Frank Mankiewicz, Press Secretary to Robert F. Kennedy, Dies at 90
Source: New York Times
By ROBERT D. McFADDENOCT. 24, 2014
Frank Mankiewicz, a writer and Democratic political strategist who was Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s press secretary, directed Senator George S. McGovern’s losing 1972 presidential campaign and for six years was the president of National Public Radio, died Thursday at a hospital in Washington. He was 90.
The cause was heart failure, said Adam Clymer, a former New York Times reporter who is the spokesman for the family. Mr. Mankiewicz had been in the hospital’s intensive care unit for more than three weeks receiving treatment for heart and lung problems, Mr. Clymer said. A scion of Hollywood, the son of Herman J. Mankiewicz, who wrote “Citizen Kane,” and the nephew of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who directed “All About Eve,” he grew up with an Algonquin West round table in his Beverly Hills household, regaled by movie stars, famous writers and comedians like the Marx Brothers.
He became a journalist and lawyer and, inspired by the Kennedys, went to Washington at the dawn of the New Frontier and took an executive position at the Peace Corps. What he encountered were assassinations, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandals.
His face became familiar to the nation in 1968, as he articulated Robert Kennedy’s campaign for the White House, conveyed whirlwind euphoria over the senator’s triumph in the California primary and then, within hours, grimly announced Mr. Kennedy’s death by an assassin’s bullets in Los Angeles.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/us/politics/frank-mankiewicz-press-secretary-to-robert-f-kennedy-dies-at-90.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
This hits me especially hard, as I met Frank twice during the McGovern campaign. I was too young to vote, just a volunteer, but he treated me (and the other volunteers) like deputy campaign managers. Definitely one of the good guys!
= new reply since forum marked as read
At one terrible moment, the face of a tragedy:
More about Frank:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Mankiewicz
