Lou Cannon, a consummate journalist who covered the White House for the Washington Post and was the foremost biographer of President Ronald Reagan, died at Serenity House in Santa Barbara on Friday. He was 92.
Cannon was a throwback journalist, the embodiment of classic American newsman values and practices. He was sharp, aggressive and curious, with fine writing skills, and the ability to tell any story with nuanced precision.
His coverage of Reagan — whose career he chronicled through myriad news articles and five books — defined the former actor and his casual rise from B-list Hollywood star to governor and eventually president, serving two terms in the 1980s.
“Lou was an old-school, shoe-leather reporter-guy who interviewed sources over and over,” journalist Ann Louise Bardach, a reporting colleague of Cannon’s for decades, told the News-Press. “He interviewed Reagan more than a 1,000 times, beginning in the mid ’60s. Mixing up my metaphors, he was a natural deep diver who loved legislative arcana.
“And he was fair. No cheap shots. But he could be quite tough.”
Cannon reached the heights of journalism, serving as a political reporter in 1969 for Ridder Publications. He became a reporter in 1957 and then worked at the Contra Costa Times as its managing editor.
He later joined the San Jose Mercury News, where he first started reporting on Reagan, who took office as governor of California in 1967.
In 1972, Cannon jumped to the Washington Post, and his political coverage encompassed presidents Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon.
“In the biography ‘Reagan’ (1982), Mr. Cannon portrayed his subject, a former Hollywood actor and television pitchman, as largely ignorant, unanalytical, passive and childishly simplistic, oblivious to the contradictions in his own beliefs and unable to separate complex realities from fantasies rooted in his attachments to movies, daily astrology readings and his own idealized small-town America origins,” the New York Times wrote.
Cannon’s best-recognized and most-sold work on Reagan, ” ‘President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime’ (1991), examined Reagan’s entire political career and amplified upon his enigmas. While weak on logic and analysis, Reagan was strong on ‘interpersonal intelligence,’ Mr. Cannon wrote, although he distanced himself from those around him, including his wife, Nancy,” the Times added.
Bardach and Cannon enjoyed longtime professional rapport.
“We did several panels and events together over the years about our nonagenarian-subjects, us writing a few books on each. Lou would tell me, ‘This could be a long detour with Reagan’s Alzheimer’s (and it was), and you’re stuck with Fidel Castro, who, God help you, is never ever gonna die.’ Almost true,” Bardach said.
Laura Capps, District 2 supervisor on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, met Cannon about five years ago, and the two became close friends.
“As legendary as Lou Cannon was, what stands out most to me was how consistently kind and gracious he was,” Capps said. “I never expected to become close friends with someone who was 87, but that’s exactly what happened five years ago. He always asked about others. He paid attention. Only when asked would he offer political advice, but when he did, it was sage and unfailingly spot on.”
Capps assisted Cannon in various ways, helping him run errands during recent years.
“Once, when I apologized for being quite late picking him up to take him to see his wife — whom he loved dearly — he gently replied, ‘I am sure you did your best.’
She recalled how recently he continued to dazzle people with his journalism stories.
“His mind remained sharp as a tack until his final days,” Capps said. “Over Thanksgiving with my family just a few weeks ago this year, he quietly held court with his presidential analysis. We were all ears. I loved Lou. Anyone who knew him will understand all the reasons why.”
Journalist Jerry Roberts, host of the political site Santa Barbara Newsmakers, recalled Cannon as “a great journalist, a great man and a great neighbor.”
“The national media are appropriately honoring and celebrating his extraordinary work as an historian and biographer of President Reagan today,” Roberts said. “Those of us who were blessed to call him a friend in Santa Barbara, however, also knew him as someone who quietly nurtured the welfare, education and civility of his community.”
Cannon, who was born in Manhattan, served on the board of the Channel City Club, as a trustee of Antioch University Santa Barbara and took tai chi classes in the park in Carpinteria.
“Lou was woven into the South Coast community,” said Roberts, the former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and former executive editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press. “Most of all, his moral authority and ethical clarity in standing up for the journalists who were under attack during the News-Press meltdown helped articulate and express the values and integrity of what it means to be a Santa Barbaran.”
Cannon is survived by his wife, Mary, three children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
