Charles Krauthammer

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Lore & Background

Krauthammer was born on March 13, 1950, in Manhattan, New York City. His father, Shulim Krauthammer, was from Bolekhiv, Ukraine (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), and later became a naturalized citizen of France. His mother, Thea (née Horowitz), was from Antwerp, Belgium. The family spoke French in the household. When he was five, the family moved to Montreal. Through the school year they resided in Montreal, and spent the summers in Long Beach, New York. Both of his parents were Orthodox Jews, and he graduated from Herzliah High School. Krauthammer attended McGill University in Montreal, graduating in 1970 with first-class honours in economics and political science. He later said: 'I detested the extreme Left and extreme Right, and found myself somewhere in the middle.' The following year, he studied as a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, before returning to the United States to attend medical school at Harvard. A diving accident during his first year of medical school left him paralyzed from the waist down. He remained with his Harvard Medical School class during his hospitalization, graduating in 1975. From 1975 through 1978, he was a resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, serving as chief resident his final year. During that time, he identified a variant of manic depression that he named secondary mania, publishing his findings in the Archives of General Psychiatry. In 1978, he relocated to Washington, D.C., to direct planning in psychiatric research under the Carter administration. He began contributing articles about politics to The New Republic and, in 1980, served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He contributed to the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In 1984, he was board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. In 1979, Krauthammer joined The New Republic as both a writer and editor. In 1983, he began writing essays for Time magazine, including one on the Reagan Doctrine, which first brought him national acclaim as a writer. He began writing regular editorials for The Washington Post in 1985 and became a nationally syndicated columnist. Krauthammer coined and developed the term Reagan Doctrine in 1985, and he defined the U.S. role as sole superpower in his essay 'The Unipolar Moment', published shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In 1990, he became a panelist for the weekly PBS political roundtable Inside Washington, remaining with the show until it ceased production in December 2013. He also appeared on Fox News Channel as a contributor for many years. In August 2017, due to his battle with cancer, Krauthammer stopped writing his column and serving as a Fox News contributor. He died on June 21, 2018, of small intestine cancer at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

Reader's Guide

Charles Krauthammer's significance lies in his transformation from a psychiatrist to one of the most influential conservative columnists of his era. He coined the term 'Reagan Doctrine' in 1985 and defined the U.S. role as the sole superpower in his essay 'The Unipolar Moment' after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. His advocacy for the Gulf War and the Iraq War reflected his belief in American military and political engagement globally. Krauthammer also served on President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics starting in 2002. He supported relaxing the Bush administration's limits on federal funding of discarded human embryonic stem cell research, but opposed human cloning. His 2013 book 'Things That Matter' became an immediate bestseller, remaining on The New York Times bestseller list for 38 weeks and spending 10 weeks in a row at number one. His posthumously released book 'The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors' was published in December 2018. His legacy includes shaping conservative foreign policy discourse and influencing public debate on national issues for over three decades.

Did You Know?

• Krauthammer became permanently paralyzed from the waist down after a diving board accident severed his spinal cord at cervical spinal nerve 5 during his first year at Harvard Medical School.
• He identified a variant of manic depression that he named 'secondary mania' and published his findings in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
• Krauthammer's 2013 book 'Things That Matter' spent 10 consecutive weeks at number one on The New York Times bestseller list.
• In the 2016 presidential election, he refused to support either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and declared his intention to cast a write-in vote.
• Krauthammer co-founded Pro Musica Hebraica, a not-for-profit organization devoted to presenting Jewish classical music in a concert hall setting.