Touched by history

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Sep 19, 2004 by Capital-Journal

P R O F I L E

Topekan reflects on years spent at White House and around the world

1968 FILE PHOTO/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

ABOVE: At the piano anchored on a 727 occupied by the press office staff, Mary Alice Passman's playing sometimes sparked sing-alongs with co-workers and newsmen joining to break the routine of jet flights. BELOW: Murphy spends time playing her baby grand piano recently at her home in Topeka.

PHOTO BY ANN WILLIAMSON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY ALICE PASSMAN MURPHY

Murphy poses for a photograph with President Richard Nixon and her husband, J. Kevin Murphy, during her going-away party at the White House in 1971. Murphy was an aide for the press office during Nixon's first term as president.

Mary Alice Passman reviewed longhand notes with her immediate boss, Ron Ziegler, the Nixon campaign's top traveling press aide, who lured her from her job with Rep. Larry Winn Jr., R-Kan.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARY ALICE PASSMAN MURPHY

Mary Alice Passman Murphy walks with her husband, J. Kevin Murphy, on their way to work in Paris.

BY KIM GRONNIGER

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANN WILLIAMSON

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

orsaking a music education career after an unpleasant stint as a student teacher, Mary Alice Passman Murphy supplemented a bachelor's degree with secretarial school and spent two years working in President Richard Nixon's press office.

Growing up in Potwin and attending Holy Name Grade School and Hayden H

igh School, Murphy was taught at an early age to do things well and to embrace life's possibilities. Although adept at creating detailed agendas for political powerbrokers, Murphy took a serendipitous approach to career planning that ultimately led to two papal visits, travel to far-flung locales, sunbathing at the San Clemente compound and photos of her and fellow secretary-turned- journalist Diane Sawyer immortalized in books chronicling Nixon's presidency.

"I had a Kansas work ethic and was encouraged to do my best at whatever I did, but I didn't have any ambition to do something like this," Murphy said, gesturing to scrapbooks filled with glossy photos, news articles and other mementos from an exciting era in her life. "The opportunity just came along. Today, everyone's so structured --- stepping into college expecting to determine what it is they'll do until their retirement --- that they miss out on things."

Exhibiting the same trim figure and sophisticated style she displayed through her White House wardrobe, Murphy's warmth and laughter are infectious as she shares memories of motorcades, mimeograph machines and transcripts typed after midnight in hotel rooms across the country.

Trading piano keys

for typewriter keys

When Murphy told her parents that she no longer wanted to be a music teacher, her father insisted she learn secretarial skills at Clark's Secretarial School to complement a bachelor's degree from St. Mary's College in Leavenworth.

Poised and pragmatic, Murphy subsequently worked for the Kansas Junior Chamber of Commerce, a Topeka radio station, Oscar Mayer & Co. in Chicago and the Kansas Bankers Association.

Murphy's second critical career juncture also came about through her continued love of music. She was singing at a choir practice one evening when former Gov. Joan Finney, an aide to Sen. Frank Carlson at the time, approached her about becoming a secretary for William H. Avery during his campaign for Congress. Murphy got the job and subsequently worked for him in Washington, D.C., and again when he returned to Kansas as governor.

Following his defeat in 1966, she began working for Congressman Larry Winn Jr. After a 1968 convention in San Diego, a secretary for Bob Ellsworth, a former Kansas congressman working as an adviser to the Nixon campaign, called Murphy and said she had recommended Murphy for a position.

While hosting a brunch for friends at her apartment in Washington, D.C., a short while later, Murphy received the call from Ron Ziegler, the president's traveling press aide, that would propel her into history books.

"Ron called me from New York and asked me to join the Nixon campaign, and I told him I really didn't want to, that I had guests and would have to call him back," Murphy recalls, adding that her friends encouraged her to reconsider when she rejoined them and recounted the conversation.

Murphy's hesitation hinged, in part, on her ultimately unfounded concerns about finding another job when the campaign concluded.

"The campaign position didn't pay well, I was living on a budget and I hadn't supported Nixon in the primary," she said. "I went to work on the campaign the day after Labor Day 36 years ago never, ever thinking Nixon would win because there had always been such antipathy toward him. Lo and behold, he did win! After two months in New York, we were at the White House."

Working in the White House

Working in the press office at the White House often entailed long hours and laborious assignments fraught with last-minute changes.