* Fletcher Knebel; Newspaper Columnist, Novelist

Fletcher Knebel, 81, former syndicated Washington columnist and co-author of the political thriller “Seven Days in May.” A reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and later the Cowles news organization, Knebel wrote the column “Potomac Fever” from 1951 to 1964. Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II wrote the best-selling 1962 novel “Seven Days in May” about a military takeover of the U.S. government. The book was made into a movie two years later starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Knebel, said to be depressed recently over his lung cancer, also wrote the novels “Night of Camp David” about a President who becomes psychotic, and “Dark Horse” about a substitute for a presidential nominee who dies. On Friday in Honolulu of suicide.