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William Safire | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Safire receiving thePresidential Medal of Freedom in 2006 | |
| Born | William Lewis Safir (1929-12-17)December 17, 1929 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | September 27, 2009(2009-09-27) (aged 79) Rockville, Maryland, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Subject | Politics |
| Spouse | Helene Belmar Julius |
| Children | 2 |
William Lewis Safire (/ˈsæfaɪər/;néSafir; December 17, 1929 – September 27, 2009[1][2]) was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidentialspeechwriter. He was a long-timesyndicated political columnist forThe New York Times and wrote the "On Language" column inThe New York Times Magazine about popularetymology, new or unusual usages, and otherlanguage-related topics.
Safire was born William Lewis Safir inNew York City, the son of Ida (née Panish) and Oliver Craus Safir.[3][4] His family was Jewish and of Romanian origin on his father's side.[5] Safire later added an "e" to his surname to better convey its pronunciation, while his brothers Leonard Safir and Matthew P. Safir continued to use the original spelling.[6]
Safire graduated from theBronx High School of Science, aspecialized public high school in New York City. He attendedS. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications atSyracuse University but dropped out after two years. He delivered the commencement address at Syracuse in 1978 and 1990, and later became a trustee of the university.[7]
After dropping out of Syracuse, Safire worked for notedpublic relations specialist and journalistTex McCrary throughout the 1950s, first as a gofer and later a public relations associate.[8] He worked as a publicist for a homebuilder who exhibited a model home at an Americantrade fair atSokolniki Park in Moscow in 1959—the one in whichRichard Nixon andNikita Khrushchev had theirKitchen Debate. A much circulatedblack-and-white photograph of the event was taken by Safire.[9] Safire joined Nixon's campaign for the1960 presidential race, and again in1968. After Nixon's 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and for vice presidentSpiro Agnew; he is known for having penned Agnew's famousalliterative term, "nattering nabobs of negativism".
William Safire named the famous city ofLauderhill, Florida after convincing Herbert Sadkin. The development that eventually came to be known as Lauderhill was originally to be named "Sunnydale", but William Safire, a friend of the developer, Herbert Sadkin, convinced him to change his mind. Safire felt that "Sunnydale" sounded like a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Sadkin said there were no hills in the new town, to which Safire replied, "There are probably nodales inLauderdale, either!" From that discussion, the name "Lauderhill" was coined.[5] The development eventually grew to become Lauderhill, the city.[6]
Safire drafted a never-delivered speech titled "In Event of Moon Disaster", for President Nixon to deliver on television in the event theApollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon.[10] According to the plans,Mission Control would "close down communications" with theLEM and a clergyman would have commended their souls to "the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened toburial at sea. Presidential telephone calls to the astronauts' wives were also planned. The speech originated in a memo from Safire to Nixon'schief of staffH. R. Haldeman, whence the name "Safire Memo", suggesting a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster.[11][12] The last line of the draft speech was an allusion toRupert Brooke'sFirst World War poem "The Soldier".[12] In a 2013 piece forForeign Policy magazine,Joshua Keating included the speech as one of six entries in a list of "The Greatest Doomsday Speeches Never Made".[13]
Safire joinedThe New York Times as a political columnist in 1973. Soon after joining theTimes, Safire learned that he had been the target of"national security" wiretaps authorized by Nixon, and, after observing that he had worked only on domestic matters, wrote with what he characterized as "restrained fury" that he had not worked for Nixon through a difficult decade "to have him—or some lizard-lidded paranoid acting without his approval—eavesdropping on my conversations".[14]
In 1978, Safire won thePulitzer Prize forCommentary onBert Lance's alleged budgetary irregularities; in 1981, Lance was acquitted by a jury on all nine charges. Safire's column on October 27, 1980, entitled "TheAyatollah Votes", was quoted in a campaign ad forRonald Reagan inthat year's presidential election.[15] Safire also frequently appeared on theNBC'sMeet the Press. Upon announcing the retirement of Safire's political column in 2005,Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher ofThe New York Times, said:
The New York Times without Bill Safire is all but unimaginable, Bill's provocative and insightful commentary has held our readers captive since he first graced our Op-Ed Page in 1973. Reaching for his column became a critical and enjoyable part of the day for our readers across the country and around the world. Whether you agreed with him or not was never the point, his writing is delightful, informed and engaging.
Safire served as a member of thePulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004. After ending his op-ed column, he became the full-time chief executive of theDana Foundation, where he was chairman from 2000. In 2006, Safire was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom by PresidentGeorge W. Bush. Portions of Safire'sFBI file were released in 2010. The documents "detail wiretapping ordered by the Nixon administration, including the tapping of Safire's phone".[16]
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In addition to his political columns, Safire wrote a column, "On Language", in the weeklyThe New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death. Many of the columns were collected in books.[1] According to the linguistGeoffrey Pullum, over the years Safire became less of a "grammar-nitpicker," andBenjamin Zimmer cited Safire's willingness to learn fromdescriptive linguists.[17] Another book on language wasThe New Language of Politics (1968),[1] which developed into what Zimmer called Safire's "magnum opus,"Safire's Political Dictionary.[18]
Safire described himself as a "libertarian conservative". AWashington Post story on the ending of his op-ed column quotes him on the subject:
I'm willing to zap conservatives when they do things that are not libertarian. [After the9/11 attacks,] I was the first to really go afterGeorge W. on his treatment of prisoners.
After voting forBill Clinton in1992, Safire became one of the leading critics of theClinton administration.Hillary Clinton in particular was often the target of his ire. He caused controversy in a January 8, 1996, essay when, after reviewing her record, he concluded she was a "congenital liar". Although she did not respond to the specific instances cited, Hillary Clinton said that she did not feel offended for herself but for her mother's sake. According to Bill Clinton's press secretary at the time,Mike McCurry, "the President, if he were not the President, would have delivered a more forceful response to that on the bridge of Mr. Safire's nose."[19]
Safire was one of several voices who called for theIraq War, and predicted a "quick war" and wrote: "Iraqis, cheering their liberators, will lead the Arab world toward democracy."[20] He consistently brought up the point in hisTimes columns that an Iraqi intelligence agent met withMohamed Atta, one of the9/11 hijackers, inPrague,[21] which he called an "undisputed fact". According to theCIA and theFBI, they were unable to confirm or deny the validity of this assertion. The source who made these allegations is alleged to have become concerned that such a meeting could have harmed his career. Nonetheless,Khalid Sheikh Mohammed andRamzi bin al-Shibh do deny that the meeting took place. Safire insisted that the theory was true and used it to make a case for war against Iraq. He also incorrectly predicted that "freed scientists" would lead coalition forces to "caches [of weapons of mass destruction] no inspectors could find".[22]
Safire was staunchly pro-Israel. He received theGuardian of Zion Award ofBar-Ilan University in 2005. PresidentGeorge W. Bush appointed him to serve on the Honorary Delegation to accompany him toJerusalem for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of theState of Israel in May 2008.[23]
Safire married Helene Belmar Julius in 1962. The couple had two children.[1][24] Safire died frompancreatic cancer at a hospice inRockville, Maryland, on September 27, 2009, aged 79.[1][25]
The following is a partial list of his writings:
Language
Novels
Edited collections
Political works
Speeches
Iraqis, cheering their liberators, will lead the Arab world toward democracy
