Ex-ag secretary Earl Butz, 98
Posted: Monday, February 4th, 2008 1:23 amFeb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Earl Butz, the U.S. secretary of agriculture who was forced to resign after telling an obscenity-laced racist joke in 1976, died yesterday in Washington. He was 98 and the oldest living former Cabinet member. …
Butz was named to head the Department of Agriculture in 1971 by President Richard Nixon. He remained in the Cabinet under President Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. …
It was a crude joke that turned Butz into a household word and punch line on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show. Butz was flying from the 1976 Republican convention in Kansas City, Missouri, to California when he told his infamous story to a group that included singer Pat Boone and John Dean… Read full obituary
