Columnist Krauthammer dies at 68
Charles Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist and one of the most influential conservative voices in the nation, dies after a battle with cancer.
Charles Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist and intellectual provocateur who championed the muscular foreign policy of neoconservatism, died Thursday at 68.
The cause was cancer of the small intestine, said his son, Daniel.
“I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking,” he wrote in a June 8 farewell note. “I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation’s destiny. I leave this life with no regrets.”
A star of page and screen, Krauthammer was one of the highest-profile commentators of his generation. In addition to his syndicated weekly column in the Washington Post, which garnered him a Pulitzer in 1987, he was a marquee essayist for magazines across the political spectrum. He also was a nearubiquitous presence on cable news, particularly Fox.
Krauthammer graduated first in his class at Montreal’s McGill University in 1970 with a degree in political science and economics. He then spent a year studying political theory at the University of Oxford. He later grew disillusioned with politics and switched to medicine. While in medical school, Krauthammer struck his head on the bottom of a swimming pool and snapped his spinal cord. He spent 14 months in intensive physical therapy but was forced to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, with limited use of his hands.
In 1974, he married the former Robyn Trethewey, an artist, whom he met at Oxford. In addition to his wife, of Chevy Chase, Md, and their son, of San Francisco, survivors include his mother, of Rockville, Md.