Former Reagan spokesman Larry Speakes dies at 74

[Tx4obama]

Source: The AP

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- 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, Miss., 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.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBIT_LARRY_SPEAKES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-01-10-19-41-16

[hrmjustin]

1. I was too young to really remember him but may he rest in peace.

[Aristus]

2. Must have been tough being the mouthpiece for that brain-dead moron.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the moon is in the seventh house with Venus rising, so we're going to send Marines to Beirut for no readily apparent reason..."

[MADem]

3. They buried him in a hurry; no real wake or funeral....

You'd think they'd give some of his old colleagues a chance to mourn/say farewell, etc.

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.

Was he even cold when they put him in the ground...? Damn, talk about a hurry to say goodbye....

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Maybe it was for religious reasons.

Jewish and buried before the Sabbath begins at sundown for example.
(eta IDK about Speakes, just giving a plausible explanation.)

[MADem]

8. I should have thought, if he was Jewish, that Reagan would have made a big deal of the fact.

He may have been, certainly, but I'm not finding anything that suggests he was. I'm guessing he wasn't a Muslim (similar burial rules) but ya never know....

[Gormy Cuss]

13. There are other religious groups who don't believe in embalming

or in extended time above the ground after death. At least some Eastern Orthodox faiths are against it too. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some small Christian sects are too.

It may also have just been a last wish of the deceased or the personal preference of his family for secular reasons. Point being, there are a lot of reasons why they may have buried him so quickly although religious ones are the most common in our culture.

[MADem]

14. I remain curious.

The guy was a public figure, after all. He had a number of friends/associates in the Reagan administration and in the news media. I know a lot of 'em are old themselves, but they're from the era when memorials, of some sort, anyway, after a death are de rigeur.

Perhaps they will do something at the Press Club?

[Tx4obama]

6. Maybe he was jewish or something else and had to hurry up due to Sabbath. See below

-snip-

Several Christian denominations, such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of God (7th Day), the Seventh Day Baptists, and many others, observe seventh-day Sabbath. This observance is celebrated from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. Some of Messianic Judaism considers its Sabbath to be kept according to Jewish doctrinal tradition, while most of Rabbinic Judaism disagrees.

-snip-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_sabbath

[DeltaLitProf]

16. This I dont know

My copy of Speaking Out just says he went with his mom to church every Sunday but his dad didn't go except for the holidays Christmas and Easter.

That's just a quick look-through.

[Tx4obama]

7. Also regarding burial...

Funeral service

The Jewish funeral consists of a burial, also known as an interment. Cremation is not acceptable. Burial is considered to allow the body to decompose naturally, therefore embalming is forbidden. Burial is intended to take place in as short an interval of time after death as possible. Displaying of the body prior to burial does not take place.[3][4] Flowers are usually not found at a traditional Jewish funeral.[5]

-snip-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_burial

[MADem]

9. As I insinuated upthread, I should have thought Reagan would have hauled him out

at Chanukah were he Jewish, but ya never know. I can't find any religious affiliation listed with regard to him, but that doesn't mean much.

He had Alzheimer's, so maybe his family felt he was disconnected from his past associates, but it's a funny thing about old folks, they sometimes like to say goodbye even if they haven't seen people for awhile.

[smokey nj]

4. Most appropriately named spokesman ever.

[alp227]

10. K&R + MORE LINKS

AP Big Story (link won't expire unlike AP Hosted) http://bigstory.ap.org/article/former-reagan-spokesman-larry-speakes-dies-74

NYT: Larry Speakes, Public Face of Reagan Era, Dies at 74

Washington Post: Larry Speakes, former Reagan deputy press secretary, dies at 74

Reuters: Former spokesman for U.S. President Ronald Reagan dies

BBC: Reagan press secretary Larry Speakes dies

Based on the AP timestamp of after 10:30pm ET now I know why I didn't see this story on the PBS Newshour today. I think i heard this story on NPR around 8 ET/5 PT.

[Tx4obama]

11. Hmm. I've never heard that about 'AP Hosted' before. Thanks for the info. And...

And I posted the OP here at DU at 7:57 PM CT, so it's strange that the article link up in the OP now says 10:47 PM EST because it was there long before then.

[DeltaLitProf]

12. He was more than met the eye

Remember that this guy resigned in Reagan's last year and was going on to a lucrative sinecure for Merril Lynch. But then his book, Speaking Out, came out. It revealed some pretty shady things about how low things had fallen with Reagan by the end, that he was no longer capable of even fashioning his own public statements. That they were often written for him without his being consulted.

Speakes was also candid about his feelings on the Iran Contra Affair. Unlike so many in the administration, he didn't defend the deal. He accused Reagan of not watching the switch, of not listening to the more sane George Schultz, of allowing Don Regan and Caspar Weinberger to do as they pleased.

For this, Speakes lost his million dollar job with Merill Lynch. If there had been a public funeral, none of his former friends would have showed.

[MADem]

15. I think the press might have showed--after all, he was Brady's Number Two, and

he did Brady's job after he got shot. He had media associates as well as administration ones.