Robert Novak

Robert Novak

1931–2009

For 46 years Robert Novak, who has died of a brain tumor at 78, was one of the nation’s most popular syndicated columnists. At its peak, his column “Inside Report,” written for three decades with Rowland Evans, ran in 300 newspapers and was considered essential reading for anyone interested in Washington politics. Novak was widely known as the “Prince of Darkness” for his ability to ferret out stories from politics’ hidden depths, as well as for his swarthy looks and scowling demeanor.

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Novak worked for the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal before joining with Evans in 1963 to write their column for the New York Herald Tribune, said the Chicago Sun-Times. They were an odd couple: Evans was “a Philadelphia blue blood, Yale graduate, and friend of John F. Kennedy.” Novak, who had grown up Jewish in Joliet, Ill., and attended the University of Illinois, was a self-described “right-wing ideologue.” But “their combination of tenacious reporting and sharp perspective” proved unbeatable. Among their first scoops were early reports that Barry Goldwater would be the likely 1964 Republican presidential nominee.

Novak said he was a “stirrer up of strife,” said The New York Times, a pose especially evident on such public-affairs shows as The Capital Gang and Crossfire. On the 40th anniversary of his column, he noted that it had been called “Red-baiter, Arabist, Chinese Communist, and U.S. corporate apologist, labor-baiter, homophobe, warmonger, isolationist.” He “relished making outrageous comments. He once complained that his Thanksgiving dinner had been ruined by seeing so many homeless people on television.”

In 2003, Novak achieved new notoriety by identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, said The Washington Post. Plame’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, had “publicly claimed that the Bush White House had knowingly distorted intelligence that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa.” Critics accused Novak of being “a pawn in a government retribution campaign against Wilson” by effectively ending Plame’s career with his disclosure. Novak disagreed, but acknowledged that the story would “forever be part of my public identity.” Novak, who converted to Catholicism in 1998, leaves a wife and two children.