AP’s Lawrence Knutson, who covered Washington’s transcendent events for nearly 4 decades, has died

WASHINGTON– Lawrence L. Knutson, a veteran Associated Press writer whose deep knowledge of the presidency, Congress and American history made him an institution in his own right, has died. He was 87 years old.

Knutson, who had prostate cancer and other health problems, died Saturday night in hospice care at a memory care facility in Washington, said his cousin, Katherine Knutson Garrett, who had recently been managing his affairs.

Knutson’s career at AP spanned 37 years and the terms of eight presidents before his retirement in 2003.

In that time, he established himself as an expert on Washington: “a city of inspiration and rancor, of spring bloom and eternal ambition, a low-rise marble capital that tourists honor and critics malign,” he wrote. the soul of the place with it, no matter how soulless that place may seem to some.

Born in Chicago, Lawrence Lauder Knutson grew up in Milwaukee and rural Wisconsin before interrupting his college studies to enlist in the Army. He was sent to an American base outside Bordeaux, France, where he produced the base newspaper and wondered “what journalism would be like if you did it for real.”

He worked for Chicago’s City News Bureau after the military and college, then for the Chicago Tribune before the AP hired him in 1965. The next year, he was just feet away, covering an open house march led by Martin Luther King Jr., when a rock thrown by hostile bystanders hit King in the head and caused him to fall to his knees.

“He recovered and, surrounded by assistants, led some 700 people through hostile crowds that numbered in the thousands,” Knutson recalled. Knutson moved to Washington in 1967.

Colleagues remember Knutson as an elegant writer about the momentous events of his time. He was always quick to offer his acquaintances more intimate tours of Congress than those offered by official tour guides. He also had eccentricities about him.

“Sitting next to Larry in the Senate Press Gallery for many years, I always admired his quick grasp of a story, his writing and his love of Congress as an institution,” said former AP writer Jim Luther. “And who doesn’t take notes in a checkbook or use a clip to hold their glasses?”

The story is legion of Knutson sleeping late when he was in New York to cover a 1986 train tour by Jimmy Carter and his presidential running mate Walter Mondale to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Missing the train, Knutson took a succession of taxis from city to city, racking up a substantial bill only to discover that the train had disappeared as he arrived at each stop.

In a line of work that focuses relentlessly on the moment, Knutson also looked back, searching for lessons from history that informed the present.

“Larry really had a deep understanding of Congress and Washington politics,” said Sandy Johnson, AP’s former Washington bureau chief. “But what I remember most vividly is his interest in history, which resulted in a column we called Washington Yesterday. His insightful and delightful writings on Washington history were an antidote to the gravity and infighting of capital news. regulars, and his columns always made me smile.”

There was his story about presidential portraits: “George Washington came to the presidency besieged by artists who saw his character and his fortunes in the contours of his face. The commander-in-chief of the American Revolution found persistent artists more irritating than the blast of British muskets; The long sessions that portrait painters required were, he said, fleeting and mind-numbing wastes of time.”

And this, in the days of Bill (“Slick Willie”) Clinton: “A nickname, says the proverb, is ‘the heaviest stone the devil can throw at a man.’ Some hurt and leave scars, others stick like burrs, others fall off and are forgotten.

“American presidents have attracted and endured nicknames since George Washington was called the ‘Sword of the Revolution,’ the Father of his Country, the ‘Sage of Mount Vernon,’ and, interestingly, ‘The Old Fox.’”

After his retirement, Knutson wrote a book about presidential vacations and retreats, “Away from the White House,” published by the White House Historical Association.

Knutson will be buried in a small cemetery in City Point, Wisconsin, where many family members are buried, his cousin said. Details about the memorial service or his survivors were not immediately released.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.