Philip Terzian
Philip Terzian is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, having served as literary editor during 2005-2017. A native of the Washington, D.C., area and a journalist for over 40 years, he has been a writer and editor at Reuters, newspapers in Alabama and Kentucky, the New Republic, the Los Angeles Times, and was editorial page editor of the Providence Journal. For 20 years he wrote a political/foreign affairs column syndicated by the Scripps Howard News Service. During 1978-79 he was speechwriter for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.
Terzian has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary, Pulitzer juror, media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, traveling fellow of the American Journalism Foundation, and is a member of the American Council on Germany. He is a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the New Criterion, the Times Literary Supplement, Sewanee Review, and other publications. In 2010 Encounter Books published his book Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century.
Stories by Philip Terzian
TERZIAN: Remember the Pueblo—seriously
4:00 AM, Feb 09, 2018
If you should find yourself in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, you might be surprised to discover a U.S. naval vessel moored on the Pothong River near the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum. It is the USS Pueblo , a modest craft launched in World War II, recommissioned by the Navy in 1966 as a spy ship, and resting in Pyongyang for the past half-century. After the USS Constitution of Revolutionary War fame, the Pueblo is the oldest commissioned ship in the Navy. And how an Read more
TERZIAN: What would J. Edgar Hoover do?
4:00 AM, Feb 02, 2018
When J. Edgar Hoover died suddenly in May 1972, there had been one director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the previous 48 years. In the nearly 46 years since that day, there have been 15 of them. Some of Hoover’s successors—William Webster, Louis Freeh, Robert Mueller—have been better than others and, admittedly, a few were only briefly in office as acting directors. But the picture of a riven, highly politicized, even dysfunctional federal agency that has emerged in recent Read more
Fake Idi Amin
How did a book signed by 'Idi Amin' wind up in the Library of Israel?
11:45 AM, Jan 26, 2018
I've never stuffed a note in a bottle, and tossed it into the ocean. But I seem to have done the bibliographical equivalent, and the evidence has washed up on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. On Thursday morning, the Facebook site of the National Library of Israel posted an intriguing item about a volume someone had uncovered in its stacks. It was, in fact, a mildly soporific volume— Uganda and Human Rights: Reports of the International Commission of Jurists to the United Nations Read more
TERZIAN: When Psychiatrists Try to Diagnose a President, They're Usually the Crazy Ones
4:12 AM, Jan 26, 2018
In the winter of 1949, the first secretary of defense, James V. Forrestal, announced his impending retirement from office. The announcement was abrupt but not entirely unexpected. Columnist Drew Pearson had revealed that the 1948 Republican presidential candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, had met privately with Forrestal and had asked him to stay on if Dewey won the election. This was a serious annoyance to the winner of the election (and Forrestal’s boss), Harry Truman. And Truman’s principal campaig Read more
Terzian: Presidential Libraries: A Study in Bloat
4:43 AM, Jan 19, 2018
I was surprised last week to learn that plans for the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago have run into local opposition. The proposed library/museum/think-tank design, a sprawling campus in Jackson Park featuring a giant monolith and mammoth parking garage, has been criticized by South Side activists for intruding on the park space and overwhelming the neighborhood. The center is a joint project of the Obama Foundation and the nearby University of Chicago, where Obama once taught. Now Read more
Terzian: Rise of the Gerontocracy
5:28 AM, Jan 18, 2018
In 1898, when the 42-year-old George Bernard Shaw stepped down as drama critic of London’s Saturday Review , he introduced his successor, Max Beerbohm, 26, with these words: “The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps sprightly in the incomparable Max.” I was reminded of this famous line when, earlier this month, 83-year-old Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, ended speculation by announcing that he would not seek an eighth term. Hatch, who was once an amat Read more
Bring Out Your Dead
Philip Terzian on the flu epidemic of 1918.
4:00 AM, Jan 05, 2018
Journalists like anniversaries, or at least this one does, and 2018 is an ideal vantage point from which to survey the past. It’s been a half-century now since the annus horribilis of 1968, for example, and a century-and-a-half since my favorite president (James Buchanan) died. But more to the point, this month marks the centennial of much the worst pandemic in modern history: the 1918 influenza epidemic. In a century of man-made and natural disasters, it might be champion. To be sure, the B Read more
The Narrowing of the Bench
Look what happens when you politicize the federal judiciary.
4:00 AM, Dec 22, 2017
Everyone had a good laugh last week at the expense of Matthew Petersen, chairman or commissioner at the Federal Election Commission since 2008, who had been nominated by President Trump to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In a televised hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) asked a panel of federal judicial nominees if any of them had not “tried a case to verdict in a courtroom.” Alone among the candidates, Petersen raised Read more
A President Has No Friends
Trump is far from the first to have no close pals.
4:00 AM, Dec 15, 2017
Frank Bruni had an interesting column the other day in the New York Times . Naturally, it was about Donald Trump, and naturally, it registered disapproval. But the point was more psychiatric than political: Entitled “Donald Trump Could Really Use a Friend,” it assembled a host of testimonials to show that Trump, while a man of wide acquaintance, has no close confidants, no old chums with whom he can unwind, no buddies in whom he can usefully confide. “Show me a person who has no true friendsh Read more
Brian Ross, Suspended
A long history of getting it wrong.
4:21 AM, Dec 11, 2017
On inauguration eve 1991, in Rhode Island, the departing governor, Edward DiPrete, had a morsel of news for the incoming governor, Bruce Sundlun. A case of embezzlement at a mobbed-up bank in Providence had led to the collapse of the dubious private agency that insured the state’s credit unions. So the next morning, after taking the oath of office, Sundlun was obliged to close the affected credit unions (and a handful of banks) since state law requires financial institutions to have insurance. Read more
The Legacy of John Anderson, Liberal Republican
The congressman changed the course of the 1980 election and paved the way for Ross Perot.
1:13 PM, Dec 05, 2017
This is a day of mourning for Americans who believe that our politics are broken, who yearn to reach across the aisle, stop the partisan bickering, and eradicate the influence of money, Big Business, the military, corporate media, parochial interests, anti-tax activists, the NRA, the AMA, the CIA, religious right, Southern congressmen (and women), fossil fuels, flyover America, pro-lifers, and free-speech absolutists. Former Rep. John Anderson (R-Ill.), the liberal Republican who sought the 19 Read more
Charles Manson Is Dead. Is It Time to Parole His Followers?
It seems reasonable to question the purpose of their continued imprisonment.
5:00 AM, Dec 03, 2017
The death of 83-year-old Charles Manson reminds us of two things, among others: It is usually a fallacy to believe that life in America in the recent past was somehow better than it is at present. And second, punishment for the crime of murder is not always the same as justice. In Manson’s case, it is probably fair to say that his half-century imprisonment was as close to justice as our fallible system provides. I don’t know whether Manson was “evil,” as many seem to believe, and deserved to d Read more
Telling Alabamans Not to Vote for Moore Will Make Them Vote for Roy Moore
Rest assured that Alabama readers of the New York Times know what's being said about them.
3:00 PM, Dec 01, 2017
Despite everything we know, or think we know, about the private life and opinions of Judge Roy Moore, I have no doubt that he will win the Alabama special election on December 12, and succeed to Attorney General Jefferson Sessions's old Senate seat. I don't think that he will win by a landslide—there are Alabama conservatives who cannot set aside the accounts of his behavior, and even deep-red Alabama has its share of liberals and Democrats—but I have every expectation he will gain the necessa Read more
For Royals, as for Commoners, Honesty Is the Best Policy
On the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
2:55 PM, Nov 27, 2017
I'm delighted, of course, by the news that Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales's personable younger son, is now engaged to Meghan Markle, described by Wikipedia as an "American actress, model, and humanitarian." I wish them both health and happiness. Harry is fifth in line of succession to the British throne—and with the latest pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William's wife, swiftly receding as a candidate to be king. So Markle will undoubtedly become the duchess of something-or-ot Read more
That National Feeling
It's far from gone, gone, gone.
3:00 AM, Nov 17, 2017
If Americans think our nation is painfully divided, two statistics from across the Atlantic might put their minds at ease. The first is the percentage of British voters who chose, in a binding referendum last year, to abandon the European Union: just slightly under 52 percent. The other is the number of Catalans who, according to the latest opinion polls, do not wish to declare their independence from Spain: slightly over 50 percent. At first glance, the two might seem unrelated. Opponents o Read more
There's Precedent for Keeping Roy Moore From Taking His Seat (If He Wins)
A look back at Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was expelled from the House 50 years ago.
12:04 PM, Nov 16, 2017
It's becoming increasingly unlikely that Roy Moore will be elected to the Senate—or, perhaps, endure as the Republican nominee for the seat once held by Attorney General Jefferson Sessions. But in the event that Judge Moore wins his election, it is interesting to note that more than a few Republican senators have already said that they would vote to expel him from the Senate. Expulsion from either chamber of Congress, is a very rare event. Indeed, no senator has been formally expelled from the Read more
A Party Divided Against Itself . . .
Is pretty much business as usual in America.
4:00 AM, Nov 10, 2017
I was in New England for a few days last week and found myself at breakfast one morning with a group of Armenian academics, born in Lebanon but now settled permanently in and around Boston. By any measure, they were a distinguished group—historians, physicians, political scientists—and for them, of course, the Big Story of the moment was the sudden resignation of the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri. On that subject I had nothing to tell them that they didn’t already know. What they wanted Read more
Podcasting to the People
Who gets to talk to the public: priests or politicos?
3:10 AM, Nov 03, 2017
Amanda Hess, a David Carr Fellow at the New York Times , who “writes about Internet culture for the [ Times ] Arts section,” recently took to its pages to tell us what she thinks of politicians who podcast. Executive summary: She doesn’t approve of them (“Politicians Are Bad at Podcasting,” Oct. 27). Podcasting is a relatively recent phenomenon in the world of Internet culture, and as it happens, most (but not all) podcasting pols are Democrats. Bernie Sanders has his own podcast, as does h Read more
The Latest Release of JFK Documents Won't End the Conspiracy Theories
The reality of Lee Harvey Oswald is obscured by the myth of the Camelot presidency.
11:45 AM, Oct 31, 2017
Last week's release of surviving documents on the assassination of John F. Kennedy was not the first time the federal government has made a clean breast of things on the subject, or attempted to do so. There were plenty of leaks when the Warren Commission was deliberating, back in the Bronze Age (1963-64), and its final report consisted of a staggering 26 clothbound volumes. The House Select Committee on Assassinations was a virtual sieve to the press corps during its long and turbulent existenc Read more
The Consolations of Presidents
Sometimes less is more.
1:00 AM, Oct 27, 2017
At this juncture, we can stipulate that President Trump would probably have been well advised to follow Gen. John Kelly’s reported advice and write a letter of condolence to the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson instead of calling her on the telephone. No doubt Trump had reasoned that words of regret, delivered personally, would be preferable to some palliative message mailed from the White House on behalf of the nation. How wrong he was. To be sure, Donald Trump is scarcely our most articulate p Read more
Jeff Glor and the New Age Anchorman
The bedrock gravity of the network anchor isn't what it used to be.
1:45 AM, Oct 26, 2017
When I first learned the big news this week about Jeff Glor, my mind wandered back three decades, and more, to the mid-1980s. But who is Jeff Glor, you ask? The 42-year-old Glor is lead anchor on the CBS network's 24-hour streaming news service, called CBSN, and he has just been named by the network brass to succeed Scott Pelley as anchor of the CBS Evening News . Pelley, who had been anchor for just six years when he was suddenly dismissed last June, had succeeded Katie Couric, whose five-ye Read more
Predator's Ball
What? A lecherous producer? Who knew?
3:30 AM, Oct 20, 2017
My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine. My own knowledge was rudimentary, at best. As a consumer of newspapers and lifelong insomniac with a television set, I was aware that he was a very successful and well-publicized “independent” film producer, particularly adept at campaigning for, and winning, Oscar nominations and trophies. But as my long-suffering wife can attest, contemporary cine Read more
Diplomats in Chief
When the White House and Foggy Bottom scuffle.
3:00 AM, Oct 13, 2017
By the time you read this, it is entirely possible that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will have resigned his office in despair and frustration. He finds himself, after all, at “the breaking point” ( New Yorker ) in relations with his mercurial boss, President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, over at PBS NewsHour the other evening, Mark Shields and David Brooks, shaking their heads more in sorrow than anger, agreed that Tillerson’s effectiveness as the nation’s top diplomat is finished. Not long bef Read more
Killer Celebrities
The sociopaths championed by credulous literati.
4:00 AM, Oct 06, 2017
Before Jack Henry Abbott, there was Edgar Smith. Abbott was a Utah forger, bank robber, and killer whose series of essay-letters to Norman Mailer about prison life were published by Random House in 1981, in a volume entitled In the Belly of the Beast. Abbott had come to Mailer’s attention a few years earlier when he learned that the novelist intended to write about Gary Gilmore, another self-publicizing Utah convict who had chosen to be executed rather than appeal his conviction for two murd Read more
Hugh Hefner, Butt of the Joke
How the cool icon of the Silent Generation became a nocturnal recluse, eternally pajama-clad, addicted to gallons of Pepsi-Cola.
3:17 PM, Sep 29, 2017
Reactions to the death of 91-year-old Hugh Hefner this past week seem to waver between tributes to his pioneering role in the postwar Sexual Revolution–and horror at the consequences of his pioneering role in the Sexual Revolution. My own view of the aforementioned Revolution is that it would have come with or without Hugh Hefner–the wicked 18th century, after all, succeeded the Puritan Age without the assistance of Playboy –and that Hefner was, at best, a smart financial beneficiary of the cha Read more
The Art of Losing Gracefully
What Hillary could learn from Adlai.
3:15 AM, Sep 22, 2017
One day, when he was running for the Democratic nomination for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter was asked what he thought about Hubert Humphrey. In fairness to Carter, it should be remembered that Humphrey—the former vice president and 1968 Democratic candidate—was lurking in the background that year, awaiting the summons if Carter’s campaign should falter. So Carter, the first self-professed “born-again Christian” to run for the White House, fixed his trademark grin and quoted a favorite aphoris Read more
Let Trump Be Trump?
History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
4:00 AM, Sep 15, 2017
For those of us who wish (or hope) that Donald Trump may ultimately settle into something resembling a conventional president, his ex-chief strategist Stephen Bannon offered a glimmer of encouragement last week. Bannon, of course, was removed from his White House perch last month by Trump’s no-nonsense chief of staff, General John Kelly, and has retreated to Breitbart News to resume the struggle that first brought him to Trump’s attention. For a populist insurgent, Bannon’s venue for his first Read more
Why Argue About a Day Off?
There's no such thing as an uncontroversial federal holiday.
3:30 AM, Sep 08, 2017
We Americans are a resilient people, but like resilient people everywhere, we need the occasional interlude of rest and relaxation. Which is why after two weeks of something like a national nervous breakdown over equestrian statues of Robert E. Lee, we welcomed the approach of Labor Day, the traditional end-of-summer federal holiday that offered a three-day respite from drama. Of course, the historic origins of Labor Day are lost in the mists of time, journeys home from the beach, and Toyotath Read more
Feeding the Crocodile
Remember Kim Jong-un?
3:00 AM, Sep 01, 2017
Readers will recall that just before memories of the Confederacy became an existential threat to national unity, Americans were worried about another—and surely more plausible—menace to the United States. In early August, Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator who has been successfully testing ballistic missiles, threatened the American territory of Guam, in the western Pacific, with attack. Kim’s nuclear saber-rattling was met with a bellicose response from President Trump, who vowed that any a Read more
The Rather Brief History of the President as Healer in Chief
Franklin Roosevelt wouldn't have dreamed of visiting hurricane-ravaged New England in 1938.
10:45 AM, Aug 31, 2017
On the evening of Oct. 14, 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered one of his famous Fireside Chats to a national radio audience. What used to be called Community Chest drives—local campaigns to raise money for social-welfare charities—were about to be launched, and FDR wished to pay tribute to "the past and present generosity of the American people." Such private agencies, he explained, were essential to "social welfare and social justice" and not "contradictory ... to government effort Read more