page_title: Roger Stone
section_title: 1980s: Reagan 1980, lobbying, Bush 1988
hierarchical_section_title: Roger Stone / Career / 1980s: Reagan 1980, lobbying, Bush 1988
caption_attribution_description: English: President Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Lee Atwater, Sally Atwater, Roger Stone, Ann Stone, (Not in all Photos)
context_page_description: Roger Jason Stone is an American conservative political consultant, lobbyist, and convicted felon. In November 2019, subsequent to the Mueller report and Special Counsel investigation, he was convicted on seven counts, including witness tampering and lying to investigators. On February 20, 2020, he was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison. The sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump on July 10, 2020.
  Since the 1970s, Stone worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In addition to frequently serving as a campaign adviser, Stone was previously a political lobbyist. In 1980, he co-founded a Washington, D.C.–based lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black Jr. The firm recruited Peter G. Kelly and was renamed Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly in 1984. During the 1980s, BMSK became a top lobbying firm by leveraging its White House connections to attract high-paying clients including U.S. corporations and trade associations, as well as foreign governments. By 1990, it was one of the leading lobbyists for American companies and foreign organizations.
context_section_description: Stone went on to serve as chief strategist for Thomas Kean's campaign for Governor of New Jersey in 1981 and for his reelection campaign in 1985.
  Stone, the "keeper of the Nixon flame", was an adviser to the former President in his post-presidential years, serving as "Nixon's man in Washington". Stone was a protégé of former Connecticut Governor John Davis Lodge, who introduced the young Stone to former Vice President Nixon in 1967. After Stone was indicted in 2019, the Nixon Foundation released a statement distancing Stone's ties to Nixon. John Sears recruited Stone to work in Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, coordinating the Northeast. Stone said that Roy Cohn helped him arrange for John B. Anderson to get the nomination of the Liberal Party of New York, a move that would help split the opposition to Reagan in the state. Stone said Cohn gave him a suitcase that Stone avoided opening and that, as instructed by Cohn, he dropped off at the office of a lawyer influential in Liberal Party circles. Reagan carried the state with 46% of the vote. Speaking after the statute of limitations for bribery had expired, Stone later said, "I paid his law firm. Legal fees. I don't know what he did for the money, but whatever it was, the Liberal party reached its right conclusion out of a matter of principle."
  In 1980, after their key roles in the Reagan campaign, Stone and Manafort decided to go into business together, with partner Charlie Black, creating a political consulting and lobbying firm to cash in on their relationships within the new administration. Black, Manafort & Stone (BMS), became one of Washington D.C.'s first mega-lobbying firms and was described as instrumental to the success of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign. Republican political strategist Lee Atwater joined the firm in 1985, after serving in the #2 position on Reagan-Bush 1984.
  Because of BMS's willingness to represent brutal third-world dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, the firm was branded "The Torturers' Lobby". BMS also represented a host of high-powered corporate clients, including Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, The Tobacco Institute and, starting in the early 1980s, Donald Trump.
  In 1987 and 1988, Stone served as senior adviser to Jack Kemp's presidential campaign, which was managed by consulting partner Charlie Black. In that same election, his other partners worked for George H. W. Bush (Lee Atwater as campaign manager, and Paul Manafort as director of operations in the fall campaign).
  In April 1992, Time alleged that Stone was involved with the controversial Willie Horton advertisements to aid George H. W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, which were targeted against Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Stone has said that he urged Lee Atwater not to include Horton in the ad. Stone denied making or distributing the advertisement, and said it was Atwater's doing.
  In the 1990s, Stone and Manafort sold their business. Although their careers went in different directions, their relationship remained close. Stone married his first wife Anne Elizabeth Wesche in 1974. Using the name Ann E.W. Stone, she founded the group Republicans for Choice in 1989. They divorced in 1990.
caption: Roger Stone and his wife Ann Stone with President and First Lady Reagan in 1984
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