Faith Amy Whittlesey (née Ryan; February 21, 1939 – May 21, 2018) was an American Republican politician, White House Senior Staff member, and author.

She was noted for her efforts to communicate Ronald Reagan's entire policy agenda to U.S. opinion leaders and for bringing together for the first time in the Reagan White House evangelical, Catholic, and other conservative religious groups who opposed legalized abortion and were concerned about moral and cultural decline and the break-up of the family.

Ambassador to Switzerland and also served for 2 years on the Reagan White House Senior Staff as Assistant to the President for Public Liaison.

[3] Of this memorandum, Ambassador Jean Zwahlen, later a Member of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank, wrote her: "I still keep a vivid memory of your skill to help delicate negotiations in the 80s.

"[5] Whittlesey was named Assistant to the President for Public Liaison in 1983 at the suggestion of Ronald Reagan's Ambassador to Austria and personal assistant Helene von Damm,[10] and at the urging of White House Chief of Staff James Baker and Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver.

[5] Her tenure was marked by initiatives to improve the access of conservative religious believers to the American political process and national policymaking.

She clashed with some other members of the Reagan White House senior staff whom she regarded as "largely Washington permanent government party functionaries not very committed to advocating the President's policies in a serious or consistent way.

She had taken the job of Public Liaison because of "a profound sense of obligation to the grassroots voters who had elected Reagan believing him to be a man of deep principle and traditional faith.

[11][3] At the direction of White House Chief of Staff James Baker, Whittlesey spent a great deal of her time as assistant to the President for Public Liaison organizing communication of information about Reagan's policies in Central America and, in particular, the anticommunist "Contras" in Nicaragua.

[17] In 1983, she established the White House Outreach Working Group on Central America to help increase private sector understanding of Reagan's policies,[18] including working with, among many other individuals and groups, the American Security Council Foundation, to produce anti-Sandinista propaganda (what she would call "truth-telling") films, and the [19] Council for National Policy to produce materials that revealed the Marxist–Leninist orientation of the Sandanista movement.

"[21] Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Constantine Menges cited "the very effective public outreach staff headed by Ambassador Faith Whittlesey"[22] in his reflections on Reagan foreign policy.

Despite its effectiveness, Whittlesey says the Outreach Group was shut down in 1985 when Donald Regan took over as Chief of Staff and the White House "started the brown bag operation with Ollie North.

[3] According to Whittlesey, "the Washington establishment, especially Democratic but also most of the Republican, was opposed to, wanted to downplay, or gave the silent treatment to Reagan's Central American anti-communist policies.

"[23] The final House report on Iran-Contra concluded that Whittlesey unsuccessfully attempted to help Oliver North obtain a U.S. passport for a fake Saudi prince who claimed to have knowledge of the locations of hostages being held in Lebanon.

[24] Whittlesey emphatically denied the claim, for which she maintained no proof was produced, as a politically motivated attempt by a Democrat-dominated House to discredit her White House Outreach Group initiative, which had been "a legitimate and in every respect legal attempt to communicate Reagan's anti-communist policy in Central America.

[2] After leaving Switzerland, Whittlesey joined the New York-based law firm of Myerson & Kuhn[31] until its 1990 bankruptcy filing[32] She also served as president of the American Swiss Foundation.

[5] Whittlesey's diplomatic career resumed briefly in 2001 when she was named by President George W. Bush to be an At-Large Member of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

[35] She arranged for convicted Russian spy Maria Butina to meet Jeffrey Gordon on September 29, 2016, at the Swiss Ambassador's residence.