Born to a Jewish family with Romanian roots on his father's side whose last name was originally "Safir", William Safire later added the "e" for pronunciation reasons, though some of his relatives continue to use the original spelling. Safire graduated from the Bronx High School of Science, a specialized public high school in New York City. He attended Syracuse University but dropped out after two years. He would deliver the commencement address at Syracuse in 1978 and 1990 and become a trustee of the university.
He was a public relations executive from 1955 to 1960. Previously, he had been a radio and television producer and a United States Army correspondent. He worked as a publicist for a homebuilder who exhibited a model home at an American trade fair at Sokolniki Park in Moscow in 1959...the one in which Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev had their famous "Kitchen Debate". A widely circulated black-and-white picture of the event was photographed by Safire. Safire subsequently joined Nixon's campaign for the 1960 Presidential campaign, and again for the 1968 campaign. After Nixon's 1968 victory Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew; he is well known for having created Agnew's famous term,
"nattering nabobs of negativism".
He joined the
New York Times as a political columnist in 1973. Soon after joining the
Times, Safire learned that he had been the target of "national security" wiretaps authorized by Nixon, and, after noting that he had worked only on domestic matters, wrote with what he characterized as "restrained fury" that he had not worked for Nixon through a difficult decade "to have him...or some lizard-lidded paranoid acting without his approval...eavesdropping on my conversations."
In 1978, Safire won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary on Bert Lance's alleged budgetary irregularities.
Safire also frequently appeared on the NBC's Meet the Press.
Upon announcing the retirement of Safire's political column in 2005, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of
The New York Times, stated:
The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable, Bill's provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical and enjoyable part of the day for our readers across the country and around the world. Whether you agreed with him or not was never the point, his writing is delightful, informed and engaging.
Safire served as a member of the Pulitzer Board from 1995. After ending his op-ed column, he became the full-time chief executive of the Dana Foundation where he was chairman from 2000. In 2006, Safire was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.
Portions of Safire's FBI file were released in 2010. The documents "detail wiretapping ordered by the Nixon administration, including the tapping of Safire's phone."