William Pfaff
| William Pfaff | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 29, 1928 Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States |
| Died | April 30, 2015 (aged 86) Paris, France |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Notre Dame |
| Occupation | Writer, political commentator |
| Website | www |
William Pfaff (December 29, 1928 – April 30, 2015) was an American author, op-ed columnist for the International Herald Tribune and frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books.
William Pfaff was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and was of German, English, and Irish origin. He grew up in Iowa and Georgia and graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1949, having majored in literary and political studies.
Thanks to a letter of recommendation from Frank O'Malley, an English professor at Notre Dame, Pfaff obtained a job working for the lay-Catholic Commonweal magazine in 1949.
Pfaff served in the Infantry and Special Forces units of the United States Army during and after the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement was signed while Pfaff was on a cruise ship, and so he never saw action. He was honorably discharged with the rank of staff sergeant.
He returned to Commonweal as an assistant editor, only leaving in 1955 for extensive travel in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. After a brief passage at ABC News in New York (1955–57), he was invited to join Free Europe Committee. In 1961 he was hired by Herman Kahn at the Hudson Institute, becoming one of its first members.
His first book, THE NEW POLITICS: America and the End of the Postwar World (with Edmund Stillman) was published in 1961. Seven others have followed.
Robert Heilbroner wrote in 1964:
"I suspect that in the future it will no longer be possible to qualify as a wholly serious thinker if one has not, to whatever small degree, made one's peace or accommodation with [his] harsh message."
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