Helen Smith, 84; Spokeswoman for First Lady Pat Nixon

Helen Smith, First Lady Pat Nixon’s press secretary during the Watergate scandal, died of vascular disease April 9. She was 84.

Smith joined Nixon’s press staff in 1968 after having been a secretary in the Washington bureau of the New York Daily News. She was promoted to press secretary in 1973, and stayed with the first lady until the president resigned the next year.

“Press secretaries are often not attuned to what the press needs, but she knew the news business,” said longtime White House reporter Helen Thomas, who covered the Nixon administration. “You could trust her.”

After Nixon resigned Aug. 8, 1974, Smith worked briefly for First Lady Betty Ford. She left the White House later that year and moved to London to be an assistant to Elliot Richardson, then U.S. ambassador to England. In the early 1980s, she was a spokeswoman for Energy Secretary James Edwards.