Safire, William, 1929-2009

William Lewis Safire (1929-2009) was an American author, columnist, lexicographer, novelist, public relations executive, reporter, and White House speechwriter. Safire was born on December 17, 1929, in New York, NY, to thread merchant Oliver C. and his wife Ida Panish Safir. (He later added the "e" to his name to help with pronunciation). He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, a specialized high school known for its focus on mathematics and science, and enrolled at Syracuse University in 1947. Safire dropped out in 1949 after his sophomore year and his older brother Leonard, a copy boy for columnist and public relations man Tex McCrary, encouraged his younger brother to apply for a job at the New York Herald Tribune. He was hired as a researcher and writer for the paper's "Close-Up" column which gave him the opportunity to interview celebrities such as Mae West.

He continued working in public relations as a correspondence in Europe and the Middle East for radio station WNBC and WNBT-TV as well as for the Army in 1952-1954. He returned to work with McCrary on the Tex and Jinx radio and television shows and later as vice-president of Tex McCrary, Inc., a public relations firm where he arranged the "kitchen debate" in Moscow between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev in 1959.

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