Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,726

This is the grave of Fred Dutton.

Born in 1923 in Julesburg, Colorado, Dutton grew up in San Mateo, California after his family moved there when he was a child. Good choice, Julesburg is a horrible place. He went to the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1946. Then it was off to Stanford Law, where he finished in 1949. He was somewhat delayed finishing his undergraduate due to serving in the military during World War II. He actually was a prisoner of war too, after being wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. So he won the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for that. He went back into the military during the Korean War, where he was stationed in Japan as a judge advocate.

After the military, Dutton got a job as an assistant counsel with Southern Counties Gas Co. But he was a big Democratic Party stalwart. In 1956, he ran Adlai Stevenson’s campaign in southern California and while that was not a good year for the Democrats and presidential chances, Dutton was quite able and got the attention of leading state Democrats, especially Pat Brown. The then attorney general of the state hired Dutton to be his chief assistant in 1957. Then he became Brown’s personal assistant in 1959. As Brown’s right hand man, Dutton played a huge role in doing the work with members of the legislature to get the California Water Project through the legislature, one of the most important California laws ever passed. By 1960, Dutton was a big enough insider that he became deputy national chairman for Citizens for Kennedy-Johnson. Then JFK brought him to Washington as a special assistant after his election. Specifically, he was secretary of the cabinet and special assistant for intergovernmental and interdepartmental relations.

In 1961, Dutton continued his meteoric rise in the Democratic Party, being named Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations. There was a good reason for putting him there. Dutton was a smoooooooth operator. Absolute inside player, glad-handler, made everyone feel good. That’s a skill, even if one often feels you’ve had a sheen of ooze left on you when you meet these people. But these people have their place and working out relations between the State Department and Congress is a really good example of that right place. He held that job until 1964, while at the same time being a member of the University of California Regents, where he served from 1962-76. He was really important to UC in the late 60s, generally taking the students’ side on everything from the Free Speech Fight in 1964 to the People’s Park takeover.

Not surprisingly then, Dutton was one of Robert F. Kennedy’s closest advisors in his 1968 presidential run. He was at the Ambassador Hotel when Kennedy was shot and rode in the ambulance with him.

After this, Dutton never was the insider he used to be. This was by choice. He stated, “After Bobby was shot, the lights went out for me.” 

But Dutton remained an important figure in liberal politics. Dutton and Ronald Reagan truly hated each other. Reagan used to rant at Dutton at Regents meetings, while Dutton told Reagan to shove it. When Reagan implemented tuition to the university in 1970 (it’s amazing to even remember this was controversial; we’ve lost so much in our losses as the New Deal passed), Dutton led the fight in the university against the governor. Dutton also came up with the idea of Earth Day, at least in part. It was he who sent Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson a memo with such an idea, which Nelson himself credited him for. He also wrote a book in 1971 titled Changing Sources of Power: American Politics in the 1970s. The Times reviewed and said in part:

His achievement is to see these and related phenomena as the decisive “historical lines of force” in the country’s affairs for the next decade or longer. To many, of course, this is scarcely a new idea. There are nevertheless millions of Ameri ans, including politicians who ought to know better, who cherish the notion that the novel and sometimes threatening developments of the six ties—e.g., the outburst of young and black energies that marked the dec ade—are mere temporary annoy ances sure to subside in time, like measles or acne.

Not so, says Dutton. The new lines of force, numerous, contradictory, and inextricably related, signal the end of politics as it is now under stood, whether by turtleshell Republicans or traditional liberals.

Suppose it could be interesting in the sense of being a historical artifact. He also was on the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour quite a bit, wrote op-eds, and remained an important insider, even if most regular people had no idea who he was. He also helped out with the post-68 Democratic Party reforms, which incidentally I don’t really think have led to better candidates. But it is more inclusive and Dutton did a good job of making sure women had greater representation in the Party. In fact, for this reason, Betty Friedan called him “the Papa Bear of the women’s liberation movement.”

But the post-68 Dutton definitely had his limits. He became the consummate law insider, which meant taking on basically any paying client. That included the loathsome Mobil Oil, ironic given Dutton’s role in Earth Day. He worked closely with that company to develop its advertorial marketing strategy that makes it look like they are taking readers seriously when in fact pushing the same bullshit as always. He later married another big shot insider attorney named Nancy Hogan. She was his former secretary in the JFK White House but was hardly a no one. They started Dutton & Dutton after their marriage and among their top clients was Saudi Arabia. He then worked out huge arms purchases by the Saudis from American manufacturers and from the American government. Gross. Congress approved big time arms sales to the Kingdom in 1978 and 1981 partly thanks to Dutton. Of course, by now he and his old enemy Reagan were on the same side of this deal. Ah, the Beltway.

Dutton died in 2005, after a stroke. He was 82 years old.

Fred Dutton is buried in the confiscated lands of the traitor Lee, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

If you would like this series to visit other Democrats of this era, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Warren Christopher, old friends with Dutton back in law school, is in Hollywood. Shirley M. Hufstedler, Carter’s Secretary of Education and another buddy of Dutton, is in Glendale, California. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.