Barry Farber was my pal for over 50 years, since we first met on November 4, 1965. I know the exact date because we were on the air together in a tribute to our mutual friend, the great war correspondent,…

January 29, 1981. It was a mere nine days after President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as president, and this day would bring his first presidential press conference. Safe to say what Reagan said shocked the assembled media of the day. In…

Today’s young people might have heard the phrase “McCarthyism,” and if they have, it’s as some horrible miasma of Nazism and the “killing fields” and other hovering terror of fear. But I was there, and I lived through it, and…

Vladimir Nabokov in Context Edited by David M. Bethea and Siggy Frank (Cambridge University Press, 334 pages, $79.81) The late great Russian-born novelist Vladimir Nabokov amassed a range of critical comments during his 78 years, more than enough to qualify…

The most respected academic authority on the Russian Revolution, 20thcentury communism, and the Cold War has died. He was Richard Pipes, longtime professor of Russian history at Harvard, and a remarkable man. Where to start with an adequate tribute to…