Bill Moyers | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Moyers in 1966 | |
| 11thWhite House Press Secretary | |
| In office July 8, 1965 – February 1, 1967 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | George Reedy |
| Succeeded by | George Christian |
| 6thWhite House Chief of Staff | |
De facto | |
| In office October 14, 1964 – July 8, 1965 | |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | Walter Jenkins (de facto) |
| Succeeded by | Jack Valenti (de facto) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Billy Don Moyers (1934-06-05)June 5, 1934 Hugo, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Died | June 26, 2025(2025-06-26) (aged 91) New York City, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | |
Billy Don Moyers (June 5, 1934 – June 26, 2025) was an American journalist and political commentator who served as the eleventhWhite House Press Secretary from 1965 to 1967 during theLyndon B. Johnson administration. He also served as thede factoWhite House Chief of Staff for a brief period from 1964 until 1965.
Moyers was a director of theCouncil on Foreign Relations from 1967 to 1974. He was also a onetime steering committee member of the annualBilderberg Meeting. Moyers also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. Moyers was extensively involved withpublic broadcasting, producing documentaries and news journal programs, and won many awards and honorary degrees for his investigative journalism and civic activities. He was well known as a trenchant critic of the corporately structuredU.S. news media.
Born Billy Don Moyers on June 5, 1934, inHugo, Oklahoma, he was the son of John Henry Moyers, a laborer, and Ruby Johnson Moyers.[1][2] Moyers was reared inMarshall, Texas.[3]
Moyers began his journalism career at 16 as a cub reporter at theMarshall News Messenger.[2] In college, he studied journalism at theNorth Texas State College inDenton, Texas. In 1954, U.S. SenatorLyndon B. Johnson employed him as a summer campaign intern and eventually promoted him to manage Johnson's personal mail.[2] Soon after, Moyers transferred to theUniversity of Texas at Austin, where he wrote forThe Daily Texan newspaper. In 1956, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism. While in Austin, Moyers served as assistant news editor for KTBCradio andtelevision stations, owned byLady Bird Johnson, Senator Johnson's wife. During the 1956–1957 academic year, he studied issues of church and state at theUniversity of Edinburgh in Scotland as aRotary International Fellow. In 1959, he completed aMaster of Divinity degree at theSouthwestern Baptist Theological Seminary inFort Worth, Texas.[3] Moyers served as Director of Information while attending SWBTS.[4] He was also a Baptist pastor inWeir, Texas, near Austin.[5]
Moyers planned to enter a Doctor of Philosophy program in American studies at the University of Texas. During Senator Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the1960 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, Moyers served as a top aide, and in the general campaign he acted as liaison betweenDemocratic vice-presidential candidate Johnson and the Democraticpresidential nominee, U.S. SenatorJohn F. Kennedy.[6]
The Peace Corps was established by President Kennedy by Executive Order in March 1961, but it was up to top aideSargent Shriver and Bill Moyers[7] to find the funding to actually establish the organization.The Peace Corps Act was signed by President Kennedy on September 22, 1961.[8] InSarge,Scott Stossel reports that "Peace Corps legend has it that between them Moyers and Shriver personally called on every single member of Congress."[9]
Reflecting 25 years later on the creation of the program Moyers said: ”We knew from the beginning that the Peace Corps was not an agency, program, or mission. Now we know—from those who lived and died for it—that it is a way of being in the world."[10] At the 50th Anniversary “Salute to Peace Corps Giants”, hosted by theNational Archives, Moyers said, "The years we spent at the Peace Corps were the best years of our lives.”[11] Moyers gave the same answer in the famedVanity FairProust questionnaire in 2011.[12]
Moyers served first as associate director of public affairs and then as Sargent Shriver's deputy director before becoming special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1963.[13]
Moyers was a key player in the creation of the public broadcasting system.[14] In 1961,FCC ChairmanNewton N. Minow labeled television "a vast wasteland” and called for programming in the public interest. Years later, the Johnson administration instituted a study of the issue. The Carnegie Corporation of New York established a commission to study the value of and need for noncommercial educational television.[15] Moyers served on this committee, which released its report 'Public Television: A Program for Action' in 1967. Moyers said of the endeavor: “We became a central part of the American consciousness and a valuable institution within our culture."[16]
Moyers was influential in creating the legislation that would fulfill the committee's recommendations. In 1967, President Johnson[17] signedPublic Broadcasting Act of 1967, which states: "it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes."[citation needed]
On the 50th anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act, Moyers andJoseph A. Califano, Jr. spoke about their experience withWNET.[18][19]
In November 1963, Kennedy noted that Bill Moyers would be knowledgeable of the political climate inDallas, Texas. He appointed Moyers to be the planner for his trip to the conservative and potentially hostile city. Bill had great difficulty with the assignment due to his lack of experience with the Dallas political climate; his presence was not wanted by the political elite, as he was an outsider more aligned to Austin than Dallas.[20]
Two others had attempted to liaise with the Dallas political group that planned the arrangements for the trip with similar results. But with time running short, Moyers knew someone in Dallas who could work for the Kennedy advance team; someone who had been instrumental in the Peace Corps over the last few years and had married the Dallas clothing store mogul, Leon Harris, Jr. This person wasBetty Harris. She had experience in writing and news media production.[20]
Harris testified to theUnited States House Select Committee on Assassinations in a closed deposition of the preparations, phone calls, and arguments she had establishing the route that theKennedy motorcade would take through Dallas. She was on the phone with Moyers "every two hours ... for those seven days" as the planning and infighting went on.[20]
Moyers in Washington and Harris in Dallas made several decisions about the motorcade: the choice of the route to the Trade Mart through Downtown and Dealey Plaza, the publication of the route map one to two days before the event, the assignment of cars and seating positions, and the removal of the bubble top on the limousine. Their wishes were frequently at odds with the pro-Connally operatives: Sam Bloom (the PR mouthpiece for the Dallas businessmen),Bob Strauss, and John Connally himself.[20]
WhenLyndon B. Johnson took office after theKennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963 to 1967. Moyers was the last surviving person identifiable in the photograph taken of Johnson'sswearing in.[21] He played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964Great Society legislative task forces and was a principal architect of Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. Moyers acted as the President's informal chief of staff from October 1964 until July 1965. From July 1965 to February 1967, he also served asWhite House press secretary.[6]
After the resignation of White House Chief of StaffWalter Jenkins because of a sexual misdemeanor in the run up to the1964 election, PresidentLyndon B. Johnson, alarmed that the opposition was framing the issue as a security breach,[22] ordered Moyers to requestFBI name checks on 15 members ofBarry Goldwater's staff to find "derogatory" material on their personal lives.[23][24] Goldwater himself only referred to the Jenkins incident off the record.[25] TheChurch Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed byFBI documents."[26] In 2005,Laurence Silberman wrote that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call, telling him the FBI had fabricated it.[27] Moyers said he had a different recollection of the telephone conversation.[28]
Moyers also sought information from the FBI on the sexual preferences of White House staff members, most notablyJack Valenti.[29] Moyers indicated his memory was unclear on why Johnson directed him to request such information, "but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president byHoover."[30]
Under the direction of President Johnson, Moyers gaveJ Edgar Hoover the go-ahead to discreditMartin Luther King, played a part in the wiretapping of King, discouraged the American embassy inOslo from assisting King on hisNobel Peace Prize trip, and worked to prevent King from challenging the all-white Mississippi delegation to the1964 Democratic National Convention.[31]
Moyers approved (but had nothing to do with the production) of the infamous "Daisy Ad" againstBarry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign.[32] Goldwater blamed him for it, and once said of Moyers, "Every time I see him, I get sick to my stomach and want to throw up."[33] The advertisement is considered the starting point of the modern-day harshly negative campaign ad.[34]
JournalistMorley Safer in his 1990 bookFlashbacks wrote that Moyers and President Johnson met with and "harangued" Safer's boss,CBS presidentFrank Stanton, about Safer's coverage of theU.S. Marines torchingCam Ne village in theVietnam War.[35]During the meeting, Safer alleges, Johnson threatened to expose Safer's "communist ties". This was a bluff, according to Safer. Safer says that Moyers was "if not a key player, certainly a key bystander" in the incident.[36] Moyers stated that his hard-hitting coverage of conservative presidentsRonald Reagan andGeorge H. W. Bush was behind Safer's 1990 allegations.[37]
InThe New York Times on April 3, 1966, Moyers offered this insight on his stint as press secretary to President Johnson: "I work for him despite his faults and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies."[38][39]
On May 18, 1966,Secretary of DefenseRobert McNamara gave a speech in Montreal before theAmerican Society of Newspaper Editors entitledSecurity in the Contemporary World, in which he criticized many aspects of U.S. defense policy. Lyndon Johnson was reportedly furious with McNamara's speech, and the discovery that Moyers had cleared it was a factor in Moyer's early departure.[40][41]
On October 17, 1967, Moyers told an audience in Cambridge that Johnson saw the war in Vietnam as his major legacy and, as a result, was insisting on victory at all costs, even in the face of public opposition. Moyers felt such a continuation of the conflict would tear the country apart. "I never thought the situation could arise when I would wish for the defeat of LBJ, and that makes my current state of mind all the more painful to me," he told them. "I would have to say now: It would depend on who his opponent is."[42]
The full details of his rift with Johnson were not made public.[43] However, an Oval Office tape which was recorded following Johnson's public announcement that he would not seek re-election on March 31, 1968, suggested that Moyers and Johnson were still in contact after Moyers left the White House, with Moyers even encouraging the President to change his mind about running.[44]
Moyers served as publisher for theLong Island, New York, daily newspaperNewsday from 1967 to 1970. The conservative publication had been unsuccessful,[45] but Moyers led the paper in a progressive direction,[46] bringing in leading writers such asPete Hamill,Daniel Patrick Moynihan, andSaul Bellow, and adding new features and more investigative reporting and analysis. Circulation increased and the publication won 33 major journalism awards, including twoPulitzer Prizes.[45][47][48] But the owner of the paper,Harry Guggenheim, a conservative, was disappointed by the liberal drift of the newspaper under Moyers, criticizing the "left-wing" coverage of Vietnam War protests.[49][50] The two split over the 1968 presidential election, with Guggenheim signing an editorial supportingRichard Nixon, when Moyers supportedHubert Humphrey.[51] Guggenheim sold his majority share to the then-conservativeTimes-Mirror Company over the attempt of newspaper employees to block the sale, even though Moyers offered $10 million more than the Times-Mirror purchase price; Moyers resigned a few days later.[43][49][52][53]
In 1976, Moyers joinedCBS News, where he worked as editor and chief correspondent forCBS Reports until 1981, then as senior news analyst and commentator for theCBS Evening News withDan Rather from 1981 to 1986. He was the last regular commentator for the network broadcast.[54] During his last year at CBS, Moyers made public statements about declining news standards at the network[55] and declined to renew his contract with CBS, citing commitments with PBS.[56]
Moyers briefly joinedNBC News in 1995 as a senior analyst and commentator, and the following year he became the first host of sister cable networkMSNBC'sInsight program. He was the last regular commentator on theNBC Nightly News.[54]
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In 1971, Moyers began working for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). His first PBS series, titledThis Week with Bill Moyers, aired in 1971 and 1972.[citation needed]
Bill Moyers Journal ran on PBS from 1972 until 1981 with a hiatus from 1976 to 1977. He later hosted a show with this title from 2007 to 2010.[57]
In 1975,Bill Moyers Journal airedRosedale: The Way It Is,[58] documenting the furor that arose after the first black family moved intoRosedale, Queens, including a rash of firebombings. In 2020, a graduate student drew attention to a short segment that had recorded the reactions of a group of black girls who attempted to make sense of the incident they had experienced.The New York Times later found the children and others featured in the documentary and produced its own reported feature: "A Racist Attack on Children Was Taped in 1975. We Found Them."[59]
From 1982 through 2006, 70 different documentaries, interviews or limited series produced and hosted by Moyers ran on PBS stations.[60]
These were often produced by Moyers and his wife, Judith Suzanne Davidson Moyers, throughPublic Affairs Television, a company they formed in 1986. Other collaborators included filmmakerDavid Grubin and producerMadeline Amgott.[61]
Between 1990 and 1999, Moyers produced and hosted 7 episodes of the PBS journalism programFrontline:[citation needed]
Moyers hosted the TV news journalNOW with Bill Moyers on PBS for three years, starting in January 2002. He retired from the program on December 17, 2004, but returned to PBS soon after to hostWide Angle in 2005. When he leftNOW, he announced that he wished to finish writing a biography ofLyndon B. Johnson.[62]
On April 25, 2007, Moyers returned to PBS withBill Moyers Journal. In the first episode, "Buying the War", Moyers investigated what he called the general media's shortcomings in the runup to theWar in Iraq.[63] "Buying the War" won an Emmy at the 29th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards (2008) for Best Report in a News Magazine.[64][65]
On November 20, 2009, Moyers announced that he would be retiring from his weekly show on April 30, 2010.[66]
In August 2011, Moyers announced a new hour-long weekly interview show,Moyers & Company, which premiered in January 2012.[67] In that same month, Moyers also launchedBillMoyers.com. Later reduced to a half hour,Moyers & Company was produced by Public Affairs Television and distributed byAmerican Public Television.[68] The show has been heralded as a renewed fulfillment of public media's stated mission to air news and views unrepresented or underrepresented in commercial media.[69]
The program concluded on January 2, 2015.[70]
In 2020, Moyers started a series of podcasts namedMoyers on Democracy. Conversations included Lisa Graves on thePost Office conflict;Heather Cox Richardson onHow the South Won the Civil War;Heather McGhee on racism's pernicious effect on American society andBill T. Jones on his newest project — a retelling ofMoby Dick from the viewpoint of a Black cabin boy. The series ended in early 2021.[71]
In 1995, Bill Moyers was inducted into theTelevision Hall of Fame.[72] The same year, he also won theWalter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.[73] When he became a recipient of the 2006 LifetimeEmmy Award, the official announcement noted that “Bill Moyers has devoted his lifetime to the exploration of the major issues and ideas of our time and our country, giving television viewers an informed perspective on political and societal concerns," and that "The scope of and quality of his broadcasts have been honored time and again. It is fitting that theNational Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honor him with our highest honor—the Lifetime Achievement Award."[74] He had received twenty-six Emmy nominations, thirteen wins, and virtually every other major television journalism prize, including a gold baton from theAlfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, aPeabody Award[75] and aGeorge Polk Career Award (his third George Polk Award) for contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. He is a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters, theAmerican Philosophical Society,[76] and has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, including a doctorate from theAmerican Film Institute.[3] In 2011, Moyers received the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) fromWhittier College.[77]
In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com, Moyers said, "The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won." He noted, "The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn't matter if the rising tide lifted all boats." Instead, however, "[t]he inequality gap is the widest it's been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely keeping their heads above water." He added that as "the corporate and governing elites are helping themselves to the spoils of victory," access to political power has become "who gets what and who pays for it."[78]
Meanwhile, the public has failed to react because it is, in his words, "distracted by the media circus and news has been neutered or politicized for partisan purposes." In support of this, he referred to "the paradox ofRush Limbaugh, ensconced in aPalm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero. ... As Eric Alterman reports in his recent book—a book that I'm proud to have helped make happen—part of the red-meat strategy is to attack mainstream media relentlessly, knowing that if the press is effectively intimidated, either by the accusation of liberal bias or by a reporter's own mistaken belief in the charge's validity, the institutions that conservatives revere—corporate America, the military, organized religion, and their own ideological bastions of influence—will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence over American public life with relatively no challenge."[78]
When he briefly retired in December 2004, theAP News Service quoted Moyers as saying, "I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of theRepublican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election ofRepublicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."[79]
On July 24, 2006, liberal political commentatorMolly Ivins published an article entitledRun Bill Moyers for President, Seriously, urging a symbolic candidacy, on the progressive websiteTruthdig.[80][81][82] The call was taken up in October 2006 byRalph Nader.[83] Moyers did not run.
In 2003,Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairmanKenneth Tomlinson wrote toPat Mitchell, the president of PBS, thatNOW with Bill Moyers "does not contain anything approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting."[84] In 2005, Tomlinson commissioned a study of the show, without informing or getting authorization from the CPB board.[85] The study was conducted by Fred Mann, Tomlinson's choice, a 20-year veteran of theAmerican Conservative Union and a conservative columnist. Like the study itself, Mann's appointment was not disclosed to the CPB.[86]
Tomlinson said that the study supported what he characterized as "the image of the left-wing bias of NOW".[87]George Neumayr, the executive editor ofThe American Spectator, a conservative magazine, told theNewsHour with Jim Lehrer that "PBS looks like a liberal monopoly to me, and Bill Moyers is Exhibit A of that very strident, left-wing bias... [Moyers] uses his show as a platform from which to attack conservatives and Republicans."[84]
The Reporters Committee on the Freedom of the Press was vocal about the danger of the CPB chairman interfering with programming independence.[88] The PBS Ombudsman and the Free Press noted that a poll taken in 2003 by the CPB itself found that 80 percent of Americans believe PBS to be "fair and balanced."[89] In a speech given toThe National Conference for Media Reform, Moyers said that he had repeatedly invited Tomlinson to have a televised conversation with him on the subject but had been ignored.[90]
On November 3, 2005, Tomlinson resigned from the board, prompted by a report of his tenure by the CPB Inspector General Kenneth Konz, requested by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The report, which found that Tomlinson violated the Director's Code of Ethics and the statutory provisions of the CPB and PBS, was made public on November 15. It states:[citation needed]
We found evidence that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) former Chairman violated statutory provisions and the Director's Code of Ethics by dealing directly with one of the creators of a new public affairs program during negotiations with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the CPB over creating the show. Our review also found evidence that suggests "political tests" were a major criteria [sic] used by the former Chairman in recruiting a President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for CPB, which violated statutory prohibitions against such practices.
In 2006, the PBS Ombudsman, whose role was reinvigorated by the controversy published a column entitled "He's Back: Moyers, not Tomlinson." Reflecting on the conflict, Moyers toldThe Boston Globe: "It's a place where if you fight you can survive, but it's not easy. The fact of the matter is that Kenneth Tomlinson had a chilling effect down the line."[91]
Moyers was a onetime director of theCouncil on Foreign Relations[92] (1967–1974), a onetime steering committee member of theBilderberg Group,[93] and from 1990 was president of theSchumann Center for Media and Democracy.[94]
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Moyers married Judith Suzanne Davidson (a producer) on December 18, 1954. They had three children and five grandchildren.[95]
His daughter, Suzanne Moyers, a former teacher and editor, is the author of the historical novel, ‘Til All These Things Be Done.[95]
His son William Cope Moyers (CNN producer,Hazelden Foundation spokesman for addiction recovery) struggled to overcome alcoholism andcrack addiction as detailed in the bookBroken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption. He included letters from Bill Moyers in his book, which he said are "a testament to a father's love for his son, a father's confusion with his son, and ultimately, a father's satisfaction with his son".[96] Later, he struggled with prescriptionopioid addiction and his use of bothSuboxone medication and traditional addiction recovery methods such as prayer andtwelve-step meetings, as he described in a second book,Broken Open: What Painkillers Taught Me About Life and Recovery.[97]
His other son, John Moyers, assisted in the foundation ofTomPaine.com, "an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary".[98]
Moyers lived inBernardsville, New Jersey, from 2003 to 2016.[99]
On June 26, 2025, Moyers died from complications relating to prostate cancer at a hospital in New York City.[95] He was 91.
On news of his death,Press Watch editorDan Froomkin called Moyers "one of the greatest of the greats."The Nation'sJohn Nichols commented that "the modern media reform movement —with its commitment to diversity, to equity, and to defending the sort of speak-truth-to-power reporting that exposes injustice, inequality, authoritarianism, and militarism— was made possible by Bill's courageous advocacy during theBush-Cheney years. He raised the banner and we rallied around it." SenatorBernie Sanders stated that "a friend, public servant, and outstanding journalist, has passed away. As an aide toPresident Johnson, Bill pushed the presidency in a more progressive direction. As a journalist, he had the courage to explore issues that many ignored."[100]
When reporters on his campaign plane pressed him for a comment, he would only speak 'off the record.' 'What a way to win an election,' he said, 'Communists and cocksuckers.'
And Moyers was present during some of this showdown stuff about me being a Communist, clearly knew it was a bluff. As I say, there are limits, I think, even to being a good soldier. And even if one does, I think there is a time to come clean.
Mr. Moyers wonders aloud whether his hard-hitting coverage of presidents Reagan and Bush has vexed Mr. Wallace and Mr. Safer, who, friends say, have become more politically conservative as they've grown older and wealthier.
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Walter Jenkins De facto | White House Chief of Staff De facto 1964–1965 | Succeeded by Jack Valenti De facto |
| Preceded by | White House Press Secretary 1965–1967 | Succeeded by |
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| New office | Host ofNow 2002–2005 | Succeeded by |
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