Witcover, Jules 1927–

(Jules Joseph Witcover)

PERSONAL: Born July 16, 1927, in Union City, NJ; son of Samuel (a mechanic) and Sarah Witcover; married Marian Laverty, June 14, 1952 (divorced, October, 1990); married Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, June 21, 1997; children: Paul, Amy, Julie, Peter. Education: Columbia College, A.B., 1949; Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, M.S., 1951. Politics: Independent. Religion: Roman Catholic.

ADDRESSES: Home—Washington, DC. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2715 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218-4363.

CAREER: Star-Telegram, Hackensack, NJ, reporter, 1949–50; Providence Journal, Providence, RI, reporter, 1951–53; Newark Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ, reporter, 1953; Syracuse Herald-Journal, Syracuse, NY, Washington correspondent, 1954–62; Newhouse National News Service, Washington, DC, senior correspondent and chief political writer, 1962–68, Washington columnist, 1968–69; Los Angeles Times, Washington Bureau, reporter, 1973–76; Washington Star, Washington, political columnist, 1977–81, political editor, 1979–81; Tribune Media Services syndicate, Chicago, IL, syndicated columnist, 1977–; Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD, columnist, 1981–2005. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1945–46.

MEMBER: White House Correspondents Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Reid Foundation fellowship in Europe, 1958; Sigma Delta Chi award, 1963, for work as a Washington correspondent; alumni award, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, 1974; Front Page Award, Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, 1985, for criticism/commentary.

WRITINGS:

85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy, Putnam (New York, NY), 1969, Quill (New York, NY), reprinted, 1988.

The Resurrection of Richard Nixon, Putnam (New York, NY), 1970.

White Knight: The Rise of Spiro Agnew, Random House (New York, NY), 1972.

(With Richard M. Cohen) A Heartbeat Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, Viking (New York, NY), 1974.

Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–1976, Viking (New York, NY), 1977.

The Main Chance (novel), Viking (New York, NY), 1979.

(With Jack W. Germond) Blue Smoke and Mirrors: How Reagan Won and Why Carter Lost the Election of 1980, Viking (New York, NY), 1981.

(With Germond) Wake Us When It's Over: Presidential Politics of 1984, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1985.

(With Germond) Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars?: The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency, 1988, Warner (New York, NY), 1989.

Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany's Secret War in America, 1914–1917, Algonquin (Chapel Hill, NC), 1989.

Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency: From Adams and Jefferson to Truman and Quayle, Crown (New York, NY), 1992.

(With Germond) Mad as Hell: Revolt at the Ballot Box, 1992, Warner (New York, NY), 1993.

No Way to Pick a President: How Money and Hired Guns Have Debased American Elections, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1999.

Party of the People: A History of the Democrats, Random House (New York, NY), 2003.

The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat (memoir), Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 2005.

Also contributor to national magazines, including Esquire, Nation, New Republic, and Saturday Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Jules Witcover's long career as a political reporter included a more than two-decade collaboration with Jack W. Germond in writing their column for the Washington Star, beginning in 1977, and then at the Baltimore Sun, until Germond's retirement in 2000. In their twenty-four years together, the journalists authored several books and 6,912 columns, in addition to thousands of individual news and feature stories. Witcover continued as a columnist with the Sun until 2005, when he left involuntarily, but he continued writing for the paper's syndicate, Tribune Media. In his last column, he maintained his antiwar stance and criticism of U.S. military intervention in Iraq.

Witcover's political reporting has earned him a solid reputation for in-depth coverage of presidential and vice-presidential politics and is represented in his books. New York Times writer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt called Witcover "a savvy political reporter blessed with both an instinct for the jugular and a gift for knitting together a compelling narrative from a complex tangle of details." Lehmann-Haupt pointed out that Witcover's Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–76 is so extraordinarily detailed that even close observers of the election will learn about the intricacies of presidential politics from reading it. "In short," wrote Lehmann-Haupt, "Marathon has just about everything, as they say. If you happened to miss the 1976 election—and don't be too sure you didn't—reading [Marathon] is the perfect way to catch up."

Many reviewers have favorably compared Witcover's books about presidential politics to Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President" series. Ken Bode wrote in the New Republic: "If Marathon is Jules Witcover's bid to displace Teddy White as the instant historian of presidential campaigns, then it's a success and, I say, welcome. Marathon is just what it ought to be—straightforward, unadulterated politics, not cluttered with highblown personal reminiscences of time spent at the foot of the throne." David J.E. Scrivens made a similar point about Witcover's and Germond's Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars?: The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency, 1988 in the Toronto Globe and Mail, stating that "Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover have improved upon White by writing more tightly and less impressionistically."

In Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency: From Adams and Jefferson to Truman and Quayle Witcover offers a brief overview of the careers of American vice presidents in what the New York Times Book Review contributor Michael Kazin described as "brisk, colloquial prose." "A special variety of gallows humor has always attended the men … whose only essential task has been to wait for their boss to quit or die," Kazin noted. Witcover's objective, according to Kazin, is more ambitious than simply preserving the one-liners that circulated about these men. "[Witcover] tries," wrote Kazin, "to persuade us to take the choice of candidate for the second spot more seriously." Kazin contended that Witcover's critique of the nominating process is overwhelmed by a wealth of information about the history of the position itself. Nonetheless, Kazin concluded: "It is good to have all these stories collected in one volume."

Witcover's No Way to Pick a President: How Money and Hired Guns Have Debased American Elections is a book that Karl Helicher described in Library Journal as discussing "how to drain the swamp—if not the cesspool—that our presidential elections have become." Helicher added that Witcover "does not mince words," as the author relates the various problems he sees in the U.S. electoral process and offers several solutions, ranging from the removal of the electoral college to the development of "a shorter primary season." In Mother Jones, reviewer Speed Weed attested that "the depth of knowledge [Witcover] brings to this book makes it an election-year must-read." Paul Taylor wrote in the Washington Monthly that "through it all there's a melancholy at the core of the enterprise," maintaining that the work is "vintage Witcover—which means strong reporting, sharp analysis, well-turned anecdotes, revealing interviews and an abiding love of the game, warts and all."

Witcover's Party of the People: A History of the Democrats was published in advance of the 2004 presidential election. The Witcover history includes notes about memorable Democrats, from Thomas Jefferson to William Jefferson Clinton, as well as losing candidates and members of Congress. In documenting the evolution of the party as it adapted to issues and events that defined it, including slavery, reconstruction, racial divide, prohibition, and economics, Witcover draws on biographical, historical, and news sources for early periods and comments on the period from the 1950s to present, using sources plus his own experience and observations. American Prospect critic Ronald Brownstein described the volume as being "sprightly and entertaining."

Witcover's memoir, The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat, is a collection of observations about the news business and remembrances of stories beat out on a typewriter while traveling by bus or train, often in the company of other newsmen with whom Witcover raised a glass. He writes of his interactions with political figures in their early careers, including George Wallace and Richard Nixon, and recalls meeting Robert Kennedy on the day before and day of his assassination. Nieman Reports reviewer David Yepsen wrote: "Anyone interested in reliving some of the old days of this business will find that his stories bring a smile with them…. It is a book written by one of the best in our business, as he shares his thoughts about the challenges political journalism faces and what aspiring reporters are in for if they join."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Witcover, Jules, The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch: Half a Century Pounding the Political Beat, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 2005.

PERIODICALS

American Prospect, November, 2003, Ronald Brownstein, review of Party of the People: A History of the Democrats, p. 63.

Booklist, September 15, 2003, Mary Carroll, review of Party of the People, p. 184; November 15, 2005, Alan Moores, review of The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch, p. 7.

Economist, October 25, 2003, review of Party of the People, p. 74.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), March 3, 1990, David J.E. Scrivens, review of Whose Broad Stripes and Bright Stars?: The Trivial Pursuit of the Presidency, 1988.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2003, review of Party of the People, p. 1068; October 1, 2005, review of The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch, p. 1073.

Library Journal, October 1, 1999, Karl Helicher, review of No Way to Pick a President: How Money and Hired Guns Have Debased American Elections, p. 115; October 1, 2003, Jill Ortner, review of Party of the People, p. 100; October 1, 2005, Leigh Mihlrad, review of The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch, p. 91.

Mother Jones, November, 1999, Speed Weed, review of No Way to Pick a President, p. 84.

New Republic, December 17, 1977, Ken Bode, review of Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 1972–76, p. 34.

New York Times, August 8, 1977, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Marathon, p. 21.

New York Times Book Review, February 23, 1992, Michael Kazin, review of Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency, p. 6.

Nieman Reports, winter, 2005, David Yepsen, review of The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch, p. 110.

Publishers Weekly, August 18, 2003, review of Party of the People, p. 64.

Washington Monthly, October, 1999, Paul Taylor, review of No Way to Pick a President, p. 46.

Washington Post, August 23, 2005, Howard Kurtz, "As Columnist Departs, Little Warmth from the Sun."

ONLINE

City Paper Online, http://www.citypaperonline.com/ (August 24, 2005), Gadi Dechter, "Goodbye, Jules"; (November 30, 2005), R. Darryl Foxworth, review of The Making of an Ink-stained Wretch.