Background

Herbert George Klein was born on April 1, 1918, in Los Angeles, California, United States. He was the son of George and Amy Cordes Klein. As a boy, he dreamed of a sportswriting career.

Education

Herbert Klein graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles in 1935. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Southern California in 1940. At the university, he served as a sports editor for the Daily Trojan during his junior year and wrote a column called "Sports Scribbles" in his junior and senior years.

Klein also received an honorary doctorate from New York College of Podiatry in 1972, an honorary doctorate from the University of San Diego in 1989 and from the University of Southern California in 2006.

Career

Herbert Klein began his journalistic career in 1940. He worked as a reporter at the Alhambra Post-Advocate till 1942 when he joined the United States Navy. He was sent to San Diego and rose from the rank of ensign to commander. After the war, he went back to journalism, becoming a special correspondent for the Copley Newspapers in 1946 and news editor for Alhambra Post-Advocate. It was on that stint that he covered Nixon's 1946 campaign. Nixon recruited Klein to his staff in 1948 when Nixon ran for re-election.

Klein moved to San Diego in 1950 to write news stories, features, and editorials for the Evening Tribune. In 1952, he was transferred to the Copley chain's flagship paper, The San Diego Union, as a chief editorial writer. He rose through the ranks to editorial page editor, associate editor, executive editor, and, by 1959, editor of the morning newspaper. Klein accompanied Vice President Nixon to Moscow in 1959 for historic meetings with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and, a year later, represented Nixon in setting the terms for the first televised debates between presidential candidates, against Sen. John F. Kennedy.

Klein served Nixon, in various capacities, until 1973 when his position of director of White House communications - which had then created for him by Nixon after his successful run for president in 1968 - was eliminated. He then joined Metromedia Inc., a national non-network broadcasting group, as vice president of corporate relations. In 1980, Klein was appointed editor-in-chief of the nine daily and twenty weekly newspapers that formed the Copley Press, headquartered in San Diego. From his office in Mission Valley, he helped guide the chain's editorial positions, while maintaining contacts in politics and sports. He held that position for more than two decades, retiring in 2003.

From 2004 till the day of his death, Klein worked for Copley Newspapers as a consultant. Through his career, he also wrote a book Making It Perfectly Clear (1980). It is an account of its author’s years as a newspaperman and as a Nixon aide, including his time as director of communications for the executive branch and his recounting of the Nixon White House’s volatile relationship with the media.

Achievements

• Herbert Klein was highly recognized for his work as a journalist and received Special Services to Journalism Award in 1969, Headliner of the Year Award from the Greater Los Angeles Press Club in 1971, and Newspaper Executive of the Year Award from California Press Association in 1994.
  
  He also received alumni awards from the University of Southern California in 1971, Fourth Estate Award from San Diego State University in 1986.
  
  In November 2003, the University of Southern California awarded him the inaugural Half-Century Trojans Hall of Fame award, honoring a lifetime of dedication to the university. In 2006, a University of Southern California journalism scholarship was established in his name and the annual Herbert G. Klein Lecture on Civic and Community Leadership was inaugurated.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Making It Perfectly Clear

    (In Making It Perfectly Clear, Herbert Klein offers an obj...)

    1980

Views

Quotations: "Journalism has been my profession, and politics has been an avocation."

Membership

Herbert Klein was a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, California Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists, California Commonwealth Club, Rotary International, Kiwanis International, Sigma Delta Chi, and Delta Chi. He was the president and then a member of the Alhambra Junior Chamber of C. He served on the board of the San Diego International Sports Council, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., and on the executive committee of the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce.

• member of the board of trustees

  University of Southern California , United States

  1982 - 2009

Interests

• politics, sports, and reading

• Sport & Clubs

  football

Connections

Herbert Klein married Marjorie Galbraith on November 1, 1941. The marriage produced two children, Joanne L. Klein (mistress Robert Mayne) and Patricia A. Klein (mistress John Root).

Father:

George J. Klein

Mother:

Amy Cordes Klein

Daughter:

Joanne L. Mayne

Joanne L. Mayne was the senior executive director of the Office of Development at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry till the day of her death. Mayne spent more than four decades as a devoted member of the Trojan Family. In 1980, Mayne joined the University of Southern California as an administrative assistant for the University of Southern California Associates, the university’s philanthropic support organization. She later moved to the School of Dentistry Office of Development as an assistant director in 1982. She was promoted to director of development in 1985 and became senior executive director in 2000.

Daughter:

Patricia John Root

Wife:

Marjorie Galbraith

colleague:

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only U. S. president to do so. He had previously served as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and prior to that as a U. S. Representative and also Senator from California.