WASHINGTON -- DeVan Shumway, the spokesman for the Committee to Re-Elect the President who staunchly defended the
Nixon administration throughout the Watergate scandal, died Wednesday of lung disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
He was 77 and lived in Fairfax County, Va.
Shumway was proficient at what became known as "non-denial denials," in which administration officials sounded as if they were
denying charges without actually doing so. He was the main public contact for President Nixon's reelection committee while
reporters tracked down who ordered the 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel
in Washington. The coverup led to Nixon's resignation in August 1974.
The Washington Post story "is not only fiction, but a collection of absurdities," he said in October 1972, when Post reporters
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward wrote that the FBI had established that the burglary was connected to political spying and
sabotage on behalf of Nixon's reelection campaign. When asked to say what was not true, he refused, on the grounds that
"the entire matter is in the hands of the authorities."
When Watergate burglar James McCord, who worked for the reelection committee, told the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973
that former attorney general John Mitchell had approved plans to bug the Democrats' offices, Shumway said, "I cannot believe
these allegations to be anywhere near the truth." He called the hearings "a star chamber proceeding."
Seven months after the Watergate break-in, the New York Times reported that four of the five burglary suspects were still being paid,
that $900,000 in committee funds was unaccounted for and that Mitchell knew more than he was saying. Shumway told Times
reporter Seymour Hersh that the charges were "outrageously false and preposterous. ... If the Times chooses to publish these
unsupported statements, it will be a serious act of journalistic recklessness and irresponsibility."
It was later established that the charges were true.
Shumway, a native of Blanding, Utah, attended the University of Utah and served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War.
He worked for what became United Press International, rising to the position of West Coast bureau chief in 1959, a job he held
for 10 years.
He led the unsuccessful 1970 reelection campaign for Sen. George Murphy, R-Calif., before going to work for Nixon as assistant
director of communications for the White House. In 1972, he switched to the reelection committee, where he was director of
public relations.
He left the committee in late 1973 and became editor of newspapers in Springfield, Ill., and San Diego. He returned to Washington in
1975 to direct the public information office for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
In 1978, he became editor and publisher of Oil Daily, a trade publication, and in 1989 he became owner and publisher of the
Utility Spotlight newsletter. He retired in 2000.
SOURCE: Erie Times-News (PA) - April 26, 2008
Deceased Name: DeVan Shumway
Steve Shumway - shumways@@petershumway.org
SHUMWAY DeVAN LAKE SHUMWAY On Wednesday, April 23, 2008, of Oakton, VA. Devoted father of Mary, DeVan, David, Craig,
Lisa, Chris and Graham. He is survived by his wife Judith Shumway; 27 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The family
will receive friends at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2719 Hunter Mill Rd., Oakton, VA on Monday, April 28 for
visitation beginning at 9 a.m., and a funeral service will follow at the church at 10 a.m. Interment Rock Creek Cemetery.
Please view and sign the guestbook at: www.moneyandking.com
SOURCE: Washington Post, The (DC) - April 26, 2008
Deceased Name: DeVAN SHUMWAY
Steve Shumway - shumways@@petershumway.org
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