Ray Price

Raymond Kissam Price Jr. (May 6, 1930 – February 13, 2019) was an American writer who was the chief speechwriter for U.S. President Richard Nixon, working on both inaugural addresses, his resignation speech, and Gerald Ford's pardon speech. After leaving politics, he was the long-time president of the Economic Club of New York, and worked as a consultant.

Life and career Price was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Raymond and Beth Price, Porter. His father was a stockbroker. He was raised in Morris Plains, New Jersey, where he started an amateur newspaper. Price graduated from Yale University in 1951. There, he was a member of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union, belonged to Skull and Bones, and was one of the founding members of the reconstituted Calliopean Society. While at Yale, he also served as a research assistant to William F. Buckley Jr. during the latter's writing of God and Man at Yale and on Prescott Bush's unsuccessful 1950 Senate campaign.

Price served in the Navy during the Korean War. Price was renowned for his loyalty to Nixon, despite being a political moderate and an erstwhile supporter of Lyndon B. Johnson. and assisted Nixon in the writing of several books. John Dean mentioned Price as one person suspected (falsely) of having been Deep Throat. For 19 years, Price was the president of the Economic Club of New York. After leaving the White House, he worked as an assistant to William S. Paley, operated a consulting firm, and served on a number of presidential commissions. He also was a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Politics at Harvard University in 1977, and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute that same year. In 1978, he served as Nixon Professor at Whittier College in Whittier, California.

In 1992, Price briefly returned to speechwriting to pen George H.W. Bush's acceptance speech for the 1992 Republican nomination.

Memberships Aurelian Honor Society Economic Club of New York Federal City Club Metropolitan Club Overseas Press Club of America Skull and Bones Calliopean Society Yale Club of New York City Union League Club of New York City