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FOREWORD: IN MEMORIAM: IRVING KRISTOL, 1920-2009
In 1994 my father wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal titled Life Without Father. It dealt with the subject of the family and poverty and welfarewith my father drawing for his argument, as he so often did, on a combination of social science, common sense, history, and personal experience. In the course of the article, my father briefly discussed his father, Joseph Kristol, who, he wrote, was thought by all our relatives and his fellow workers to be wise, and fair, and good. I thought so too.
So have Liz and I always thought about our father. To us, he was wise, and fair, and good. I honestly dont think it ever occurred to us that we could have had a better father. So as we enter the rest of our lifea life without our fatherwe are overwhelmed not by a sense of loss or grief, though of course we feel both, but by a sense of gratitude: Having Irving Kristol as our dad was our great good fortune.
Now, my father would often speak of his own great good fortune. That was meeting my mother. Shortly after graduating from City College, my fathera diligent if already somewhat heterodox Trotskyistwas assigned to attend the meetings of a Brooklyn branch of the young Trotskyists. As my father later wrote, the meetings were farcical and pointless, as they were intended to recruit the proletarian youths of Bensonhurst to a cause they were much too sensible to take seriously. But the meetings turned out not to be entirely pointless, because my father met my mother there. They were married, and they remained happily marriedtruly happily married, thoroughly happily marriedfor the next sixty-seven years.
Dan Bell, who knew my parents for that whole span, called my parents marriage the best marriage of [his] generation. I only knew my parents for fifty-six years, so I cant speak with Dans authorityand my first couple of years with my parents are something of a blur. But I know enough confidently to endorse his judgment.
During the 1960s and 1970s, when Liz and I were growing up, everything is supposed to have become complicated and conflicted and ambiguous. Not so with respect to my parents love for each other. Or with respect to the love and admiration that Liz and Iand later, Caleb and Susanhad for my father. Our love for him was always straightforward, unambivalent, and unconditional.
As was the love of his five grandchildren for him. And as was his love for them. Almost seven years ago, my father was scheduled for lung surgery. As we were talking the night before, my father matter-of-factly acknowledged the possibility he might not survive. And, he said, he could have no complaints if that were to happen. Ive had such a lucky life, he remarked. (Actually, Im editing a bit since were in a house of worship. He said, Ive had such a god-damn lucky life.)
But, he said, it would be just great to get another five yearsin order to see the grandchildren grow up. That wish of his was granted. He got almost seven years. So he was able to see Rebecca and Anne and Joe graduate from college. He was able to attend Rebecca and Elliots wedding. Hea staff sergeant in the army in World War IIdeveloped a renewed interest in things military as Joe trained to be, and then was commissioned as, a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.
And he was able to see Lizs children grow up too, to watch Max and Katy become poised and impressive teenagersit turns out thats not a contradiction in terms. My father was able to get to know them, and to talk with them, in a way you cant with much younger kids. So that too was a great source of happiness.
Everyone knows of my fathers good nature and good humor. He kept that to the end. In the last couple of years, his hearing lossand the limitations of even the most modern hearing aid technologysometimes made it difficult for him to understand everything that was being said in a noisy restaurant or a busy place. But he compensated. A few months ago, my parents were out for brunch with the Stelzers and the Krauthammers. After a stretch where he couldnt quite pick up some exchanges between Irwin and Charles, my dad said to the two of them: I cant hear what youre saying. So I make it up. And, he added, smiling, sometimes you disappoint me.
But my father was in general not the disappointed sort. Its true that he loved dogs and never had one. But he made up for that by doting on his two granddogsLiz and Calebs Sandy, and of course Patches, whom he saw more of because of our proximity. Patches really loved my fatherand as many of you know, Patches is choosy in his affections.
Just a day or so before he slipped from consciousness last week, my father was greeted by one of those well-trained dogs that visit hospitals, in this case a big golden retriever. He patted it and communed with it for a while. Then, as the owner led the dog away, my father commented to us, as if for the agesdogs are noble creatures.
My father liked humans toothough Im not sure he thought they quite rose to the level of dogs as noble creatures. Still, as I look around today, I do wish my father could be here, because he would have so enjoyed seeing and talking with all of you.
In one of the many, many e-mails and notes Ive gotten in the last few days, a friend commented, When Id stop by the Public Interest office in the 1980s, your dad would always start a conversation with, Hows the family? I suppose that was his standard opener. But I noticed in the last few years, when Id see him at AEI or somewhere else in D.C., hed ask about the family and then hows everyone? If I mentioned some former PI editor or writer, hed beamas if it were news of his own extended family.
My fathers extended family ended up being pretty large. In politics and law and business and journalism, in New York and Washington and elsewhere, even in the strange outposts of modern academe, there are scores, legionshordes they must seem to those who disapprove of themwho have been influenced, and not just casually, by my father.
How did he do it? I do think that in my father was found an unusual combination of traitsconfidence without arrogance; worldly wisdom along with intellectual curiosity; a wry wit and a kindly disposition; and a clear-eyed realism about the world along with a great generosity of spirit. He very much enjoyed his last two decades in Washington, but he had none of the self-importance that afflicts us here. He loved intellectual pursuits, but always shunned intellectual pretension. For example, I dont think I ever heard him use the phrase the life of the mind, though my father lived a life of the mind.
Beneath the confident wit and the intellectual bravado, my father had a deep modesty. My father spoke with gratitude of his good fortune in life. He wouldnt have claimed to deserve the honors that came his waythough he did deserve them.
Perhaps in part because he was a man who was marked by such a deep sense of gratitude, he was the recipient of much deeply felt gratitude. Even Ive been surprised, judging by the e-mails and phone calls since his death, by the sheer number of those befriended by my father, by the range of those affected by him, by the diversity of those who admired him. I expected the appropriate remarks from distinguished political leaders and professors, and we were moved by eloquent testimonials from people whove known my father well, in some cases for many decades. But what struck all of us in the family were the e-mails from individuals who met my father only once or twice, but who remembered his kindness or benefited from his counselor from people who had never met him, but who were still very much influenced by his writing or other enterprises he was involved in.
