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Guthman died Sunday at the age of 89. Knowing about him only what the obituaries tell me, I envy him his career. But there is one period of it — or should I say one breach of it? — that deserves a teaching moment. In 1956, the LA Times obit tells us, Guthman was investigating the Teamsters union and he was introduced to Robert Kennedy, the staff attorney to a Senate subcommittee about to launch an inquiry into labor corruption. Guthman and Kennedy got on, “and they began to share information.” When Kennedy became attorney general in 1961 he hired Guthman as his press secretary, and Guthman worked for him for the next four years. In 1971 he published an affectionate memoir of those years, We Band of Brothers. The AP obit tells us that throughout his life he wore a tie clip President John Kennedy had given him.
That list existed because the Nixon White House was paranoid. But even paranoiacs have their reasons. Nixon hated and feared the Kennedys, and the hard-charging Times editor making his life miserable was a Kennedy man. That wasn’t just Nixon’s paranoia talking — it was also Guthman’s years on the Kennedy payroll.
