Clay T. Whitehead

Clay T. "Tom" Whitehead (November 13, 1938 – July 23, 2008[1]) was a United States government official who served as special assistant to the president from 1968 to 1970; director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP) from 1970 to 1974 during the Nixon administration; director of the Ford Transition Team immediately before Nixon's resignation; and an operative in the White House during the initial phases of the Ford transition.

[1] In addition, Whitehead engaged in extensive studies in economics, which almost qualified him to write a dissertation in the field, but instead decided finally to leave MIT.

From 1958 to 1960 he worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, between 1958 and 1960 under the MIT cooperative program developing experimental design of pulse and analog electronic equipment.

[4][5][6][7] The policy enabled cable television networks including C-SPAN, CNN, and HBO to prosper and created a ripple effect that ultimately led to sweeping and lasting changes in the telecommunications landscape.

Brian Lamb was director for Congressional and media relations, resigning in 1974, and Antonin Scalia was the general counsel for OTP at that time.

“He was credited with formulating policies that gave more autonomy to local stations in the public broadcasting system, which was seen by some PBS executives as an attack on the service in large part because of Dr. Whitehead's early reputation for antagonizing the press.”[2] In a noted 1972 speech, Whitehead used the terms "elitist gossip" and "ideological plugola" to echo the Nixon administration's claims of liberal bias in network news.

[1][2][7] Whitehead's design for SES upended the monopolies of government-run, language-specific television and grew tremendously to become the world's largest satellite system.

[14] During this time, he was also president of Clay Whitehead Associates, an international business development company working primarily in the telecom and television industries.