Patrick Buchanan has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and the nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.
Born in Washington, D.C., Mr. Buchanan was educated at Gonzaga High School where he was graduated first in his class in 1956. He attended Georgetown on a full academic scholarship, and was graduated with honors in English and Philosophy in 1961, and inducted into the university’s Gold Key Society. He received a masters degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia in 1962. At 23, he became the youngest editorial writer on a major newspaper in America: The St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
After arranging a meeting with former Vice President Richard Nixon in December of 1965, Mr. Buchanan became the first full-time staffer in his legendary comeback. He traveled with the future President in the campaigns of 1966 and 1968, and to the Middle East, Africa and Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War. From January of 1969 to August of 1974, he was a Special Assistant to President Nixon, worked with the President on the Cambodian invasion speech, and with Vice President Agnew on many of his speeches on the media and student disorders. Mr. Buchanan was a member of the official US delegation to the Peoples Republic of China in 1972, and attended the Moscow-Yalta-Minsk summit of 1974. After President Nixon’s resignation, Mr. Buchanan served President Ford until October of 1974.
After leaving the White House, Mr. Buchanan became a nationally syndicated columnist, and in May of 1982 began as a panelist on NBC’s “The McLaughlin Group” and a co-host of CNN’s new show “Crossfire.”
In 1985, Mr. Buchanan returned to the White House as Director of Communications. He accompanied President Reagan to his Geneva summit with Mikhail Gorbachev and was with President Reagan in Hofde House at Reykjavik, which has been described as the decisive summit of the Cold War.