Reputed Editor and political reporter of many newspapers Adam Clymer, who covered congressional intrigue, eight presidential campaigns and the downfall of both Nikita S. Khrushchev and Richard M. Nixon, died early Monday at his home in Washington at the age of 81.

Clymer was under treatment for quiet sometime for various diseases including pancreatic cancer and Parkinsons disease. Clymer received unsought attention in 2000, when, during a presidential campaign rally, he became the target of a vulgarism by George W. Bush that was captured on a live microphone. It was not the first time he had been attacked.

Reporting from Russia for The Baltimore Sun during the Vietnam War, he was beaten at an anti-American demonstration, accused of assaulting a police officer and expelled from the Soviet Union as a “hooligan.”

He had earlier covered Khrushchev’s ouster as the Soviet leader in 1964 and been a Washington reporter for The Sun before being named the newspaper’s South Asia correspondent, based in New Delhi.

Returning to Baltimore, he covered his first presidential race, in 1972, and earned multiple entries in Timothy Crouse’s now classic book “The Boys on the Bus,” a sometimes rollicking behind-the-scenes account of reporters on the campaign trail.

After a brief stint at The Daily News in New York, Clymer joined The Times in 1977 to cover Congress. He held a number of reporting and editing posts for the newspaper over the years, including Washington correspondent, chief congressional correspondent, Washington editor, weekend editor, polling editor and political editor — the newspaper’s first.

As a Washington and political reporter, Clymer, a tall figure with an often crusty manner, covered the Watergate scandal and the fall of Richard Nixon for The Sun. For The Times, he wrote about Ronald Reagan’s presidential candidacy in 1980

In 1994, covering Congress, Clymer revealed Newt Gingrich’s ultimately successful strategy to gain a Republican majority in the House in the midterm elections and then ascend to the speaker’s chair.

Adam Clymer was born in New York City on April 27, 1937, the son of Kinsey and Eleanor (Lowenton) Clymer. His mother wrote children’s books, including “The Trolley Car Family” and “The Tiny Little House.” His father, a former reporter for The Baltimore Evening Sun and The Brooklyn Eagle, worked for the New York City welfare department.

Clymer was the author of “Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography” (1999) and “Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right” (2008).

He had recently published a novel, “Escape From 9/11,” and had planned to celebrate it with an event at the Times headquarters in New York on Sept. 26.
The National Press Foundation in 1993 awarded him its Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for distinguished congressional reporting, and in 2003 the American Political Science Association gave him its Carey McWilliams Award for political reporting.