Norman Podhoretz, the outspoken editor who steered Commentary from a left-leaning voice to a pillar of the neo-conservative movement, passed away Tuesday night at the age of 95.
A Quiet Farewell
Podhoretz died “peacefully and without pain,” his son John confirmed in a statement posted on Commentary‘s website. The cause of death was not released. “He was a man of great wit and a man of deep wisdom and he lived an astonishing and uniquely American life,” John said.
From Brooklyn to the White House
Born to Jewish immigrants in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, Podhoretz described himself as “the smartest kid in the class,” brash and competitive. He believed, “One of the longest journeys in the world is the journey from Brooklyn to Manhattan.” After earning an English degree from Columbia in 1950 and a master’s from Cambridge, he began publishing reviews in The New Yorker and Partisan Review.
In 1956 he became associate editor of Commentary, and four years later he was named editor-in-chief. At 30, he turned the small, anti-Communist magazine into a forum that would later shape conservative thought. Early on he aimed to move the paper leftward, serializing Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd and publishing pieces that advocated unilateral disarmament. Contributors such as James Baldwin, Alfred Kazin and Irving Howe helped raise subscriptions.
Turning Point: “Making It”
The publication of Making It in 1967 marked a decisive shift. The book, a blunt embrace of status-seeking, was rejected by his former circle of New York intellectuals. Friends urged him not to publish it; his agent refused to represent it, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux declined to promote it. Podhoretz returned his advance and moved to Random House. The backlash left him no longer welcome at literary parties, a wound he later reflected on.
Neo-Conservative Alliances
By the late 1960s Podhoretz had distanced himself from the leftists of the era. He began to support Democrats into the 1970s, aligning with traditional politicians like Edmund Muskie rather than the anti-Vietnam War candidate George McGovern. He criticized the left for hostility toward Israel and tolerance of antisemitism. His book Ex-Friends listed former allies such as Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Arendt and Norman Mailer.
His editorial influence extended to policy. Two future U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, received appointments partly because of essays they published in Commentary that called for a more assertive foreign policy. During the Reagan administration (1981-1987) he served as an adviser to the U.S. Information Agency and helped craft Kirkpatrick’s 1984 convention speech.
Presidential Recognition
In 2004 President George W. Bush awarded Podhoretz the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bush praised him as a “man of fierce intellect” who never “tailored his opinion to please others.” Earlier, President Ronald Reagan had been a reader of Commentary, illustrating the magazine’s reach to the White House.
Controversy and Criticism
Podhoretz’s outspoken positions drew sharp criticism. New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani called World War IV an “illogical screed based on cherry-picked facts and blustering assertions.” Beat poet Allen Ginsberg mocked him for having “a great ridiculous fat-bellied mind which he pats too often.” Joseph Heller modeled the crass Maxwell Lieberman after Podhoretz in Good as Gold, and Woody Allen referenced Commentary in Annie Hall, joking that it and the leftist Dissent had merged and renamed themselves Dysentery.
He also faced personal attacks from former friends. In a 2019 interview with the Claremont Review of Books, he said, “I began to be bothered by the hatred against Trump that was building up from my soon to be new set of ex-friends… I took offense at that. So that inclined me to what I then became: anti-anti-Trump.”
Legacy
Podhoretz’s career spanned five decades of American political thought. From a young man who longed to join the New York intellectuals to a senior editor who reshaped Commentary into a conservative bastion, his influence touched policy, literature and public discourse. His death marks the end of an era for a generation that defined the neo-conservative movement.
Key Takeaways
- Norman Podhoretz died peacefully at 95, leaving a legacy as a key neo-conservative editor.
- He transformed Commentary from a left-leaning magazine into a conservative forum, influencing foreign policy and political appointments.
- His outspoken views earned both accolades, such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and fierce criticism from peers and critics alike.
Norman Podhoretz’s life, from Brooklyn to the corridors of power, encapsulates a pivotal chapter in American political history. His passing invites reflection on the ideological shifts that defined the late twentieth century.
