Former Nixon and Ford Budget Director Roy Ash Dies

The co-founder and former president of Litton Industries served as OMB director in the 1970s during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations.

His wife of 68 years, Lila, tells the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/wKKkvK ) that Ash had Parkinson's disease and he died on Dec. 14.

Ash was chief financial officer of Hughes Aircraft Co. before partnering with Charles "Tex" Thornton in 1953 in a new company that acquired Charles Litton's microwave tube firm.