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Special Luncheon – KEN KHACHIGIAN – Confidant to Presidents Reagan & Nixon
September 18 @ 11:45 am - 1:00 pm
Ken Khachigian was Ronald Reagan’s favorite speechwriter, trusted political adviser, and “go-to” counsel for the President and First Lady in campaigns and political crisis. As Chief Speechwriter, Khachigian scripted many of Reagan’s most prominent addresses beginning with The First Inaugural. In 1985, when the President was confronted with his first personal crisis, Khachigian wrote what has been called the “greatest speech of Reagan’s career” at Bergen Belsen.
He was Reagan’s only speechwriting aide traveling with him in 1980 and again on Air Force One during the 1984 landslide presidential campaign. Because of the close personal relationship Khachigian shared with Reagan, he was entrusted with assisting in scripting and producing the famed “Morning in America” television commercials. His friend, Diane Sawyer observed, “Ken has an ear for the common. He has a feel for the vernacular, for the way to reach the emotions that a lot of people feel…It’s a great political gift.”
Through the epic political battles at Reagan’s side, Ken gained the confidence of, and worked closely with, the candidate’s closest political associate, Nevada’s Senator Paul Laxalt. Ken and Senator Laxalt teamed up at a critical point in the 1984 campaign to lift Reagan from the negative cloud of a weak debate performance with Walter Mondale.
Ken served in President Richard Nixon’s White House and as a principal aide to Nixon as the former President emerged from Watergate. In those days of Nixon’s comeback, he assisted with Nixon’s memoirs and led the preparation for the historic interviews with David Frost.
A successful attorney in California and partner in Las Vegas’s Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck, he gained wide respect as California’s premier Republican strategist in elections for governor, senator, and attorney general. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from U.C. Santa Barbara as an honors graduate. He is Director Emeritus of the Richard Nixon Foundation.
Broadcast journalist and columnist, Hugh Hewitt, calls Khachigian’s memoir, Behind Closed Doors – in the Room with Reagan and Nixon: “A profoundly fascinating insider’s look at the Cold War’s legendary presidents”
Join us as Ken shares his experiences followed by book signing.
Luncheon $40
Book: $35