJim Keogh
Succeeded byDavid Gergen
Personal details
Born
Raymond Kissam Price Jr.

(1930-05-06)May 6, 1930
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedFebruary 13, 2019(2019-02-13) (aged 88)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
EducationYale University (BA)

Raymond Kissam Price Jr. (May 6, 1930 – February 13, 2019) was an American writer who was the chief speechwriter for U.S. President Richard Nixon, working on both inaugural addresses, his resignation speech, and Gerald Ford's pardon speech.[1] During Nixon's presidential campaign of 1968, the candidate made use of the contrasting style of two speechwriters (the other being Pat Buchanan) with Price becoming known to colleagues as Mr Outside because his work was aimed at broadening Nixon's appeal.[2]

A native of New York City, Price graduated from Yale University in 1951. There, he was a member of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union and also belonged to Skull and Bones.[3]: 173 

Price wrote a retrospective on the presidency titled With Nixon[4] and assisted Nixon in the writing of several books. John Dean mentioned Price as one person suspected (falsely) of having been Deep Throat. For 19 years, Price was a member of the Economic Club of New York.[5]

  1. ^ Martin, Douglas (February 14, 2019). "Raymond K. Price Jr., a Key Nixon Speechwriter, Is Dead at 88". The New York Times. Retrieved February 14, 2019.
  2. ^ Schell, Jonathan (June 2, 1975). "The Time of Illusion". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  3. ^ Robbins, Alexandra (2002). Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-72091-7.
  4. ^ New York : Viking Press, 1977. ISBN 0-670-77672-6
  5. ^ Shapiro, Gary (2007-06-07). "A Century Of Serious Conversation". The New York Sun. Retrieved 2008-11-23.