JACKSON — Larry Speakes, who spent six years as acting press secretary for President Ronald Reagan, died Friday in his native Mississippi. He was 74.
Speakes died at home in Cleveland, where he had lived the past several years, said Bolivar County Coroner Nate Brown. Brown said Speakes had Alzheimer’s disease.
“He died in his sleep and it was a natural death,” Brown said.
Speakes was buried in North Cleveland Cemetery during a private service Friday morning, a few hours after dying, said Kenny Williams of Cleveland Funeral Home.
Speakes became Reagan’s acting spokesman after Press Secretary James Brady was wounded during an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981.
In a statement issued from Los Angeles, former first lady Nancy Reagan said that she was “saddened to learn about Larry, who served Ronnie with great loyalty in one of the toughest jobs in the White House.”
“He stepped up in very difficult circumstances and was an articulate and respected spokesman day in and day out, including some very historically significant moments,” Reagan said. “It is a source of special sadness to know he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.” Ronald Reagan died in 2004 after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Republican Haley Barbour, who served as Mississippi governor from 2004 to 2012, was political director of the Reagan White House when Speakes worked there.
Barbour said that within the Reagan administration, people generally admired Speakes’ handling of the press, although Speakes could be abrupt. “Sometimes, that meant reporters didn’t get everything they wanted, and sometimes it meant they didn’t get anything,” Barbour said Friday.
“But, Larry knew who he worked for.”
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