Ty Cobb, former special assistant to US President Ronald Reagan, dies in Reno at 84

Ty Cobb, a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, died Saturday in Reno from heart failure. He was 84.

Cobb taught at the U.S. Military Academy West Point in New York and lectured at major universities across the world, including in China and the Soviet Union.

He graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1962 and went on to earn a graduate degree from Indiana University and a PhD in Soviet studies from Georgetown University.

He rose through the ranks, starting as an officer in the U.S. Army and served two tours in Vietnam before attaining the rank of colonel.

His second tour of duty in Vietnam was to help implement the Paris Peace Accords and end the U.S. military intervention. As part of this mission, he flew to Hanoi to negotiate for the release of the U.S. prisoners.

While teaching at West Point as a tenured professor, Cobb was tapped to join the National Security Council in Washington, D.C., serving as a special assistant to Reagan. A fluent speaker of multiple languages, including Russian, Cobb was the executive secretary for Reagan's summits with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva in 1985 and Reykjavik in 1986.

In 1991, Cobb became president of Business Executives for National Security and in 1995 led the Yosemite National Institutes.

Ty Cobb was always the professor, daughter says

Daughter Jacquelline Fuller said her father was always the professor, interested in everyone’s opinions.

“He enjoyed hearing about what people thought,” Fuller told the Reno Gazette Journal. “And he wouldn't challenge or belittle them with how much he knew.”

She said growing up with a father who was involved in some of the biggest foreign policy moments in history was something she appreciated as she got older. She said he worked with Reagan to reduce nuclear weapons.

Fuller recalled a summer when she was about 12 and the family lived in the Soviet Union.

“It was an experience to be a young child and, at the time, it was very rare for the Soviet Union to see foreigners and especially American kids.”

Later, when she studied in France during college, he came to visit.

“As we drove around and went to dinner we talked, and he wanted to hear what I thought about European foreign policy.”

Ty Cobb's return to Reno

In 2002, Cobb returned to Reno and founded the National Security Forum. He was also CEO of the Northern Nevada Network, an organization that provided information on Reno and Sparks business issues to leaders.

He was appointed the civilian aide to the secretary of the Army in 2005, where he represented the secretary in Nevada on defense and national security issues.

In 2017, he was given the University of Nevada, Reno's Distinguished Nevadan honor. UNR President Brian Sandoval called Cobb “a Nevada titan for whom I had so much respect and admiration.” 

When Cobb retired in 2018, friend Randi Thompson wrote in a column for the Reno Gazette Journal relating how she met Cobb at his home in Washington in 1984 when she was 23.

“I remember meeting Ty in the kitchen, and distinctly remember that he was really tall, and he had these big, dark, thick, Harry Potter-like glasses. As we chatted, I remember becoming a bit intimated by him,” she wrote.

In 2007, she ran into Cobb at the Legislature and soon after he hired her to work for him at the Northern Nevada Network.

Thompson wrote, ”He needed someone who understood politics. I gladly agreed and started working for him that April, and it’s one of the best job decisions I have ever made.”

Cobb is survived by his wife, Suellen, who he married in Venice when he was stationed with the U.S. Army. He is survived by three children. The oldest, Janice, was born in Reno when Cobb was stationed in Vietnam. Jacqueline and Ty were born at military bases. He is also survived by five grandchildren as well as his sister Patricia and brother William.

Memorial donations may be made to the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation for the Tyrus W. Cobb International Affairs Scholarship Endowment #175832, Mail Stop 0162, Reno, NV 89557 or online at www.unr.edu/giving

The family said a public service will be announced.