Ken Bacon: 1944 – 2009

While traveling to Ireland in the 1980s, I ran into a rather loquacious local in a rural pub.  At that time, like now, Ireland was going through economic tough times.  I asked the stranger, so how is life around here these days?

“Oh it’s bad,” he replied in his lilting Irish accent, “really bad.  People are dyin’ that’ve never died before.”

I laughed.  But the older I get the more that sentiment rings true.  I keep getting reminders about the fragility of life, and unfairness of death.

I’d heard that former Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon was losing his battle with melanoma, but I was nevertheless shocked to get the sad news of his passing, upon my return to the United States from Europe.

Ken was a well-respected reporter at the Wall Street Journal for a quarter of a century before I met him, back in 1994.   I was a relative newcomer to Pentagon beat, and Ken was my introduction to how, for a few rare individuals, it IS possible to move from journalism to government spokesman, and keep your integrity intact.

It’s a testament to Ken that when Defense Secretary William Perry, a Democrat, was replaced by Sen. William Cohen, a Republican, Cohen was smart enough to keep him on.  Cohen could see that that Ken had unique abilities including a keen intellect, disarmingly sharp sense of humor, and solid relationship with the press corps he had once been part of.

Ken knew the first rule of building and keeping credibility as a government spokesperson is to never lie.  And I’m sure he never did.  He might have been misinformed on occasion, but frankly I don’t remember that, either.  I do remember that he used his authority as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, a four-star equivalent, to work military and civilians  in the building for facts and information the same way he did as a reporter.

I learned a lot from Ken Bacon, not of least of which was the word “perseverate,” which he invoked whenever reporters insisted on asking the same repetitive questions over and over.  It’s part of my vocabulary now, and whenever I use it I think of Ken.

Ken Bacon was a remarkable man, who was an exemplary journalist and spokesman, but his greatest achievement was as a humanitarian and human rights advocate.   It was in that role that Ken taught us all something about what can be accomplished with the “third act” of life.

Now if I can just figure that part out as well as he did.