US commentator who coined the term “Reagan Doctrine”

Charles Krauthammer, who Charles

has died aged 68, was “the Krauthammer

most influential conservative” 1950-2018

newspaper columnist in America, said the Financial Times. For 30 years, his writing appeared in The Washington Post and was syndicated around the world; from the 1990s, he also made nightly appearances on Fox News. He was adored by Republicans, but he was also “hugely respected” by Democrats, for his good – if sometimes barbed – humour, and his courtesy, said The Daily Telegraph. Bill Clinton referred to him as a “brilliant man”, while Barack Obama – whom he accused of being responsible for the “death of liberalism” – even invited him to the White House to glean his insights on why his ratings were so low. Krauthammer wrote on a range of subjects, but there was one he almost never mentioned: his own disability. He was paralysed from the waist down, owing to a diving accident when he was 22.

Born in New York in 1950, Krauthammer was the son of Orthodox Jewish immigrant parents. His mother came from Belgium; his father – a successful property developer who spoke nine languages – was born in Ukraine, but moved to France aged 16 to seek his fortune. He enlisted in the French army when war broke out, before fleeing the country after its defeat in 1940. He met his wife in Cuba and they eventually wound up in the US; his parents, Krauthammer said, were “the most grateful immigrants this country ever had”. Charles graduated from Mcgill University in 1970 and began training to become a doctor at Harvard Medical School. It was then that he had his accident – yet he managed to finish his course on schedule, and then qualify as a psychiatrist.

In the 1980s, he began turning away from human patients and analysing the body politic instead – first for a liberal magazine and later for the Post. Famously, he coined the term “the Reagan Doctrine” to describe the new US policy of using American might to tackle Soviet influence and end the Cold War. Later he became something of a bogeyman to the Left over his support for George W. Bush’s war on terror, and for arguing for the efficacy of torture in extracting information. On the other hand, he opposed the death penalty, supported stem cell research, called the theory of intelligent design a fraud and wrote, searingly and movingly, about the plight of the mentally ill in the US. He called for a border wall, or fence, to keep out illegal immigrants as long ago as 2006 – but he was appalled by Donald Trump, whom he said was unfit for office. He revealed last year that he had been diagnosed with cancer. “I leave this life with no regrets,” he wrote a few weeks ago in his last column. “It was a wonderful life – full and complete with the great loves and great endeavours that make it worth living.”