John Mashek, a Washington, D.C., fixture who covered every president since John F. Kennedy and enjoyed a front-row seat in the pageant called the American Century, died Tuesday. He was 77.

His son, David P. Mashek, of Mt. Lebanon, said his father was stricken, possibly with a heart attack, while watching his granddaughters at a high school soccer game in suburban Washington.

"He would have been the first to say, 'Hey, I had a great run,' " David Mashek said of his father.

That run stretched from the city halls of Dallas in the 1950s to Washington, where Mr. Mashek was assigned to cover the Texas Congressional delegation for The Dallas Times-Herald.

He was dispatched from Washington to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, after Kennedy was gunned down by an assassin. He went on to cover the breaking story and the funeral.

In later years, during a 22-year career at U.S. News & World Report, Mr. Mashek would cover the struggles of Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam years, the Watergate scandal that swallowed Richard M. Nixon's legacy, the malaise-ridden administration of Jimmy Carter and the sweeping transformations of the Reagan administration.

"John was a political reporter with a politician's personality. He would charm a source into giving him what he needed, rather than browbeat the poor soul," said Matthew V. Storin, who hired Mr. Mashek for his final job at The Boston Globe.

In 1965, Mr. Mashek moved to U.S. News & World Report to open the magazine's first bureau in Houston. He moved to the Washington bureau in 1972 and became chief political reporter six years later.

In 1988 he joined The Atlanta Constitution when a close friend, Bill Kovach, took command of the paper. Mr. Mashek anchored the newspaper's coverage of the 1988 presidential election between Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush, moderating a prominent candidates' debate in Atlanta for the newspaper.

A year later, when Mr. Kovach was fired as editor, Mr. Mashek resigned.

"He told whoever it was: 'Look, you fired my friend Bill Kovach. Why should I stay here?' " David Mashek recalled.

His son said that subsequent job offers testified to the fairness both political parties believed he brought to his coverage.

Lloyd Bentsen, the losing Democratic vice presidential candidate, contacted him about possibly joining his Senate staff. The new Bush White House sent out a feeler as well.

Ultimately, Mr. Mashek signed on with the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe.

"He came to The Globe late in his career with a full Rolodex, which was great," said Mr. Storin. "Republicans tended to be wary of a paper from liberal Massachusetts, but they all talked to Mashek."

David M. Shribman, who later worked with Mr. Mashek in the Globe's Washington Bureau, described him as a classic figure among national correspondents.

"John Mashek was one of the great reporters, teachers, and gentlemen of a special era in Washington correspondence," said Mr. Shribman, now executive editor of the Post-Gazette. "No big-time Washington reporter of his period or any other was as fair-minded and dedicated as John. There will be times in the months and years ahead when we will have wished we had cloned him."

Mr. Mashek retired from The Globe in 1995 and resumed writing for U.S. News in the same straightforward style that characterized his prose for more than four decades.

A native of Sioux Falls, S.D., Mr. Mashek attended North Dakota State University before transferring to the University of Minnesota. In the late 1940s he did a stint as an amateur pitcher in the Fargo, N.D., American Legion team.

"I pitched batting practice now and then to the Fargo Legion team," he recalled. "Our right fielder was named Roger Maris."

Mr. Maris went on to break Babe Ruth's home run record in 1961.

Mr. Mashek served in the U.S. Army as an artillery officer and in the National Guards of Texas, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

In addition to his son David, a principal at W.J. Green & Associates, Mr. Mashek is survived by his wife of 54 years, the former Sara Stone of Ashland City, Tenn.; sons James of Biloxi, Miss., Thomas of Philadelphia and William of Bethesda, Md.; and seven grandchildren. A Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at Epiphany Catholic Church, 2712 Dumbarton St. NW in Georgetown.

The family asks that remembrances be sent to the Christ Child Society or the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

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