Reagan, two Browns — and Arnold
Political columnist George Skelton marks his 50th anniversary at the L.A. Times.
SACRAMENTO — Fifty years ago this week, The Times hired a young political reporter named George Skelton. He had made his mark covering the state Capitol in Sacramento for other news outlets during the governorships of Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan, and joined The Times as Reagan began his last year in the governor’s office.
“In this kingdom of political animals, the most pathetic is often the lame duck, who flaps feebly in a sea of vultures,” Skelton wrote in his first article for The Times, published on Jan. 7, 1974. Despite the governor’s lame-duck status, Skelton wrote, Reagan’s “political health in Sacramento has remained relatively stable.”
A 35-year-old Jerry Brown, Pat Brown’s son, was running for governor at the time. Skelton would go on to cover the younger Brown as governor — twice — as well as Reagan’s two terms in the White House. In Sacramento, he covered developments that are almost unthinkable now: a Republican governor (Reagan) signing the nation’s most liberal abortion law, that some Democratic lawmakers opposed; another Republican governor (George Deukmejian) working with Democratic lawmakers to pass the nation’s first assault weapons ban.
Skelton launched his Capitol Journal column in 1993 amid the tough-oncrime era of California politics and the anti-illegal-immigration policies of Gov. Pete Wilson, with whom Skelton recalls drinking Scotch during interviews in the governor’s office. A generation later, some of the politicians Skelton covered at the Capitol were the same Latino leaders who’d once led street protests against Wilson. In between, Skelton chronicled the tumultuous recall of Gov. Gray Davis and the political rise and fall of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
His long view on California politics has made Skelton’s columns essential reading. But one of the things I have enjoyed most about working with Skelton in The Times’ Sacramento bureau is learning bits of history just by walking into his office.
The walls are covered with photos from throughout his career — sporting sunglasses and a skeptical expression as he covered a Richard Nixon visit to Orange County in 1969, looking Reagan in the eye during a 1983 interview on Air Force One. A black-and-white photo of Pat Brown pinning something on the lapel of Skelton’s jacket prompted me one day to ask what was going on in the picture.
It was taken hours after Skelton survived a helicopter crash while covering Brown’s 1966 gubernatorial campaign, he told me. Skelton and another reporter had hopped into the copter at a stop near Los Angeles and were heading to Brown’s next campaign stop when the aircraft “lost power and almost smashed into the side of this four-story apartment building,” Skelton said.
The pilot was able to maneuver the helicopter enough to land on the building’s roof, Skelton said, but the crash landing ignited a fire when the aircraft broke several power lines.
“Fire engines came with a big long ladder, and we climbed down off the roof,” Skelton said.
By the time he got to Brown’s campaign reception that evening, the governor had heard all about it.
“He decided to grab an old tin ashtray, and put a ribbon on it,” Skelton said. “Wrote ‘hero’ on it and had a little ceremony, and pinned it on my chest.”
In honor of Skelton’s 50th anniversary with The Times this month, we’re rolling out our own version of a hero ribbon. LA Times Studios — the company’s video production arm — will soon debut a mini-documentary about the modern history of California politics as told through Skelton’s journalism.
And I’ll be hosting a conversation with Skelton at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon toward the end of January. My goal is to draw out some of those stories about his crash landings and Air Force One interviews, ask for his advice to younger journalists and probe his observations on California’s political evolution.