Kenneth Cole; Aide to Presidents Nixon, Ford

Kenneth Reese Cole Jr., an assistant to two presidents, died Aug. 16 in his sleep at his summer home in Willsboro, N.Y. He was 63.

Born in New York City, Cole served as the director of the White House’s Domestic Council under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

In December 1972, Nixon named Cole to the post, which had been held since its creation in 1970 by John D. Ehrlichman, the president’s chief assistant for domestic affairs.

Cole, then 33, had been Ehrlichman’s deputy for three years.

In January 1974, Nixon appointed Cole as his chief domestic policy advisor. Cole continued to serve as executive director of the Domestic Council.

A former account representative for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson Co. in New York, Cole was an early volunteer in Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1967. In 1968, he was asked to join the campaign full time to work on administrative problems and direct an advance team.

After Nixon’s election, Cole became a staff secretary to the president. Then he briefly worked for the president’s assistant, H.R. Haldeman, before becoming Ehrlichman’s deputy.

Cole continued as Domestic Council director under Ford until early 1975.

After leaving the White House, he became an executive of the Union Camp Corp., a paper company in Wayne, N.J. A decade later, he formed his own company, Arran Capital, in Palm Beach, Fla. Cole had a winter home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.