John Richard Coyne Jr.

John Richard Coyne, Jr. died peacefully in his sleep on October 4, 2025, in West Des Moines Iowa, at 90 years old. He was a giant of a man. A tough, proud Marine. Always curious. Often irascible. A conservative who helped shape a nascent political movement. An intellectual with a poet's soul. Author of numerous books. A voice of presidents and corporate titans. Devoted father and grandfather. He lived the life of a hundred men. His passing has ripped a hole in the universe and in the hearts of his four children who loved him dearly: Jennifer, John, Amanda and Charity (Coyne) Moreland.
John Jr. was born on June 2, 1935, in Bangor, Maine, to John Richard Coyne, Sr. and Margaret Louise (Grant) Coyne. John Coyne, Sr. worked at a papermill in Bucksport until the family moved to Long Island, Maine, where his father worked for the U.S. Navy at a fueling base for the Atlantic fleet during World War II. After the war was over, the family moved to Mechanicville in upstate New York.
A precocious child and a voracious reader, John won a Ford Foundation Pre-Induction Scholarship to Columbia University and, at age 16, headed to New York City. He later recalled that he showed up in class wearing a white suit, because everything he knew about New York City came from F. Scott Fitzgerald novels. He said he looked like the Good Humor man.
One of John's favorite haunts was Union Square where he would watch "old Eastern European exiles debate Hegel and Marxist philosophy in loud voices." The Marxists typically won, he said. Beginning a long quest for a cause-a righteous purpose-he, like so many of his generation, was moved by the Communist devotion for equal rights for Black Americans. As a result, the Communists "almost got him." He reported "being saved" by watching what was happening in Korea. He wanted the Marines to route the Chinese Communists, and he wanted to help them do so.
The Marines won the battle for John's soul and they never gave it back. After completing a year at Columbia, he enlisted on February 17, 1953, at age 17, and was sent to Korea as a radio operator. For the rest of his life, he bore the title of Marine with supreme pride. His favorite song was the Marine Corps hymn. For John's 90th birthday, his grandson Patrick learned to play it for him on his electric guitar.
Honorably discharged on February 16, 1956, and armed with the G.I. Bill, John returned to Columbia University. His flair for writing caught the attention of what were known as the Beat Poets. He spent long nights drinking and arguing with many of them, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, at the famous West End Bar. Eventually, sick of smoky bars, black berets, the lack of deodorant, decadent counterculture and poetry, he got drunk, smashed his hand on a table, and told the group that he was traveling as far away from New York and all of them as he could.
True to his promise, John moved to Alaska in 1959 to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he earned a BA and an MA in English Literature. There, he met his wife, Patricia Schaefer Coyne, now divorced, and had two of what would be four children, Jennifer and John, III. He always held Alaska, and particularly Fairbanks, close to his heart. For the rest of his life, he told stories of working a road crew at 40 below, of spending many sub-zero evenings drinking with Jay Rabinowitz, Jack Sexton, and many others at the famed Big International Hotel (which was neither big, nor necessarily international). He spoke of the joy he got from teaching Alaska Native students-his favorite job ever-and debating Shakespeare with the best English professor he ever had, William H. Magee, who influenced him for the rest of his career.
Restlessness got the best of him yet again. Next stop, a quest for a Ph.D. in English at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he was offered a teaching assistantship in the English department for $1,600 a year. "Not a sum conducive to feeding a growing family and buying an occasional bottle of beer," he quipped. When he wasn't teaching or taking classes, he worked as a short-order cook at a greasy spoon and washed dishes in a girls' dormitory.
Still filled with wanderlust, he enrolled at the University of Denver for a degree in library science. Why? He liked libraries. He later said the best thing about that time in his life was the birth of his third daughter, Amanda. Short stints at universities in South Dakota and Puerto Rico followed. Academia was the last refuge for a restless, intellectually curious young man who had generous GI benefits, a growing family, and access to married student housing.
In 1967, he continued his quest for a Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley-the flagship for the New Left uprisings. As a writer, a Marine, a husband, and a father, the protests incensed him, energized him, and served as inspiration. He began to write about those protests and sent them to the National Review, the key intellectual publication of the modern conservative movement.
Shortly after his first piece was published, he got a call from William F. Buckley Jr., asking to meet. It was a big and unlikely deal for a boy from Maine, the son of an Irish blue-collar worker. The two of them had dinner at Trader Vic's in San Francisco. They drank many Navy Grogs. Buckley offered him a job in New York as a staff feature writer and associate editor. (The National Review published this heartfelt piece by Neal B. Freeman about John's work: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/john-coyne-r-i-p/ )
After the birth of his fourth child, Charity, he moved the family to Connecticut and commuted to the offices of National Review in New York Soon, his first book, the Kumquat Statement: Anarchy in the Groves of Academia was published. The book caught the attention of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who offered him a job as his speechwriter.
He declined. The University of Arizona had also offered him a job, and it paid better than both Agnew and the National Review. And besides sun, and maybe, just maybe, the sun brought contentment. Agnew, who was the chief campaigner for President Nixon's reelection, was persistent. The University of Arizona released him from his teaching contract and, likely much to his wife's excitement and consternation (organization and packing not being among her talents), the family of six packed up and moved--yet again--across the country.
It was an historic Nixon/Agnew landslide. John's second book was published, The Impudent Snobs: Agnew versus the Intellectual Establishment. And for a time, in his words, "all was well."
"But then the Watergate tom-toms began beating," he said. Agnew, the odds-on favorite for the 1976 presidential nomination, was "maneuvered" into resigning. John stayed on to work for Nixon as a speechwriter. For a time, "our days were consumed with helping Richard Nixon survive the onslaught." But it all ended on August 9, 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned. During those years, he made and kept two of his best friends-who he communicated regularly with over the decades-Aram Bakshian and Ben Stein, both of whom were so very important to him. (Ben wrote this beautiful tribute to him in the American Spectator, where John at one point was a regular contributor: https://spectator.org/john-coyne-rip/ ).
He continued to work for President Ford for a year, a few U.S. Senators, served as National Review's Washington editor, published another political book, Fall in and Cheer, and then a got a contract to co-write a book with his wife, Patricia, about the oil industry: The Big Breakup.
More packing! He could have stayed in D.C., been a talking head, continuing to drink at the Press Club while recounting the glory days, but he headed to Chicago to write for the CEO of Amoco Corporation, John Swearingen, for whom he had tremendous respect. "One of the last great oil men," he called him.
Chicago's bustle, large shoulders, and unpretentiousness tamed John's restlessness. At long last, he got a front-row seat to the real business of America and his talents were being used by a worthy person. He met and kept many friends in Chicago, including the forever faithful and talented Kent Berry. He quit smoking and drinking and returned to the Catholic church of his youth. He retired from Amoco (now BP) after 22 years.
In retirement, he continued writing articles, book reviews, and books. In 2004, he helped John Swearingen write his memoir, Think Ahead. And in 2007, he coauthored with Linda Bridges a biography of William F. Buckley Jr: "Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and The American Conservative Movement."
But most of his energy was devoted to being a good father and grandfather.
He moved to Iowa in 2020 to be closer to his daughter Charity and took much joy in spending time with his grandchildren: May, Michael, Josie, and Patrick, and following his oldest grandson Toby's career in the Army.
He grew closer to his children, who could and did talk to him about nearly anything: literature, art, politics, business, sports, counterculture. He grew an even greater grudging respect for his favorite (and only) son-in-law, Kevin Moreland. His eldest child, Jennifer, often visited from Wisconsin, where she is a licensed therapist. She interviewed him extensively and took copious notes about this life, for which we are all very grateful. His son John, a talented artist in Alaska, often sent him paintings and sculptures, which he took great pride in. He and his daughter Amanda, a former journalist who is currently the communications director and speechwriter for U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), bonded over writing and shared political inclinations. He spent many, many happy and precious hours with his youngest daughter, Charity, who is the rock of the family and the only one who could match his wit.
He was a giant man and leaves a giant hole.
He often quoted Samual Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with amusement:
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!,"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
But the lead writer of this obituary, his daughter, whom he called "the chip off the old block," believes a more fitting sendoff is from Hamlet. It harkens back to his time at the University of Fairbanks--cold outside, a warm and lively classroom, his wife in a seat by his side, two babies at home, so many roads to travel, so many twists and turns, the life of a hundred men ahead of him:
"Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
On his insistence, the family will celebrate his life privately. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the West Des Moines Public Library, maybe his favorite library of all (and they waived my sister's recent late fee in his honor).
Online Condolences are welcome at www.IlesCares.com.
Arrangements by Iles Dunn's Chapel.
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