The long and fascinating life of a luminary of the conservative movement has come to a close.
The long and fascinating life of a luminary of the conservative movement has come to a close.
T he Honorable Frank J. Shakespeare Jr. died in his home in Wisconsin on December 14, 2022. He turned 97 years old in April 2022, and lived with his devoted daughter Fredricka and her family during the latter portion of his life.
Frank served as a naval officer at the end of World War II and graduated from Holy Cross College. He became an executive at various large-market television stations, and then was promoted to president of a network “flagship” station, WCBS-TV, 1959–63. Frank became vice president of the CBS Network from 1963 to 1965, and then executive VP of CBS Television from 1965 to 1967.
After his confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Frank became the director of the United States Information Agency, where he worked to improve the United States’ image around the world, 1969–73. It was just after Frank’s departure from USIA in 1973 that I brought a group of YAF students to a taping of William F. Buckley Jr.’s Firing Line television program. I was a graduate student and Mid-Atlantic Representative for Young Americans for Freedom at the time. Frank was the sole guest on the program that day.
Frank returned to private broadcasting as executive vice president of Westinghouse, 1973–75. He served as president of RKO General broadcasting from 1975 to 1983, and as vice chairman from 1983 to 1985. During Frank’s time as president, I was fortunate enough to cross paths with him again. I wrote to him seeking advice on careers in TV and radio. Frank met with me, provided counsel, and referred me to the general manager of WOR-TV, Bob Williamson (who reported to Frank). It turned out that Bob was looking for an editorialist at his station. I was tapped for the job. Frank never took credit for my hiring, as though his referral were unimportant (it wasn’t).
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan named Frank the chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversaw Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. He served there, simultaneous with his other roles, ensuring that the truth was being beamed to the people living under communism, behind the Iron Curtain, in Asia and in Cuba via Radio Martí. Frank stepped down as chairman when President Reagan had other ideas for him.
In 1985, President Reagan appointed Frank to become U.S. ambassador to Portugal, where he served until 1986. Reagan then named him the second U. S. ambassador to the Vatican. Frank served there until 1989. He hosted Reagan there during the president’s critical private meetings with Pope John Paul II in 1987. On one visit I had with Frank and his family in Wisconsin, Frank recounted for me how he was briefed at the Vatican, one on one, by President Reagan, regarding all the details of the discussion and verbal agreements between the president and the pope. I wondered if the two leaders, both having survived assassination attempts, might want other trusted appointees to know the details of the meeting, where the demise of the Soviet empire may have been planned.
We can make educated speculations about this world-changing conversation but can’t know the details for sure. Since both Reagan and John Paul II were deceased when Frank revealed his meeting to me, I asked him about writing, or at least allowing someone to write about their agreements-by-handshake.
It was not to be: Frank was sworn to confidentiality, and even the deaths of the two principals would not get him to open up about Reagan’s personal briefing. I do recall that Frank told me President Reagan’s last words to his Vatican ambassador: “And that’s all I know.” After which, Reagan departed the Vatican, heading to a G-7 meeting in Venice.
Contemporaneous with his “day jobs,” Frank served as board member and then chairman of the Heritage Foundation Board of Trustees, and remained a director emeritus thereafter. He was a longtime board member of Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation, and a supporter of the Fund for American Studies and other organizations that advanced the causes of free markets and opposition to totalitarianism, especially the aggressive Soviet kind. An intellectual and a patriot, Frank always bolstered the United States overseas, as well as the interests of his Roman Catholic Church.
Frank’s career in broadcasting and at senior levels of government was remarkable and demonstrates the high “value added” he brought to every enterprise he led. But his devotion to his Catholic faith and family were unmatched as well. (He was a Knight of Malta, for example.)
While it’s worth recounting all of these demanding executive roles, we must not neglect Frank Shakespeare the man. He was the finest role model, friend, mentor, and moral force one could imagine. In recent years, a retired senior TV executive summarized him thus: “Of all the many people who worked with Frank, not one of them ever had a negative word to say about him.”
That observation is a worthy partial epitaph for this great man.
Frank Shakespeare, 1925–2022, R.I.P.