US newsObituaryCharles Wick
Ronald Reagan's chief propagandist at the US Information AgencyCharles Wick, who has died at the age of 90, was the highly effective head of the United States Information Agency (USIA) under President Ronald Reagan, a personal friend from Holly- wood days. A lawyer, jazz musician, talent agent, property investor and film producer, he had charm, energy and a gift for gaffes startling in an otherwise so smooth operator.
His movie career was hardly distinguished. He produced a number of detective shows. Even Reagan joked publicly that his friend's biggest credit was a film called Snow White and the Three Stooges. But as a family friend and successful fundraiser, he was chosen to organise the Reagans' famously lavish inaugural festivities at the White House in 1981, which were pure Hollywood, the Oscars on the Potomac. Reagan said Wick could have whatever job he wanted, and he got the USIA, where he lasted longer than any previous director - from 1981 to 1989 - and with more éclat than anyone since Edward Murrow in the Kennedy administration.
He devoted himself to promoting the Reagan ideology with the latest technology and with growing quantities of money. On his watch the USIA's budget rose from $458m in 1981 to $820m in 1988. He started a television equivalent to the Voice of America in Berlin, beefed up the capability of the agency's broadcasting to the Soviet Union and created WorldNet. This was the world's first universal satellite telephone network, used to bring the US government's instant response to international events to the whole world. After his death, Reagan's secretary of state, George Shultz, said Wick was "magnificent in letting the world know about Ronald Reagan's America". There was perhaps more truth in that than Shultz intended. He was, in fact, Reagan's chief propagandist. He called it "public diplomacy".
He was born Charles Zwick in Cleveland on October 12 1917. His father was a businessman. He shifted the Z from the front of his name to the middle when he was working as a business adviser to the Tommy Dorsey swing band in the 1930s. In show business, he explained, it was better to have "a little easier name". He had a music degree from the University of Michigan, where he played the piano and arranged music for a dance band. He then earned a law degree from Western Reserve university in Cleveland. He worked for a time in New York for the William Morris agency in New York, where he represented Peggy Lee, Benny Goodman and Sarah Churchill.
He moved to California, where he invested in a chain of nursing homes, the first of a variety of business ventures. In 1947, he married Mary Jane Woods, a former Goldwyn Girl. A dozen years later Woods and Nancy Reagan found themselves sharing a hot-dog stand at their children's school fair in Brentwood. The Wick and Reagan families became close friends and used to spend Christmases together.
When Reagan went into politics, Wick became a member of his "kitchen cabinet" of advisers and fundraisers, along with the oil man Henry Salvatore, the car dealer Holmes Tuttle (father of the current US ambassador to London) and other wealthy conservatives. He raised $15m for Reagan in the 1980 campaign.
Wick was a highly effective head of USIA, bringing his business and entertainment experience to bear on promoting a conservative version of American beliefs and promoting anti-communist ventures. He started Radio Martí to pump propaganda into Cuba in Spanish and he talked Frank Sinatra into singing in Polish for a spectacular broadcast calling for freedom for Poland.
He was not universally popular with the staff of the USIA. His manner could be abrasive with those he suspected of liberal politics. He dropped a string of clangers. He was caught taping phone calls to a number of important people, for which he subsequently had to apologise. This was not illegal in the District of Columbia, but frowned on everywhere in America.
When Reagan sent the US marines into Grenada in 1983, Margaret Thatcher objected. Wick attributed her criticism to the fact that she was a woman. He was found to have created a blacklist in USIA, banning 84 people, including Walter Cronkite, the doyen of American TV pundits and Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, from representing the US on behalf of the agency. When there was criticism of the Rodeo Drive lifestyle of some members of the Reagan administration, Wick ventured the tactful thought that this was a comfort for the poor. He is survived by his widow, Mary Jane, and by five children and eight grandchildren.
· Charles Z Wick, political adviser, born October 12 1917; died July 20 2008
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