Patricia Lindh, 75; Women’s Advocate, Aide to Ford

Patricia Sullivan Lindh, a women’s rights advocate who served as President Gerald Ford’s special assistant for women’s affairs, has died. She was 75.

Lindh died Monday in San Diego of complications from lung cancer.

When she joined the White House in 1974, Lindh, who was often praised for her candor, said the Watergate scandal of the Richard Nixon administration would not have occurred if more women had held top staff positions at the time. “I think women have a higher moral sense of what is right or wrong,” she said. “I think women have more moral sensitivity than men.”

During her tenure in the Ford administration, Lindh helped form policy for and served as delegate to the First International Women’s Year Conference, held in Mexico City in 1975. The following year, she became deputy assistant secretary of State for educational and cultural affairs, promoting the Fulbright Scholarship program and other cultural exchanges.

From 1978 until her retirement in 1993, Lindh switched to the private sector in Los Angeles and later San Francisco, as a vice president for corporate communications for Bank of America. In Los Angeles, she was active on boards of the California Hospital Medical Center, the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles and Southwestern University School of Law.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, and brought up in Cleveland and Chicago, the former Patricia Sullivan graduated from Trinity College in Washington, D.C. After her marriage to H. Robert Lindh Jr., an international oil company executive, the couple lived in Singapore, Pakistan and Kuwait for a decade.

Lindh began her long political involvement in Baton Rouge, La., after the family returned to the U.S. in 1965. She served as a national committeewoman and delegate to the 1972 Republican National Convention, where she worked on its Platform Committee.

In addition to her husband of 49 years, survivors include their three children, Robert L. Lindh of Newport Beach, Sheila Koenig of Monrovia and Deborah Murphy of Portland, Ore.; nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

A memorial Mass is scheduled for 2 p.m. July 30 at San Rafael Catholic Church, followed by a reception at the Country Club of Rancho Bernardo near San Diego.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be sent to the Odyssey Hospice, 9444 Balboa Ave., Suite 290, San Diego, CA 92123.