NEW YORK — Victor Navasky is an award-winning author and journalist who for many years was the editor of the weekly of liberals The Nation and wrote influential books about the anti-Communist blacklist, as well as Robert F. Kennedy’s justice department died at the age of 90.
The death of Navasky was confirmed on the following day by an official for The Nation, who did not have any additional information. The magazine’s editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, tweeted that Navasky has transformed her life as well as many others’ lives. His editors included notable liberals such as David Corn, Eric Alterman and Katha Pollitt.
“Victor was a firm fan of the potential of independent mediaquiet fierce in his beliefs, compassionate and generous to the masses,” vanden Heuvel wrote.
A man of bearded appearance with a scholarly presence and a diplomatic demeanor, Navasky was long a well-known name and a face on the world of politics and literature as editor and columnist in the publishing section of The New York Times, as the founder of the comical magazine Monocle and from 1978 until 2005 in the role of editor and editor for The Nation.
Navasky was also known for his works on the history of culture and politics. “Naming Names,” winner of an National Book Award in 1982 the book was a detailed report on the Cold War and blacklisting of suspected Communists which was praised for being honest and thorough.
RIP my old colleague Victor Navasky, who outlived one of his obit writers. https://t.co/LNLf9JxXq8 pic.twitter.com/otoI3a6keR
— Scott Klein (@kleinmatic) January 24, 2023
The author described the novel as it a “moral detective tale” and referenced interviews with actors Lee J. Cobb, screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and other people who spoke to their colleagues, focusing on not only the attacks of Senator. Joseph McCarthy and other Republicans as well as the controversies among liberals about the best way to respond.
A decade before, Navasky wrote “Kennedy Justice,” which offered some of the first scholarly thorough analysis of Kennedy’s brief period being attorney general. He also analyzed his hiring of talented subordinates like the future Supreme Court Justice Byron White and Nicholas Katzenbach and his tiring struggle to manage FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Many scholars believed Navasky was a romantic of Kennedy but the writer did criticize Kennedy for his history that he appointed segregationist judge federal courts.
“No aspect of the Attorney Generalship of Robert Kennedy is more susceptible to scrutiny,” he wrote. “For it was a clear contradiction to the Kennedys to ignore the civil rights laws and executive actions in favor of litigation and at same time, appoint as permanent litigators men who were devoted to stifling the litigation.”
In the last few years, Navasky was publisher emeritus of the Nation and was a contributor on occasion. In addition, he taught journalism at Columbia University, chaired the Columbia Journalism Review and served as a board member of several organizations which included The Authors Guild and the Committee to Protect Journalists. A book about cartoons about politics, “The Art of Controversy,” came out in 2013.
Navasky was married to Anne Strongin in 1966. The couple had 3 children.
