Midge Decter

Midge Decter is the author of the soon-to-be-published book "Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait." The "Rumsfeld" of the title is Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Maureen Dowd's September 28, 2003 Op-Ed "Drunk on Rummy", to the say the least, provides insight on the long-term relationship between Decter and Rumsfeld, as well as interesting notes on fellow neo-con Paul Dundes Wolfowitz.


 * Former President, Philadelphia Society
 * Winner of the 2003 National Endowment for the Humanities: National Humanities Medal

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Posted May 22, 2004, at Max Blumenthal's Blogspot:


 * "'We're not in the Middle East to bring sweetness and light to the world. We're there to get something we and our friends in Europe depend on. Namely, oil.'" --Decter on the Warren Olney show, 89.9, Los Angeles, 5/21/04

- According to InfoPlease.com: "Midge Decter, journalist, writer. Born: 7/25/27. Birthplace: St. Paul, Minn.

"Midge Rosenthal attended the University of Minnesota, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and New York University, but never graduated from college. Her first job was secretary to the editor of Commentary, the intellectual magazine published by the American Jewish Committee. She later worked as an assistant editor at Midstream magazine, managing editor at Commentary, editor at Harper's Magazine, and was an editor at Legacy Books and at Basic Books. She also served as executive director of the Committee for the Free World, an anticommunist organization disbanded after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. She is the author of several books, The Liberated Woman & Other Americans (1970); The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation (1972); Liberal Parents, Radical Children (1975). She is on the board of directors of the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow at the Institute of Religion and Public Life. Her second husband, (neoconservative) Norman Podhoretz, is editor of Commentary. Decter has four children." - The following comes from (and was adapted from) the March 9, 2003 Jim Lobe article "Family ties connect US right, Zionists":

"As godfather of the [neo-con] movement, Irving Kristol played mentor to Norman Podhoretz, the long-time but now-retired editor of Commentary, the influential monthly publication of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Originally identified with the anti-war left in the mid-1960s, Podhoretz converted to neo-conservatism late in the decade and transformed the magazine into a main source of neo-conservative writing, despite the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community itself rejecting those positions.

"Podhoretz and his spouse, Midge Decter, a polemical powerhouse in her own right, created a formidable political team in the 1970s as they deserted the Democratic Party, and then, as leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger -- like PNAC a coalition of mainly Jewish, neo-conservatives and more traditional right-wing hawks like Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- helped lay the foreign-policy foundation for the rise of Ronald Reagan. After Reagan's victory, Decter and Rumsfeld co-chaired the international offshoot of the committee, called" the Committee for the Free World.

Nomination of Midge Decter To Be a Member of the Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba, March 13, 1985.

"The President today announced his intention to nominate Midge Decter to be a member of the Advisory Board for Radio Broadcasting to Cuba for a term of 1 year. This is a new position.

"She is an author and editor whose essays and reviews have, over the past two decades, appeared in a number of periodicals including Harper's, the Atlantic, Esquire, and the Saturday Review. She has been a regular contributor to Commentary and is the author of three books.

"As an editor she has served in various positions, beginning with the Hudson Institute and CBS Legacy Books. She has been the acting managing editor of Commentary, the executive editor of Harper's, and the managing editor of the Saturday Review. Most recently she has been a senior editor at Basic Books.

"She was one of the founders of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, of which she is a past national chairman, and a cochairman of the Advisory Committee on European Democracy and Security. She is presently the executive director of the Committee for the Free World.

"She attended the University of Minnesota. She is married, has four children, and resides in New York City. She was born July 25, 1926, in St. Paul, MN." ---