Liz Carpenter - Media and Political Career

Media and Political Career

In 1942, Carpenter began covering the White House and Congress for the Austin American-Statesman. For the next eighteen years, she reported on presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy as a Washington reporter.

Les and Liz Carpenter were married on June 17, 1944, after he was discharged from the United States Navy during World War II. They launched the Carpenter News Bureau in the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. For the next sixteen years Carpenter covered Congress and the White House for various newspapers in Texas. She missed work only briefly when their two children, Scott and Christy, were born.

She was still a working reporter at the time of the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California. She soon joined the staff of Lyndon B. Johnson in his campaign for Vice President in 1960 and traveled on his foreign missions as a press spokeswoman. After Kennedy's election, she became the first woman executive assistant to the vice-president.

Carpenter was in Dallas on November 22, 1963, at the time of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. She drafted the fifty-eight words that Johnson used on his return to Washington:

This is a sad time for all people. We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed. For me, it is a deep personal tragedy. I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear. I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help and God's.

Following Johnson's succession to the presidency, Carpenter became the first professional newswoman to be press secretary to a first lady for Lady Bird Johnson (1963–1969), for whom she also served as staff director. Carpenter also contributed to the speeches of President Johnson, particularly in the field of humor by creating the White House Humor Group.

After the Johnson Administration ended in 1969, she wrote Ruffles and Flourishes, her account of her White House experiences.

She was a vice president of Hill and Knowlton in Washington after leaving the White House. In 1971, she was one of the founders of the National Women's Political Caucus and co-chair of ERAmerica, traveling the country to push for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

She was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the International Women's Year Commission, by President Jimmy Carter to serve as Assistant Secretary of Education for Public Affairs, and by President Bill Clinton to serve on the White House Conference on Aging.