Howard Fineman, a titan of the Washington journalism establishment, died of pancreatic cancer Tuesday, his wife said in a statement. He was 75.

Fineman spent three decades at Newsweek, traveling the nation as the magazines chief political correspondent. He interviewed presidents and presidential wannabes, and provided a critical look behind the curtain of Capitol Hill as a regular analyst on cable television, dissecting the daily machinations of politics with a sharp wit and the mind of a journalism historian that spanned decades.

Fineman began his career in the late 1960s at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, as a cub reporter and, later, editor-in-chief of The Colgate Maroon student newspaper.