LakeNET - George Edward Reedy

Reedy attended the University of Chicago and graduated in 1938. After he took a job as a congressional correspondent for the United Press, or UP. During World War II Reedy served in the Army Air Force. After the war, in 1946, he returned to Washington and the UP. In 1951 Reedy, with the help of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, became staff counsel for the Senate Armed Services Preparedness Subcommittee as well as staff director of both the minority and majority policy committees. In 1961 Reedy became special assistant to the Vice President in charge of coordinating speechwriting and press relations. After Kennedy’s assassination and once Johnson became the President, Reedy replaced Pierre Salinger as White House press secretary in March 1964. Reedy’s job was in danger after polls that indicated that the President was not perceived favorably by the public, Johnson eventually eased Reedy out and replaced him with Bill D. Moyers, in July 1965. Reedy reappeared in the White House briefly in 1965 as a special assistant to the President. He resigned from that position in April 1966, however to enter private business. In July 1966 Johnson once again called on Reedy, to serve on the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service. It was this committee that recommended changes be made to the draft laws. The proposed changes included the establishment of a lottery system. After his service on the committee Reedy lectured and wrote for a variety of magazines. In 1972 became a professor at Marquette Univeristy’s College of Journalism. Reedy also published a book entitled The Twilight of the Presidency, which described the increasing parallels between the American Presidency and a monarchy. George Reedy died March 21, 1999.