This issue of The New Criterion was on press when we received the sad news that Irving Kristol, the distinguished editor, writer, and intellectual enabler, had died, age 89. The New Criterion will have more to say about Mr. Kristol’s important legacy in a future issue. For now, we wish to record our sorrow at his passing and express our condolences to his widow, the distinguished historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, and his children (among whom is the distinguished commentator William Kristol—“distinguished” seems to be a Kristol birthright). There is a melancholy symmetry in the fact that Mr. Kristol’s passing should coincide with the inauguration of National Affairs, a magazine for which he acted as intellectual midwife. But then that describes many magazines: The Public Interest, as we noted above, and the English monthly Encounter, of which he was, with Stephen Spender, a founding editor. Mr. Kristol was also instrumental in the creation of The New Criterion, on whose board he served in its early years. We will miss him greatly. RIP.
