Peggy Noonan was a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986. In 1988, she was chief speechwriter to Vice President George Bush during his first campaign for the presidency. In 1989, she left Washington for her native New York, where she completed her first book, the bestseller What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Years. Since that time her journalism and essays have appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper's, Forbes, Mirabella, Harper's Bazaar, and The Washington Monthly. She is the author of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, (Random House, 1994) and Simply Speaking: How to Communicate Your Ideas With Style, Substance, and Clarity, which gives advice and anecdotes about writing and giving of speeches. Her most recent book, The Case Against Hillary Clinton, examines the First Lady's own campaign for independent political office.

Noonan was a member of the President's Commission on International Broadcasting, 1990-'91, and co-wrote the Commission report recommending the creation of Radio Free China. She is co-chair of the Public Broadcasting System's Project Democracy, and a member of the board of Freedom House.

In 1990, Noonan received an Honorary Doctorate in Letters from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Before entering the Reagan White House she was a producer at CBS News in New York. She wrote and produced Dan Rather's daily radio commentary from 1981 to '84; she also wrote television news specials for CBS News. From 1978 to 1981 she was a writer/producer at the CBS Radio Network, producing radio hourly news broadcasts and the networks weekly World of Religion.

In 1978 and '79 Noonan was an adjunct professor of Journalism at New York University.

From 1975 to 1978, she wrote and broadcast the editorials and public affairs documentaries of WEEI-AM, then the all-news CBS radio station in Boston, Massachusetts. Her editorials and documentaries won a number of regional journalism awards.

In the fall of 1995 she will write and host a series on values for PBS.

In 1974, Noonan graduated cum laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she was editor of the undergraduate newspaper, The Spectator. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Long Island and New Jersey. She lives in New York City with her son.

NOTE: Bio is as it appeared in the Forum program from February 16, 2002.