Faith Whittlesey

White House Liaison Office

Whittlesey was named Assistant to the President for Public Liaison in 1983 at the suggestion of Ronald Reagan's Ambassador to Austria and personal assistant Helene A. von Damm and with the urging of White House Chief of Staff James Baker and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver.

Her tenure was marked by initiatives to improve the access of conservative religious believers to the American political process and national policymaking. She was considered their most "aggressive ally" in the White House. She wrote a memo in October 1983 that fundamentalist and evangelical groups had done "little organizational work" for "the 1984 election period" and that to maintain Ronald Reagan's "credibility" with those groups, Catholics in particular, "the tuition tax credit bill must come up for Senate floor action this fall". She noted that school prayer was "not unlike the tuition tax credit issue. Politically we win if we get votes on the Senate floor". In 1985, she sent the anti-abortion film The Silent Scream, which was a documentary of an ultrasound abortion at three months produced in 1984 by anti-abortion activist and former NARAL founder Bernard Nathanson, to every member of Congress and arranged for a screening at the White House at which Nathanson presented the film.

Whittlesey focused on the core Reagan agenda during her White House tenure. At its height, her office included 38 people. She developed active White House outreach to labor leaders, "Reagan Democrats," and Jewish leaders. She clashed with some other members of the Reagan White House senior staff whom she regarded as "largely Washington permanent government party functionaries not very committed to advocating the President's policies in a serious or consistent way."

Faith Whittlesey has 2 surviving children, Amy and William, and 10 grandchildren. Her older son, Henry, a Harvard College graduate, died in 2012.

Iran-Contra

At the direction of White House Chief of Staff James Baker, Whittlesey also spent a good deal of time organizing communication of information about Reagan's policies in Central America and, in particular, the anticommunist "Contras" in Nicaragua. In 1983 she established the White House Outreach Working Group on Central America to help increase private sector understanding of Reagan's policies, including working with, among many other individuals and groups, the American Security Council Foundation, to produce anti-Sandinista propaganda (what she would call "truth-telling") films, and the Council for National Policy to produce materials that revealed the Marxist–Leninist orientation of the Sandanista movement. Among those groups that participated in the Outreach Group effort was the AFL-CIO because "the Sandinistas were against free labor unions." Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Constantine Menges cited "the very effective public outreach staff headed by Ambassador Faith Whittlesey" in his reflections on Reagan foreign policy.

Despite its effectiveness, Whittlesey says the Outreach Group was shut down in 1985 when Donald Regan took over as Chief of Staff and the White House "started the brown bag operation with Ollie North. What we were doing was completely open and above board. It was an honest effort to change minds and hearts and to provide a forum for truth telling". According to Whittlesey, "the Washington establishment, especially Democratic but also most of the Republican, was opposed to, wanted to downplay, or gave the silent treatment to Reagan's Central American anti-communist policies."

Later, when asked about Iran-Contra she said: "I had no knowledge of the Iran-Contras connection. I had no involvement in it, nor was I asked to be a part of it." The final House report on Iran-Contra concluded that Whittlesey unsuccessfully attempted to help Oliver North obtain a U.S. passport for a fake Saudi prince who claimed to have knowledge of the locations of hostages being held in Lebanon. Whittlesey has repeatedly and emphatically denied this charge, for which she maintains no proof was produced, as a politically motivated attempt by a Democrat-dominated House to discredit her White House Outreach Group initiative, which had been "a legitimate and in every respect legal attempt to communicate Reagan's anti-communist policy in Central America."Of her association with Oliver North, she asserted, "We worked closely together. That's why I was investigated. That's why I was hauled before a congressional panel and investigated. They were criminalizing policy differences."

Ambassador to Bern

Whittlesey was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland under Ronald Reagan from 1981–83 and again from 1985-88. In her first term as Swiss Ambassador she initiated negotiations in an acrimonious dispute between the U.S. and Switzerland that later led to the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding on Insider Trading," the first major changing of the strict tradition of Swiss banking secrecy. Of this memorandum, Ambassador Jean Zwahlen, later a Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, wrote her: "I still keep a vivid memory of your skill to help delicate negotiations in the 80s." She was a particularly active Ambassador and traveled often around Switzerland explaining and advocating Reagan's policies and developing contacts with Swiss opinion leaders.

While she was the Director of the Liaison Office (1983–85), there were conflicts with the staff of Reagan's Chief of Staff James A. Baker III and his deputy Michael Deaver, which led to Senator Arlen Specter and others urging her to take a federal judgeship on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. After careful consideration, she declined the nomination. A judicial appointment would have effectively removed her from the public policy and political arena, which she did not wish. She had taken the job of Public Liaison because of "a profound sense of obligation to the grassroots voters who had elected Reagan believing him to be a man of deep principle and traditional faith." Infighting in the White House continued, however. She eventually decided to return to Switzerland after Donald Regan became Chief of Staff, replacing James A. Baker. Whittlesey resumed her duties representing the U.S. in Bern for a second term in 1985. She was the first to greet President Reagan as he stepped off the plane in Geneva for his meeting with Gorbachev in November, 1985.

After the Democrats took control of the Senate in 1986, giving them control of both Houses of Congress, allegations were made to Attorney General Edwin Meese that Whittlesey had granted diplomatic favors for private contributions to her State Department-administered representational fund and that she had also obstructed justice. Meese "found no 'reasonable grounds' to pursue allegations that" Whittlesey "mishandled entertainment funds at the embassy or improperly aided contributors to the funds" in contravention of the independent counsel statute. Hearings into the subject were held by a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, but the hearings failed to produce substantiation of the charges and went nowhere. The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial entitled "True Grit," echoing a popular movie of the time, dismissed the investigation. "The ambassador had been back in Washington for the past few months, where she successfully defended herself against charges that she'd misspent money that had been donated to the U.S. State Department and then tried to obstruct the investigation into her spending. The U.S. Justice Department has now filed a notification in Federal Circuit Court in Washington clearing the ambassador of any wrongdoing and vindicating the view that there was a whole lot less to the whole affair than had met either the eye or ear....It is impressive to come out of such an investigation clean and clear."

Former National Security Adviser and Secretary of the Interior William P. Clark Jr. believes that the allegations were a product of a "campaign of leaks" by Baker, Deaver, David Gergen, and Dick Darman to discredit ideologues in the administration they did not like. William F. Buckley Jr. asserted the view that the investigation had been driven by "two forces, one of them galactic, the other merely torrential . . . The first is the disposition of the State Department bureaucracy to make things hard for political appointees. The second is the disposition of all of Washington to make things hard for Mr. Reagan." For her part Whittlesey attributes the allegations to disgruntled career State Department employees who disagreed with Reagan's policies and her personnel decisions as chief of mission, but in the end the constant friction, according to one source, led to her resignation.

However, with the prospect of the change of administration, and having served for a total of nearly five years in the post, she returned to the U.S. in July 1988, officially vindicated. Widely regarded by political admirers and detractors alike as a most effective U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, shortly after her return to New York City she was asked to assume the Presidency of the American Swiss Foundation by its board.

Whittlesey's diplomatic career resumed very briefly in 2001 when she was named by President George W. Bush to be an At-Large Member of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. She continued in this position as needed throughout the Bush Presidency. A strong supporter of the Second Amendment, she has been quoted as saying about the treaty: "This document by the U.N. freezes the last coup. It favors established governments, while taking away rights from individuals. It does not recognize any value higher than peace, such as liberty."

Famous quote

Whittlesey was the first (1984) to formulate and popularize a quote that entered political parlance about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire that is often attributed to her: "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels." The official Ginger Rogers website attributes the origin of the quote to Bob Thaves who wrote in a 1982 Frank and Ernest comic strip about Fred Astaire: "Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards…and in high heels." The attribution to Whittlesey traces to a speech she delivered to a large Teamsters Union meeting in 1984 where she was representing Reagan. Sometimes the quote is also attributed to Ann Richards, who later used the line in her 1988 Democratic National Convention speech, but Richards said she got the line from television journalist Linda Ellerbee who said she heard the line from a fellow passenger on an airplane. Both Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama used the line in the 2016 campaign.

On feminism

While in law school, to earn money Whittlesey became a substitute teacher in the City of Philadelphia (1962–64) because "[i]n my last year of law school [the female students] were advised by the law school administration not to even come to the [law firm job] interviews because we would not be hired". Years later when working in the Liaison Office she declared that feminism was a "straitjacket" for women because, she claimed, it reduced rather than enhanced legal rights women had previously enjoyed in child custody and marital support cases before states enacted versions of the Equal Rights Amendment. She declared, "Ronald Reagan honored the role of full-time homemaker and her rights in Social Security and income tax in the face of elite feminists' demeaning of full-time mothers."

Whittlesey worked her entire adult life, including when pregnant and after her husband died in 1974. She canvassed door-to-door for her 1972 legislative race while pregnant with her third child, William. In 1985, when looking at the trendline that showed that half of all pre-school children had mothers in the workforce, she assured Reagan that once the economy picked up "all those women can go home and look after their own children". As a long-time working mother herself, Whittlesey asserted this statement was taken out of context and did not reflect her intent of actively expanding choices, professional and personal, for women. The statement continued, "They could care for their children themselves if they wished to do so because their husbands would have opportunities again in a thriving economy." She emphasized Reagan's pledge to create more jobs for working people. Whittlesey was the only woman on Reagan's Senior White House Staff during her service there. According to David Broder, "Whittlesey asserted in 1980 her position on women's rights and her fight as a woman to be effective politically, 'I sympathize with some of the goals of the women's movement, but they choose not to associate with me, so that's where we are. I find myself in many closed rooms filled with men, but I'm rarely invited to women's movement's functions, because I am pro-life and do not endorse feminist ideology of victimhood.' "

In 1982 Whittlesey became the first woman commencement speaker at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1989 Whittlesey became the first female member of the all-male Union League Club of New York.

Reagan's core agenda

Whittlesey was elected an alternate delegate from Pennsylvania to the 1976 Republican National Convention and as a delegate in 1980 and 1984. As an elected delegate at the 1980 Republican National Convention in Detroit, Whittlesey co-chaired with Congressman Jack Kemp the Subcommittee for Foreign Policy and Defense of the Platform Committee and delivered Reagan's defense plank to the Convention. Regarded as a "conviction conservative," Whittlesey strongly identified with Reagan's core agenda, which she described as "support for the peaceful defeat of the Soviet Union without commitment of U.S. troops in combat, defense of life, opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment with its hidden agenda of tax-funded abortion and same-sex marriage, decentralized government, lower taxes and reduced government regulation of the private sector, school prayer, defeat of Marxism-Leninism in its various permutations and manifestations, individual Second Amendment rights, the establishment of official diplomatic recognition of the Vatican, support for tuition tax credits for parochial schooling." After leaving public service, she maintained that much of Reagan's core agenda remained to be implemented and that it ought to serve as a continuing issue blueprint for the Republican party.

China

Whittlesey made several trips to China, first in 1979 as a member of a group from the American Council of Young Political leaders and then, again, in 1994 when she organized and led the first Republican delegation to China. In 2005, she was invited by Chinese President Hu Jintao to attend the 60th Anniversary of the victory over Japan because of her late husband’s family connection to China through Captain Henry C. Whittlesey (her husband’s uncle). Captain Whittlesey, an “American hero” in China, was the only member of President Roosevelt’s “Dixie Mission” to Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists to be killed in action by the Japanese during the secret World War II initiative. At the invitation of the International Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, in 2006 she led another delegation, this time consisting of U.S. media personalities, academics, and business leaders, to China.

'Faith Whittlesey' rose

An enthusiastic gardener -- with, however, too little time to much pursue the hobby-- Whittlesey was honored at a dinner at the Union League Club in New York City in 2006 as Scot Medbury, President of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, presented her with a new Tea Rose variety named 'Faith Whittlesey' for her. (In subsequent years, this new rose variety, bred by India's noted rose hybridizer "Viru" Viraraghavan, was selected in nationwide trials as the first heirloom heritage rose to win an American Garden Rose Selection Award.) In 2010, Whittlesey also received the International Friend of the Rose Award at the Great Rosarians of the World meeting in New York City in recognition of her "spadework" in reestablishing U.S. rosarian ties with their Chinese counterparts and helping to renew the U.S.-China "rose connection" and friendship.

Later career

After completing her second tour as United States Ambassador to Switzerland, Whittlesey was named as Chairman and President of the American Swiss Foundation in New York. In 2008, she was elected Chairman Emeritus. For almost three decades, she has worked "to protect and strengthen the friendship between the United States and Switzerland," which in 2016 was the seventh largest foreign investor in the U.S. Whittlesey conceived of and established a bipartisan young leaders' program that for 28 consecutive years has brought together young opinion leaders and professionals from Switzerland and the United States for an intensive, week-long conference in Switzerland. Participants meet senior public and private sector officials, engage in discussions on issues of the day, and build friendships. There are now over 1,100 alumni of this program.

Continuing as a member of the Pennsylvania bar, Whittlesey also served on numerous corporate boards after she left government service.

Whittlesey, although an adamant anti-communist all her life, is fond of quoting John Adams' cautionary admonition to America about foreign entanglements and war: "We do not go abroad for monsters to destroy." She was dubious of the Iraq War and other U.S. military involvements of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and advocated against them. Also, "as a Roman Catholic, she [Whittlesey was] conscious of the fact that Pope John Paul II [did] not see the war in Iraq as a just one."

In 2016, Whittlesey again became politically active nationally. An early supporter of Donald Trump, she wrote numerous op-eds (more than a dozen) beginning February 1, 2016, published nationally and abroad, in support of his nomination and candidacy and also gave speeches and organized others in similar, supportive activities. She was Co-chairman of Reaganites for Trump-Pence in the 2016 campaign, with former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese and former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating. She was also a member of the National Catholic Advisory Committee for Trump-Pence.

Personal life

Whittlesey was born Faith Ryan in 1939 in Jersey City, New Jersey to Martin Roy Ryan of Maybrook, New York, and Amy Jerusha (Covell) of Pope Mills, New York. She grew up in Williamsville, New York, and graduated with honors from Williamsville Central High School in 1956. Her photo appears on the "Wall of Honor" celebrating famous graduates of what is now called Williamsville South High School. In 1955 she was selected to participate in the American Field Service program to Flensburg, Germany. In 1958 she participated in the Experiment in International Living program to Austria. She earned a full-tuition scholarship to attend Wells College in Aurora, New York, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude in 1960 with a BA in history. She also earned a full-tuition scholarship to the law school at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1962 a Ford Foundation grant to attend a program at The Hague Academy of International Law in The Netherlands. Whittlesey is also an accomplished classical pianist and former piano teacher. She has one sibling, Thomas Martin Ryan, who graduated Yale College magna cum laude in 1963, received an MA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1963 she married Roger Weaver Whittlesey of Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, a graduate of the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia and Bowdoin College in Maine. Roger Whittlesey was an advertising executive from an illustrious family. They had 3 children and have 10 grandchildren. The marriage lasted 11 years, not ending till Roger Whittlesey committed suicide in March 1974. Their son Henry, who was subject to depression, also committed suicide in 2012.

Because her father was a "Roman Catholic in the Irish tradition" it has been incorrectly assumed that Whittlesey grew up as a Catholic, when in fact her mother's family did not approve of her father's Catholicism. "[S]o he left the Catholic Church," Whittlesey explained in her Memoirs. "He attended the Methodist Church with my mother and brother, Tom, and me. I was thus raised as a Methodist. As a family we went to the Williamsville, New York, Methodist Church every Sunday. I went to regular Sunday school and sang in the choirs." Her husband's family was Presbyterian. Whittlesey converted to Roman Catholicism in 2000 in Staten Island, New York, having been greatly influenced as a result of her Reagan administration association with John Cardinal O'Connor of New York. She was baptized and confirmed by Father Michael Reilly, principal of St. Joseph's By-the-Sea High School in Staten Island, New York.

For 19 years, Whittlesey served as President and Chairman of the Board of the American Swiss Foundation; beginning in February 2008, she became Chairman Emeritus. She was a member of the Board of Directors (and former Chairman for 3 years) of Christian Freedom International, an organization dedicated to assisting persecuted Christians around the world. She is a member of the Council of American Ambassadors and also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Reagan Alumni Association. She also served as a member—and for 6 years as Chairman—of the Board of the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.. In 2012, she joined the Board of the Rockford Institute in Rockford, Illinois, and, in 2013, the Advisory Board of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity in Washington, D.C. She is a longtime member of the University Club of Washington, D.C., and for several years served on the Newsmax International Advisory Board. In 2016, she became a member of the Diplomatic Advisory Board and Special Advisors to the World War I Centennial Commission. On June 17 and 18, 2017, she participated as a judge of the 2017 Miss District of Columbia Pageant, part of the Miss America competition.

Honors Whittlesey has received over the years include these:

Coincident with the Award presentation on October 4, 2012, a new study of her life and career, Backwards in High Heels: Faith Whittlesey, Reagan's Madam Ambassador in Switzerland and the White House, by Professor Thomas Carty of Springfield College (Massachusetts) was published.

Before a standing room only crowd at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC on October 5, President Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to Switzerland, Faith Whittlesey, offered up some sage advice on lessons learned from a lifetime career in public service, “Listen carefully, read widely, listen to diverse opinions, and be somewhat humble about yourself and our country.”

Job history

After her substitute teaching job in 1963 and 1964, Whittlesey held a variety of governmental positions: Special Assistant Attorney General in Pennsylvania assigned to the Pennsylvania Banking Code Revision Project (1964–65), law clerk for Federal District Court Judge Francis L. Van Dusen, E.D.P.A. (1965), a Special Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (1967–70), Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (1970–1972). In 1972 she was elected as a Representative in the Pennsylvania Legislature representing the 166th Legislative District in Delaware County. In 1974 she was reelected to the Legislature. In 1975 she was elected to the Delaware County Board of Commissioners, now known as the Delaware County Council and reelected in 1979. (Delaware County was at the time larger in population than 5 states of the Union.) She served alternately as Chairman and Vice Chairman. She lost the 1978 Republican primary for Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania.

While serving in the Delaware County government, Whittlesey briefly held her first job in the private sector, taking a part-time job as the token Republican at the law firm Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen LLP in Philadelphia. As she left her elected position in the Delaware County government for Switzerland in the fall of 1981, a member of the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board described her as a "public servant of extraordinary competence, vigor and dedication. ... She can be succeeded but not replaced." After leaving Switzerland, Whittlesey joined the New York-based law firm of Myerson & Kuhn until its 1990 bankruptcy filing In 1998 she started her own consulting firm, Maybrook Associates. She has also served on several corporate boards over the years, including the U.S. Advisory Board for Nestle. From 1989 through 2012 she served as a board member of Schindler Elevator Corporation USA, headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. From 1992 through 2015 she served as a board member of Valassis Communications, Inc., headquartered in Livonia, Michigan.

She was admitted to the bar of Pennsylvania in 1964 and remains in non-resident active status.

Books and forewords

Articles

Collected papers

Whittlesey's Collected Papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.