Joseph Ungaro - Whose Question Led to Nixon's "I Am Not a Crook' - Dies at 76

By: Joseph Ungaro, a former managing editor of The Providence Evening Bulletin whose question to President Nixon at an editors meeting elicited his "I'm not a crook" reply -- one of the most famous quotes in presidential history -- has died. He was 76.

Ungaro died Sunday at South County Hospital in South Kingstown of an undiagnosed illness, his family said.

While president of the Associated Press Managing Editors organization in 1973, Ungaro asked Nixon at the group's annual convention in Orlando, Fla., if he had accurately reported his income taxes.

Nixon's famous declaration came after he had gone on to answer a subsequent question about the Watergate scandal. At the end of that reply, he doubled back to Ungaro's question, saying:

"People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook."

Nixon later agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. A reporter for the Providence newspaper, Jack White, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for reporting on Nixon's tax troubles.

Ungaro began working at Gannett Co.'s Westchester Rockland Newspapers in 1974 as managing editor. He later became vice president and executive editor, vice president and general manager and then president and publisher. He was given the additional responsibilities as vice president of the Metro Newspaper Division.

He later became president and chief executive of the Detroit Newspaper Agency, the company that managed a joint operating agreement between The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

For the last decade, Ungaro worked at Stars and Stripes, where he put together a consolidation plan for the newspaper and then became its ombudsman.

Ungaro, who resided in Charlestown, is survived by his wife, two daughters, a son and four grandchildren.

Ungaro graduated from Providence College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he also taught a class in media management, according to his family.

Visitation is being held Thursday in Wakefield. The funeral is scheduled for Friday morning in Charlestown.