Philleo Nash served in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. During the Truman administration, he advised the President to integrate the United States Armed Forces. From 1961-1966, he was commissioner of the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs during the administrations of John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. He retired to Wisconsin to run his family's cranberry business. Philleo and Edith Nash had a cottage in Biron, Wisconsin, but lived on Riverwood Lane in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.
Edith Nash (a childhood friend of a sister of Ernest Hemingway) was the founder of the Riverwood Roundtable literary society. Philleo Nash died in Marshfield, Wisconsin.