Edwin Guthman, Former Top Editor -- and 'Enemy' -- Dies at 89

By: Edwin O. Guthman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was on the infamous "enemies list" prepared by aides of President Richard Nixon and who served as press secretary to Robert F. Kennedy, has died. He was 89.

Guthman, who had the rare blood disease amyloidosis, died Sunday, a family spokesman said.

Guthman was the Los Angeles Times' national editor from 1965 to 1977, then served a decade as editorial page editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1950 for his stories in The Seattle Times on the Washington Legislature's Un-American Activities Committee. His reporting cleared a University of Washington professor of allegations that he was a Communist supporter.

Guthman was press secretary for Attorney General and later Sen. Robert F. Kennedy from 1961 to '65. He wrote or edited four books about Kennedy.

In 1971, Guthman was the third name on a 20-name list of political opponents singled out for harassment in a memo sent from Nixon aide Charles Colson to aide John Dean.