William Pfaff

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Pfaff

William Wendle Pfaff (born December 29, 1928 in Council Bluffs , Iowa ; died April 30, 2015 in Paris , France ) was an American journalist and publicist who made a name for himself as a political commentator and critic of American foreign policy.

Live and act

William W. Pfaff was of Irish-German-English descent; his paternal grandparents were immigrants from the Black Forest . He grew up in Columbus, Georgia , where his father and uncle traded in military equipment. He graduated from the Catholic University of Notre Dame with a degree in political science and literature and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity . After graduating in 1949, he began his journalistic work at the Catholic Commonweal Magazine in New York City . His service was interrupted by his service in the United States Army in 1951/52. During the Korean War he was stationed as an infantryman and member of special forces in Japan.

From 1955 he made extensive trips to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. After a brief activity for ABC News in New York from 1955 to 1957, he was employed by the Free Europe Committee until 1961. With this research and research institute supported by the American secret service CIA , Radio Free Europe in particular was supplied with studies, background reports and monographs on Central and Eastern Europe. From 1961 Pfaff worked for the conservative Hudson Institute .

In 1971 Pfaff moved to Paris, where he helped build the European branch of the Hudson Institute as deputy director until 1978. From 1971 to 1992 he wrote political essays for The New Yorker . His articles, particularly on foreign policy issues, have been published in Commentaire , Lettre Internationale , Politique Exterior , Europäische Rundschau , Moderna Tider , Die Zeit and Foreign Affairs , World Policy Journal and The National Interest , among others .

Pfaff also published regular columns in the International Herald Tribune , the New York Review of Books , the London Observer and other publications such as the Blätter für German and international politics . In addition to his work as a journalist, he has also written several books, the first in collaboration with Edmund Stillman . Pfaff received a number of journalistic prizes and honors and was regularly invited as a juror, speaker and lecturer on foreign policy issues. For his book The Feelings of the Barbarians. At the end of the American century (1989), which was also nominated for the National Book Award , he received the Geneva Prix Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Pfaff made a name for himself as a critic of American foreign policy. In particular, he criticized the American military engagement in Vietnam , the crumbling Yugoslavia , Iraq and Afghanistan . Pfaff described himself as an American patriot who was primarily interested in the protection of American values ​​and interests. His friend, the political scientist John Rielly, characterized him as a classically Christian conservative who was considered by many political commentators to be a liberal.

Arthur Schlesinger has called him the heir of Walter Lippmann .

Pfaff was married to Carolyn Cleary, an Australian, and had two grown children and four great-grandchildren.

Fonts

  • (with Edmund Stillman): The New Politics: America and the End of the Postwar World . Coward, New York 1961.
  • (with Edmund Stillman): The Politics of Hysteria: The Sources of Twentieth-Century Conflict . Harper, New York 1964.
  • (with Edmund Stillman): Power and Impotence: The Failure of America's Foreign Policy . Random House, New York 1966.
  • (with Frank E. Armbruster, Raymond Gastil, Herman Kahn, and Edmund Stillman): Can We Win in Vietnam? Praeger, New York 1968.
  • Condemned to Freedom . Random House, New York 1971.
  • Barbarian Sentiments: How the American Century Ends . Hill & Wang, New York 1989.
  • The Wrath of Nations: Civilization and the Furies of Nationalism . Simon & Schuster, New York 1993.
    • dt .: The furies of nationalism. Politics and Culture at the End of the 20th Century. Eichborn Verlag 1994, ISBN 3-8218-1158-7
  • Barbarian Sentiments: American in the New Century . Hill and Wang, New York 2000.

literature

  • Gale Research Company: Contemporary authors: First revision. Volumes 5-8. Gale Research, 1969, p. 886.

Web links

Wikiquote: William Pfaff  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marlise Simons: William Pfaff, Critic of American Foreign Policy, Dies at 86 . In: The New York Times (online edition), May 1, 2015.
  2. ^ Marlise Simons: William Pfaff, Critic of American Foreign Policy, Dies at 86 . In: The New York Times (online edition), May 1, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Pfaff, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pfaff, William Wendle (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American journalist and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Council Bluffs , Iowa
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 2015
Place of death Paris , France