Former Reagan spokesman Larry Speakes dies at 74
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
(71,265 posts)Aristus
(66,275 posts)"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
(135,425 posts)You'd think they'd give some of his old colleagues a chance to mourn/say farewell, etc.
Was he even cold when they put him in the ground...? Damn, talk about a hurry to say goodbye....
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)Jewish and buried before the Sabbath begins at sundown for example.
(eta IDK about Speakes, just giving a plausible explanation.)
MADem
(135,425 posts)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
(30,884 posts)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
(135,425 posts)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
(36,974 posts)-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
(767 posts)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
(36,974 posts)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
(135,425 posts)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
(43,853 posts)alp227
(32,004 posts)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
(36,974 posts)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
(767 posts)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
(135,425 posts)he did Brady's job after he got shot. He had media associates as well as administration ones.