‘Politics Today’ columnist Witcover dies at 98
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jules Witcover, who cowrote one of the nation’s leading political columns for nearly three decades, died Saturday at the age of 98.
Witcover’s widely syndicated daily column “Politics Today” was written jointly for 24 years with the late Jack Germond, and he continued writing it solo for another five years after his partner retired in 2001.
Witcover also covered the political beat for the Newhouse News Service, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, in books and in several magazines, including The New Republic, Saturday Review and The Nation.
Witcover had a remarkable front seat to history, some of it tragic. He watched Robert F. Kennedy steady first lady Jackie at President John F. Kennedy’s grave in 1963. In 1968, he pushed his way through a crowded hotel kitchen in Los Angeles after hearing shots and saw Robert F. Kennedy bleeding on the floor.