to be used in the event that
Apollo 11 ended in disaster. After dropping out of Syracuse, Safire worked for noted
public relations specialist and journalist
Tex McCrary throughout the 1950s, first as a gofer and later a public relations associate. He worked as a publicist for a homebuilder who exhibited a model home at an American
trade fair at
Sokolniki Park in Moscow in 1959—the one in which
Richard Nixon and
Nikita Khrushchev had their
Kitchen Debate. A much circulated
black-and-white photograph of the event was taken by Safire. Safire joined Nixon's campaign for the
1960 presidential race, and again in
1968. After Nixon's 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and for vice president
Spiro Agnew; he is known for having penned Agnew's famous
alliterative term, "nattering nabobs of negativism".
Etymology William Safire named what eventually became the city of
Lauderhill, Florida after he convinced home builder Herbert Sadkin to avoid using the name “Sunnydale.” The original choice for the new housing development was Sunnydale, but Safire, a friend of Sadkin, convinced him to change his mind. Safire felt Sunnydale sounded like a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Sadkin said there were no hills in the new town, to which Safire replied, "There are probably no
dales in
Lauderdale, either!" From that discussion, the name Lauderhill was coined. The housing development eventually grew to become Lauderhill, the city.
The "Safire Memo" Safire drafted a never-delivered speech titled "In Event of Moon Disaster", for President Nixon to deliver on television in the event the
Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon. According to the plans,
Mission Control would "close down communications" with the
LEM and a clergyman would have commended their souls to "the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to
burial at sea. Presidential telephone calls to the astronauts' wives were also planned. The speech originated in a memo from Safire to Nixon's
chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, whence the name "Safire Memo", suggesting a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster. The last line of the draft speech was an allusion to
Rupert Brooke's
First World War poem "
The Soldier".
New York Times columnist Safire joined
The New York Times as a political columnist in 1973. Soon after joining the
Times, Safire learned that he had been the target of
"national security" wiretaps authorized by Nixon, and, after observing that he had worked only on domestic matters, wrote with what he characterized as "restrained fury" that he had not worked for Nixon through a difficult decade "to have him—or some lizard-lidded paranoid acting without his approval—eavesdropping on my conversations". In 1978, Safire won the
Pulitzer Prize for
Commentary on
Bert Lance's alleged budgetary irregularities; in 1981, Lance was acquitted by a jury on all nine charges. Safire's column on October 27, 1980, entitled "The
Ayatollah Votes", was quoted in a campaign ad for
Ronald Reagan in
that year's presidential election. Safire also frequently appeared on
NBC's
Meet the Press. Upon announcing the retirement of Safire's political column in 2005,
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of
The New York Times, said:
The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable, Bill's provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical and enjoyable part of the day for our readers across the country and around the world. Whether you agreed with him or not was never the point, his writing is delightful, informed and engaging.
Pulitzer Board member Safire served as a member of the
Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004. After ending his op-ed column, he became the full-time chief executive of the
Dana Foundation, where he was chairman from 2000. In 2006, Safire was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
George W. Bush. Portions of Safire's
FBI file were released in 2010. The documents "detail wiretapping ordered by the Nixon administration, including the tapping of Safire's phone".
Writing on English In addition to his political columns, Safire wrote a column, "
On Language", in the weekly
The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death. Many of the columns were collected in books. Another book on language was
The New Language of Politics (1968), ==Political views==