Nackey Loeb; Conservative Former N.H. Publisher

Nackey S. Loeb, 75, the former publisher of the Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News who during the impeachment scandal ran a headline calling President Clinton “a disgrace.” Loeb, who retired from the Union Leader, the state’s largest newspaper, last May, still maintained an interest in the affairs of the Manchester newspapers, and consulted on the recent endorsement of Steve Forbes in next month’s Republican New Hampshire primary. Loeb and her late husband, William Loeb, bought the newspapers in the 1940s and turned them into two of the nation’s most conservative papers. His blunt editorial style and active involvement in the state’s presidential primaries earned the Union Leader a national reputation that his wife continued to nurture. Nackey Loeb, born in 1924 to Robert and Margaret Scripps and an heir to the Scripps Howard publishing fortune, took over as publisher after her husband died in 1981. During her 18 years at the helm, she pursued a more quiet but still forceful approach. Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan called her his “political godmother,” and credited her endorsement for his 1996 New Hampshire primary upset of Bob Dole. Loeb also kept the newspapers in step with the changing needs of their readers. She made the decision to convert the daily newspaper to a morning publication and was involved in expanding it onto the Internet. Loeb, who had been in failing health due in part to complications associated with her partial paralysis after a 1977 car accident, died at her home in Goffstown, N.H., on Saturday.