David Gergen, the veteran White House communications strategist who served four U.S. presidents of both parties and later became a prominent television commentator and Harvard professor, died on Thursday at a retirement community in Lexington, Massachusetts. He was 83. His son, Christopher, told The New York Times the cause was Lewy body dementia. Gergen began his Washington career as a speechwriter in Richard Nixon’s administration and went on to hold senior communications roles for Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan before returning to the White House as counselor to President Bill Clinton. Among his most enduring contributions was the debate question he drafted for Reagan in 1980—“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”—widely credited with helping seal Reagan’s victory. Away from the West Wing, Gergen edited U.S. News & World Report, appeared for decades as a political analyst on CNN and PBS, and founded the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School, where he taught until becoming professor emeritus. Born May 9, 1942, in Durham, North Carolina, he earned degrees from Yale and Harvard Law and served in the U.S. Navy. He is survived by his wife, Anne Elizabeth, two children and five grandchildren. A private burial is scheduled for Monday at Mount Auburn Cemetery, with a public memorial at Harvard to follow.