David Gergen, a veteran of Washington’s policy and advisor to four presidents in a career that covers decades in the government, the academy and the media, died. He was 83 years old.
Gergen worked in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Over the years, he served as a speeches writer, communications director and advisor to the president, among other roles.
Dean Jeremy Weinstein of Harvard Kennedy school, with which Gergen had a long relationship, said Gergen died of a long illness. Gergen “dedicated decades of his life to serve those who sought to serve,” said Hannah Riley Bowles, former co -director of the Public Leadership Center of the School, where Gergen was the founding director.
“David was a leader of unique principles, integrity and goodness, who chose to see the goodness in each person he met,” said Riley Bowles.
Al Gore, who served as vice president of Clinton, published in X, “of the innumerable ways in which David Gergen contributed to our great country, what I will remind him was his kindness with all who worked, his good judgment and his devotion to do good in the world.”
David Richmond Gergen was born in North Carolina and graduated from Yale University and Harvard’s Law Faculty, according to a biography on the Harvard Kennedy website. He would continue to receive 27 honorary titles in the course of his career.
Gergen founded the public leadership center in the Harvard Kennedy School and remained there as a public service teacher until his death, according to the school’s website.
After serving in the US Navy. In the 1960s, Gergen took his first work of the White House in 1971, serving as a speech writing assistant for Nixon. The bipartisan and collaboration were distinctive stamps of their long career, colleagues said that they paid testimonies on social networks on Friday.
It was also a media personality that worked as a senior political analyst for CNN. In his 2022 book “Hearts Tounted With Fire: how the great leaders are made,” he wrote: “Our best leaders have emerged from good times and, more often, challenging … the best of them make difficult calls, which ultimately can alter the course of history.”
A private burial is scheduled for the Mount Auburn cemetery on Monday, said Mark Douglass, director of Douglass Funeral Home in Lexington, Massachusetts. A larger commemorative service in Harvard will take place in the coming weeks, Douglass said.
