Remembering Robert Pyle

Georgetowner Robert “Bob” Pyle passed away on March 18 at age 83. A World War II veteran, he attended Japanese Language School at the University of Michigan before graduating from Dickenson College in 1948 on the GI Bill. He also wrote for the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, with assignments covering the Nuremberg War trials and the Paris Peace Conference. After Dickenson, he attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Pyle came to Washington, D.C. with Wilmington Congressman Herbert Warburton (R-DE) in the mid-1950s and later served on the campaign and as Chief of Staff to Representative Perkins Bass (R-NH). Pyle later served as chief of staff to Congressman David Emery (R-ME), a field staffer for the Republican Congressional Committee and a campaign consultant to the Republican National Committee, advising over 50 congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns throughout New England, the South and the Midwest. In 1974, a year that saw many Republicans swept from office due to Watergate, he managed two winning campaigns for Representatives Ben Gilman (R-NY) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). These were two of the three so called “Watergate Babies.”

In the mid-1970s, Pyle started a government relations firm and consulted with the American Bakers Association as the Republican lobbyist. In 1976, the Independent Bakers Association tapped Pyle to run a meeting in Washington, DC and later he became their president. He held this position for 29 years, operating out of their offices on Georgetown’s Potomac Street. During this time, Pyle lobbied Congress on numerous issues critical to the baking industry, ending Federal production controls over wheat and peanut markets.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan named Pyle to the Selective Service Commission, and he served as a local host on many Republican Inaugural Committees.

Pyle is survived by his wife Patricia Carlile Pyle. He is survived by his children: Sarah Moore, Dr. Robert Noble Jr., Mark C., and Nicholas A., children of Edith Ayrault Rose, and Louis Crosier, son of Claire Thorn. He is also survived by nine grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting that donations be made out to the Independent Bakers Association Memorial Internship Fund, c/o IBA, P.O. Box 3731, Washington, DC 20027.