Arnold Beichman, a political scientist, writer, journalist, and a visiting scholar and research fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1982, died February 17, 2010.
Beichman, an expert in international relations and American politics, was a Cold Warrior who spread the idea of freedom around the world. In 2001, Beichman’s efforts to recognize the work of President Ronald Reagan and all those who had contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall (on November 9, 1989) were rewarded when President George W. Bush proclaimed November 9, 2001, World Freedom Day.
Beichman was the author of several books: The Other State Department, Herman Wouk: The Novelist as Social Historian, Yuri Andropov: New Challenge to the West (coauthored), Nine Lies about America, with a foreword by Tom Wolfe, and The Long Pretense: Soviet Treaty Diplomacy, 1917–1990 with a foreword by William F. Buckley. Nine Lies about America was republished in 1995 with a new introduction under the title Anti-American Myths: Their Causes and Consequences (Transaction, 1995). CNN’s Cold War Documentary: Issues and Controversy was published by the Hoover Press in 1999. His updated biography of novelist Herman Wouk was reissued in August 2004.
Beichman has written for numerous academic journals and popular publications including the Hoover Digest. Two of Beichman’s articles from the Hoover Digest include “Well-Spoken Dictators” and “The Perils of Putinism.”
Before his career as an academician, Beichman was a labor editor, a journalist at the United Nations, and a foreign correspondent. As a reporter, he covered such events as the Algerian rebellion, the uprising in the Belgian Congo, the war in Vietnam, the Nigerian civil war, and the war in Yemen.
The following are a few of the tributes written about Arnold Beichman, a wonderful scholar and friend.
- “A Tribute to Arnold Beichman,” by Michael New
- “He Loved Life, and He Loved Liberty, and He Loved America,” by William Kristol
- “Arnold Beichman, 1913-2010,” by John Podhoretz
- “Remembering Arnold Beichman,” by Victorino Matus
- “The Beichman Library Closes” by Paul Kengor
- “Arnold Beichman, Political Analyst, Dies at 96,” by Dennis Hevesi
- “Arnold Beichman dies; anti-communist scholar and author,” by Emma Brown
- “Arnold Beichman’s contributions to the Weekly Standard,” by Richard Starr
- Arnold Beichman’s website
