Bio

Ronald Harold Nessen is an American government official who served as the thirteenth White House Press Secretary for President Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1977. He replaced Jerald terHorst, who resigned in the wake of President Ford's pardon of former president Richard Nixon. Prior to joining the Ford administration, Nessen served as a Washington, D.C. correspondent for NBC News. On the day of Ford's succession to the presidency, August 9, 1974, he provided commentary. That evening he was on the NBC Nightly News; in that piece, Nessen reported on the appointment of terHorst, the man whom he himself would succeed one month later. Nessen, who also served NBC News as a war correspondent during the Vietnam War, was seriously wounded by grenade fragments while on patrol outside Pleiku in the Central Highlands in July 1966. He was with cameraman Peter Boultwood when he was wounded. Nessen was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1996 to 2003, and served as Chair in 2003.