Times’ Politics Writer Bergholz Dies at 83

When Richard Nixon lost his race for California governor and delivered his famous promise, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore,” every reporter in the room knew who “you” meant. It was Richard Bergholz.

It also was the Los Angeles Times, for which Bergholz, who died Tuesday at age 83, was then a political writer known for his tough manner, penetrating questions and fair stories.

Bergholz, whose career spanned nearly 50 years, suffered a stroke at his home in Pasadena and died at St. Luke Medical Center.

The candidates he covered constituted a Who’s Who of American politics in the last half of the 20th century. They included Nixon, Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, John Tunney, Jesse Unruh, George McGovern, Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian.

Beginning his career in an era when political reporters were little more than mouthpieces for various candidates, Bergholz broke the mold. Constantly asking questions, he grilled candidates across the political spectrum.

George Skelton, Sacramento columnist for The Times who worked with Bergholz as a reporter and editor for more than a decade, recalled him as “unbiased and absolutely objective.”

“I worked closely with him . . . and as a competitor before that and still do not know whether he was a Republican or a Democrat,” Skelton said Wednesday. “I have no idea how he ever voted. And you certainly could not tell by his writing. He was as tough on one side as the other.”

One who felt the sting of that toughness was Nixon during the California gubernatorial race in 1962.

The candidate, who had long enjoyed The Times’ support under publisher Norman Chandler, clearly was not prepared for the more balanced coverage led by Bergholz after Otis Chandler assumed the publisher’s chair in 1960.

During the waning days of the 1962 race, Bergholz peppered Nixon with tough questions when the candidate, apparently lagging in the polls, began suggesting that opponent Brown was soft on communism.

As David Halberstam reported in the book “The Powers That Be,” it was just “Bergholz being Bergholz.” But the tone of the questions, which was far more biting than anything the former vice president had encountered in Washington, got under Nixon’s skin.

The day after Brown’s victory, Nixon gave his famous “last press conference” in which he told the press that “you won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

Nixon went on to praise Carl Greenberg, another political reporter at The Times who had been trading off coverage of Nixon with Bergholz.

According to Halberstam, there was no doubt in the minds of editors at The Times, and most of the reporters in the room that day, that Nixon’s comments were aimed at Bergholz and The Times, even though the paper had endorsed his candidacy.

A chagrined Greenberg offered to resign, but his offer was refused.

“Dick and Carl brought honest political reporting to the L.A. Times,” said Bill Boyarsky, the current city editor who worked with both men while covering California politics in the 1960s and 1970s. “They set a standard for young colleagues.”

William F. Thomas, the editor of The Times during much of Bergholz’s tenure, agreed.

“He was at all times a competent reporter,” Thomas said. “He had a habit of asking penetrating questions which at the time were annoying to the public officials on the receiving end.

“But he never showed malice in the actual stories. We always remarked on how tough he was in questioning, but the stories were always fair and professionally done.”

Stu Spencer, a longtime political consultant who managed Reagan’s campaigns, among others, called Bergholz “one of a kind.” He most remembered the reporter’s “tenacity. He was always in my pocket for a story.”

Spencer said Bergholz “would play head games with the candidates. He’d be sitting in a front row at a press conference and the questions would start coming and Dick would just start shaking his head, sighing, ‘No, no.’ [Bergholz would] just rattle them. He never could rattle Reagan, but he would most of the others.’ ”

Skelton recalled Bergholz as a singular figure during a political race.

“On the campaign trail, he’d often break away from the pack and do his own story, ignoring the daily spin to dig into the meat of an issue,” Skelton said.

Others recalled that Bergholz was particularly adept at the nuts and bolts of issues.

“He was good at everything, but especially good at platforms at political conventions,” Boyarsky said. “He felt they represented what a party stood for and that politicians should be accountable for what was in the platform.”

Former U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said Bergholz understood the rough and tumble of political infighting.

“Dick understood politics thoroughly and covered it with great accuracy. He was perhaps a little cynical, but that was understandable given the way politics has been over the years.”

Bergholz was born in Corvallis, Ore. His father died in the flu epidemic of 1918 when Bergholz was a toddler. His mother, a teacher, raised Bergholz and his younger sister.

He earned a degree in journalism at the University of Washington and took his first job as a newspaper reporter in Ferndale, Wash. From there he moved to Southern California for a job at the Ventura Star Free-Press. He landed a job at the Associated Press in Sacramento in 1938, and when war broke out, he became a correspondent covering action in New Guinea, the Philippines, China and Manchuria.

After the war, he worked briefly at the Glendale News Press before joining the the San Diego Evening Tribune as political editor. After seven years in San Diego, Bergholz went to work for the now-defunct Los Angeles Mirror in 1954. He joined the Times as a political writer after the Mirror folded in 1962 and stayed with the paper as a writer and then political consultant until his retirement in 1985.

Even after that, he never stopped being a political reporter.

One colleague recalled that in 1998, Bergholz showed up at a breakfast meeting of GOP Senate candidate Matt Fong and peppered him with a much tougher line of questioning than was coming from reporters on the campaign trail. “He put us to shame,” the colleague recalled.

Another reporter said that even this year, Bergholz was attending breakfast meetings with newsmakers at a gathering called the Friday Group. “He was still the most sardonic guy at the table with a steel-trap memory for every figure in California politics,” the reporter said.

Bergholz is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Elizabeth, daughters Barbara Stacy of San Jose and Elizabeth of Pasadena, son Richard of Fallbrook and three grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to California First Amendment Coalition, 2701 Cottage Way, Suite 12, Sacramento CA 95825, (916) 974-8888.

A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Jan. 4 at the Church of the Angels, 1100 Avenue 64, Pasadena.