Lyndon Allin; Served Nixon, Reagan

Lyndon “Mort” Allin, 59, who served as deputy White House press secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Allin, a foreign policy specialist, had a 10-year career with the U.S. Information Agency from 1978 to 1981 and from 1984 to 1991. He began as assistant information officer at the U.S. Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria. Born in Detroit and raised in Madison, Wis., Allin came to Washington in 1967 as the national director of the Youth for Nixon campaign organization. He later became a special assistant to Nixon at the White House where he edited the president’s daily news summary. He did similar work in the Ford administration. After leaving the Reagan White House in July 1983, Allin served in Russia as press and cultural counselor at the American Consulate in what is now St. Petersburg. During his overseas tours, he often had to explain the Watergate scandal. “The main point that I always made then, both in the Soviet Union and Nigeria, and I think it’s relevant here, is that the key thing in this country is the credibility of the media and the government. And whenever one is gone, then everybody is in trouble. And I think that’s what happened during the Watergate period to the Nixon administration,” he said. After retiring from the U.S. Information Agency in 1991, Allin worked as a program instructor for the Close-Up Foundation, teaching young people about the inner workings of government. On Feb. 28 of leukemia at Washington Hospital Center.