Dead Celebrity Alert

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — Patricia Reilly Hitt, who served as national co-chair of Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and became his assistant secretary of health, education and welfare, died of natural causes. She was 87.

Hitt, who worked her first campaign for Nixon in 1946, died Monday at her home on Balboa Island, said Andy Quinn, spokesman for the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace.

She died on what would have been Nixon’s 93rd birthday. …

Hitt became the first woman to hold a senior leadership position for a major U.S. political party when she was named national co-chair of Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign.

It marked a milestone in her long career of campaigning that began in 1946, when Hitt went door-to-door for Nixon’s successful run for Congress in Southern California. … Read full obituary

Filed under Government/Politics