Inoperative

[Theophylact]

From The New York Times

February 11, 2003
Ron Ziegler, Nixon Press Secretary, Dies at 63
By TINA KELLEY


Ron Ziegler, President Richard M. Nixon's press secretary, died of a heart attack on Monday in his home in Coronado, Calif., his wife, Nancy, told The Associated Press. Mr. Ziegler, who was known for referring to the Watergate break-in as a "third-rate burglary" and for steadfastly speaking for President Nixon as his presidency crumbled, was 63.

As the investigation into Watergate unraveled, Mr. Ziegler admitted that his previous statements had become "inoperative."

One writer, Christopher Lasch, noted in "The Culture of Narcissism": "Many commentators assumed Ziegler was groping for a euphemistic way of saying that he had lied. What he meant, however, was that his earlier statements were no longer believable. Not their falsity but their inability to command assent rendered them `inoperative.' The question of whether they were true or not was beside the point."

John W. Dean, the White House counsel in the Nixon administration, included Mr. Ziegler in his list of four people who may have been Deep Throat, the secret source for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the investigative reporters from the Washington Post during the Watergate years. Mr. Ziegler denied that possibility.

In a 1971 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Ziegler said: "The press secretary has to go through his life, every waking hour, being informed. I probably talk to Kissinger as much as anyone else on the White House staff. I probably talk to Ehrlichman more than Kissinger talks to Ehrlichman," referring to John D. Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic affairs assistant. He concluded: "I think I know as well as anyone else what is happening in the White House."

Ronald Lewis Ziegler was born May 12, 1939, in Covington, Ky., to Louis Daniel Ziegler, the production manager of Magnus Metal Company and Ruby Parsons Ziegler, a public health nurse. He played fullback at Dixie Heights High School, when Nancy Lee Plessinger, who later became his wife, was a cheerleader. He went to Xavier University on a football scholarship, but when his parents moved to Los Angeles, he went with them, and found a part-time job at Disneyland, where he drove the jungle cruise boat 33 times a day. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in politics and government in 1961.

When Nixon spoke at the campus in 1960, Mr. Ziegler handled the press arrangements. Soon after, he was asked to become press officer for the Republican party state committee.

In 1962 he went to work for H. R. Haldeman, who was managing the unsuccessful Nixon campaign for governor and was in charge of the Los Angeles office of J. Walter Thompson, the advertising firm. Mr. Ziegler became an account representative there. Mr. Haldeman took him with him to work on Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign, and when Mr. Haldeman became Nixon's chief of staff, Mr. Ziegler became his spokesman.

After leaving the White House, he worked for Syska and Hennessy, Inc., a consulting firm in Washington, and then served as president of the National Association of Truck Stop Operators from 1980 to 1987, then as president of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, before retiring in 1998.

Waiting to hear "my statement is inoperable" from Ari.