Co-Founders of With Honor Peter Dixon, Rye Barcott, and David Gergen at the With Honor Gala for the 118th Congress.
David Gergen
May 9, 1942 – July 10, 2025
If you would care to contribute something in his honor, please consider giving to the Gergen Public Service Fellowships at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership via this link.
Harvard Center for Public Leadership: Rye Barcott reflects on five pieces of advice from David Gergen
I’m among the lucky ones to have had David Gergen as a teacher. When I graduated from Harvard Kennedy School in 2009, he became a mentor. Years later, when I started a nonprofit, he became a cofounder. Now, he is a cherished friend.
An action-oriented person, I think David would most appreciate my sharing in a tribute to him advice that I learned from him that can be useful to others pursuing lives of service. Here are five pieces of advice I gained from the great good fortune of knowing David Gergen.
Lesson one: use lists
I might as well start with this one, perhaps the most pragmatic pieces of advice from David.
Months after completing my third overseas tour as a Marine in Fallujah, Iraq, I joined the Kennedy School on a fellowship David had established with veterans in mind at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership (CPL). I knew I wanted to study under David. He was one of the few balanced voices of reason on cable news, and I had watched television anchors and commentators with keen interest ever since replying to a second-grade survey on what I wanted to be when I grew up with, “Tom Brokaw.”
Unfortunately, David’s class was full my first semester. We had met through a mutual friend in North Carolina, and I had a more of a personal relationship with him from the outset because we shared ties to the Old North State, where he grew up, and where I earned my bachelor’s degree and intended to settle after graduation with my amazing [University of North Carolina Chapel Hill] Tar Heel wife. So, I approached him one day and proposed an independent study on speechwriting, which he had a singular point of view on, having written and edited speeches for four sitting U.S. presidents. While David had not offered an independent study focused on speechwriting before, he was interested in new ideas, appreciated my initiative, and wanted to help me with my career development.
Of course, his time was stretched well beyond that of a typical overworked professor. In addition to teaching, David directed CPL, where he created and grew four new national fellowship programs for graduate students. He also spoke to groups around the United States, wrote books, and provided commentary each week as a CNN senior political analyst. Nonetheless, he thought about my proposal, and suggested that each week I come to his home library, select a book, read it, and discuss it together the following week. I knew instantly that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
What I didn’t realize initially was that each book included David’s own handwritten notes in the margins. The notes were obviously a gift for me, but they were also a source of intrigue for David, who in most cases had not revisited his initial observations, some of which were written when he was in the arena advising presidents and making history. The history he made started early in his career. His first job in the Nixon White House resulted in his penning Nixon’s resignation letter.
“No one else was around,” he joked on his 80th birthday, recalling the moment to friends. The letter, addressed to Henry Kissinger, was certainly to the point. “Dear Mr. Secretary,” David Gergen wrote for Richard Nixon, “I hereby resign the Office of the President of the United States. Sincerely,’
David’s handwritten reflections in the books included many candid moments, such as “not true” next to hagiographic excerpts in books about Nixon and Johnson, and “yes!” beside content he agreed with. Passages about the importance of service were often underlined, including a passage that formed the basis of a future book David would write, and which I reference at the end of this tribute.
There were so many learnings I pulled from this inimitable deep dive on speechwriting with one of our nation’s great speechwriters. A common thread across nearly all of the books was the utility of lists in speeches to distill and package ideas effectively, and to help capture attention in a cluttered world. David often affirmed this technique in our sessions together, and he recalled how he thought about it when he took over as editor of U.S. News & World Report. Under his leadership, the magazine became best known for its annual rankings lists, the most notable of which continues today to rank universities and colleges.
Whenever I deploy a list in my writing or public speaking—as I am doing at this moment—I think of David and that remarkable time in his home library with his books.
Lesson two: you can’t influence every audience
You can influence a lot when you have as much respect and skill as a communicator as David Gergen. But you can’t influence every audience.
I returned to Boston for a reunion of fellows of Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership at the famed New England Aquarium. It was a significant occasion to celebrate CPL’s stunning growth of fellowships under David’s leadership. We had the entire aquarium to ourselves, for the most part. David opened the evening at the podium.
“Good evening, fellows, friends, and family,” he began.
“Honk,” something sounded.
David paused. He raised an eyebrow. The noise stopped.
He continued. “It’s an honor to be with you all. …”
“Honk, honk.” Two penguins shuffled behind the podium, chins up.
David stopped. The penguins stopped.
He smiled, acknowledged the penguins, and began again with his remarks.
“Honk, honk, HONK.” The din grew louder.
He paused, and remarkably, the penguins stopped honking.
“Tough crowd,” he observed. Gradually, as he spoke, more penguins began honking. The two penguins behind the podium appeared on top of each other.
“HONK HONK HONK.”
It was a cacophony of randy penguins, and there was nothing David Gergen could do about it.
He read the room and pivoted: “Well, that settles it then. Go forth, fellows, and multiply!” David concluded the formalities of the evening.
Years later, “honk” became a code whenever a group of us who had been in the room where it happened reconnected with David. One spectator wondered aloud if the penguins had been attracted to the timbre of his voice: baritone, smooth, and inviting.
David loves this memory. He loves to laugh.
Although David would often note that it was important to define a primary audience when writing a speech, another headline for this piece of advice could be about having a sense of humor. On this, he once wrote: “What good leaders understand is that a capacity to laugh at anxieties and absurdities of modern life won’t solve your problems but will help you get through them.”
A moment from the “Penguin Night” at the New England Aquarium with (L-R): Brad Davis, Rye Barcott, Jess Anderson, Max Anderson, and David Gergen. Photograph by Tom Fitzsimmons.
Lesson three: the past informs the future
David often reflects on history to make more informed decisions and tell stories that inspire change. This was as true in his role advising presidents, as it was in his own writing, television commentary, and advice to mentees. One of his former research assistants referred to it as his superpower.
I benefited often from his historical wisdom, but none more so than at one of the most pivotal junctures in my career. I was considering leaving a relatively successful business career in my late 30s to start a nonprofit with Peter Dixon, a friend from the Marines who was also a mentee of David. Peter and I noticed a surge of post-9/11 veterans preparing to run for office in the 2018 midterm elections. Some of these veterans were our peers, including my business partner, Dan McCready, another Marine and Iraq War veteran. Could the next generation of veterans help lead our nation and combat the crippling polarization in Congress by working together across party lines?
Intuitively, we thought the answer was yes. We knew from our personal experiences that military service is a great equalizer. It forges bonds between Americans from all walks of life, young men and women united in service to something larger than oneself. Moreover, veteran representation in Congress had declined from over 70% to under 20% over our lifetimes as polarization in the first branch of our democracy had skyrocketed.
Nonetheless, we had no political or policymaking experience. So, I viewed David’s reaction to the idea as the initial stage gate. He was the most respected bipartisan leader I knew. He cared about my career and knew many of my own strengths and shortcomings.
David listened intently as I described a character-based pledge that would form the backbone of the organization we started calling “With Honor.” Any veteran we supported would need to pledge to serve with integrity, civility, and courage, I explained, especially the courage to work across party lines. We would evaluate character through veterans with whom candidates had served, many of whom had served in combat. Combat is the ultimate test of character. We would launch a political action committee that would help the most talented and competitive of the veterans run for Congress and win, especially in primary races, where veterans often faced a massive disparity in resources. After all, they had spent their early adult years in service to the nation.
Characteristically, David reacted first with historical context. He recalled working with bipartisan veterans on the national stage whose relationships together made a consequential impact, such as Senators Dan Inouye and Bob Dole. Dole and Inouye had first forged a friendship recovering together from grievous wounds in combat in WWII. He spoke also about the transformative impact of military service on Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, and H.W. Bush. On this theme, he would later write:
“I would not pretend the leaders of the World War II generation were perfect. They weren’t. … But on the whole that generation raised our sights about what is possible when our civic culture is strong and our leaders work across divides. On their watch, the country went to the moon, created the Peace Corps, passed major legislation advancing the causes of women and communities of color, reformed Social Security, created world-class universities, and invested heavily in science and technology. And by the way, they won the Cold War without firing a shot directly at the Russians. … United and well led, the World War II generation proved that, when inspired, we are a can-do people.”
David brought up two of the first post-9/11 veterans who had recently been elected to Congress: Rep. Seth Moulton, whom David had mentored as a Harvard College student, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, who had earned a PhD from Princeton. I knew Seth and Mike from the Marines. They were exceptional, and I planned to call them as a next step if the meeting with David went well.
The meeting was going well. David concluded it with the essential question: had veterans in Congress been more bipartisan than non-veterans?
I didn’t know the answer. There had been no outside measure of it. David encouraged me to reach out to a political science professor who helped run an analysis using data on voting in Congress and sponsorship of legislation. The result became our validation: Members of Congress with military service as a group had been more bipartisan than members of Congress without military service since World War II.
David had guided me to a narrative tied to our history and backed by data. With that, I went for it. I turned my best hours to With Honor, and asked David to join as a co-founder. He graciously agreed and months later introduced us to our largest early backer, who remembered through our mission his friend, the late U.S. Marine and Astronaut, Senator John Glenn.
David and Anne Gergen at a Center for Public Leadership 2015 Reunion with mentees Marine Corps veterans (L-R) Rye Barcott, Jake Cusack, and Seth Moulton.
Lesson four: remember the Golden Rule
I never actually heard David mention the Golden Rule, the moral principle that states you should treat others as you would want to be treated. Living the Golden Rule can be challenging when you have a full life with many demands on your time. For students, myself included, getting time with David could be extremely challenging. You had to really work to get on his schedule. Most students just gave up after a try or two. Some even took it personally.
“He isn’t replying to my emails,” many a Harvard student thought, and at least one wrote. “I pay to go here!”
Nonetheless, if you take the time and stay politely persistent, you generally get the time. And when you get the time, he is there for you. His natural instinct is to help. He is a helper, and he is kind to people regardless of their station in life. Gracious to wait staff at dinners, taxicab drivers, custodians, strangers who wanted photos–you name it.
As the country’s polarization deepened, the commentary on cable news became louder and more obnoxious. I saw David Gergen on television hundreds of times in the past 20 years. I never once saw him lose his cool. After one particularly ridiculous moment, when David was in between two accomplished people yelling at each other, I asked him how he managed to keep his composure. He said he tried to understand where people were coming from, speak to those ideas, and not take things personally. “But it can be difficult,” he added with a laugh.
Many people know David from some level of personal interaction. Regardless of the depth of their relationship, people always speak to what a good person he is. It’s remarkable. I never hear criticism, apart from the occasional quips about how to find more time with him. For those he knows well, he is an exceptional friend, the type who genuinely wants the best for you, celebrates your successes, stays present through your setbacks, and can always, always be trusted.
His kindness and concern for others carry over to his children, who are living service-oriented lives and also benefited from an amazing mother, David’s wife Anne, who is a psychologist and a beautiful writer in her own right. Of Anne, David wrote in the final lines of his first book, the masterpiece Eyewitness to Power:
“Public service demands its greatest sacrifices not from those in government but from their loved ones. They experience many of the hardships and few of the rewards. I was blessed that my wife, Anne, stood by me, nurtured our children in their early years, endured the long days of isolation, and, in the midst of all that, flowered into the woman she has become.”
Christopher Gergen, David’s son, had told me that it would be understandable for his father to feel angry, frustrated or at least a little bit grumpy as his body and mind fight the brutal disease that is Lewy body dementia. But no, he is as kind and as gentle as ever to everyone who interacts with him, from his family to his neighbors, who include his longstanding colleague Joe Nye, a steady stream of old friends and mentees, and of course the nurses and other caregivers. David Gergen has perhaps never said the Golden rule. He just lives it.
Lesson five: leadership at its best is service to others
If this were a ranked-order list, this might be the first bullet for David’s advice on leadership, though it is also fitting as the last. Nearly every interaction I have had with David involves the theme of service. After the first election cycle with With Honor, we helped elect or re-elect 19 members of Congress to work across party lines, including Reps. Seth Moulton and Mike Gallagher. What would this group organize around initially across party lines?
David guided us to voluntary national service, and it became one of the three key pillars of the Congressional caucus. Voluntary national service is immensely popular in polling across party lines throughout the nation. Yet fewer than 1% of young Americans now serve in the military, and fewer than 5% serve in civilian capacities or public service jobs such as teachers and nurses.
With David’s encouragement and the support of many in his vast network of friends, we’ve since helped pass laws to expand AmeriCorps and Junior ROTC in high schools across the nation. This will be an enduring focus of commitment for With Honor.
After With Honor’s first gubernatorial candidate was elected, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, David and I flew to Baltimore to see him. “Service will save us,” Governor Moore had proclaimed on the campaign trail. We were thrilled to learn that the very first bill Wes intended to initiate focused on national service. The SERVE Act, since passed into law, created a service year option for Maryland youth.
In 2022, David published his final book. The book’s title is inspired from the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Holmes, who had been left for dead on the battlefields of the Civil War, fought for African American rights and became one of the most consequential Supreme Court justices in U.S. history. Holmes said in a Memorial Day speech to veterans and their families in 1884:
“As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived. … Through our great good fortune, in our youth, our hearts were touched with fire. It is given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing.”
David’s view on service is best embodied in his own words reflecting on these lines by Holmes. David wrote in his final book, Hearts Touched With Fire: How Great Leaders are Made:
“What a glorious way to capture what so many young men and women have experienced in one era after another in committing themselves to civic life, seeking to create a fairer, more just, and more peaceful world. Life will hold perils, but in devoting yourself to the service of others, you find satisfaction that transcends your troubles. As many have discovered, service and leadership are inextricably bound together. Indeed, leadership at its best is service to others.”
Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to David, one of the few who makes it his life’s work to serve our country and his fellow citizens. Service comes in many forms, and many of us who consider David a friend and mentor serve in uniform. But his life shows us that anyone can serve and that service can save us. Our country’s brightest days can still be ahead of us through service to one another. He impresses upon us a lifetime devoted to this cause. And we, all of us who know him, are better people for knowing him. Thank you, David.
February 12, 2024, Harvard Center for Public Leadership dinner after a Kennedy School Forum keynote on public service and bipartisan leadership co-hosted by With Honor with David’s colleague former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who has been a champion for national service along with his son, Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who is the founding Co-Chair of the For Country Caucus. Joined by Governor Deval Patrick, David R. Gergen Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, and Secretary Anthony Foxx, Director, Center for Public Leadership.
