Irving Kristol, the former Trotskyite who turned sharply anti-Communist and shaped modern US politics and foreign policy as the "godfather" of neoconservatism, died Friday at the age of 89.
The magazine edited by his son, William Kristol, announced his death on its Internet site.
"His wisdom, wit, good humor, and generosity of spirit made him a friend and mentor to several generations of thinkers and public servants," the editors of the Weekly Standard said in an unsigned message on the magazine's Web site.
Then-president George W. Bush awarded Kristol the presidential medal of freedom, the top US civilian honor, in July 2002.
The late writer did not comment much in public on the war in Iraq, while prominent neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush Administration played a major role in pushing for the March 2003 invasion.
Kristol, whose son William runs the Weekly Standard, often described his leftist youth, then a sharp rightward shift that led him to help found, but not name, the neoconservative movement.
In an August 2003 article, Irving Kristol said he preferred to describe neoconservatism as a "persuasion" and underlined that it had its roots among "disillusioned liberal intellectuals in the 1970s."
Kristol also once memorably said that neoconservatives -- a group identified and named by socialist writer Michael Harrington in the early 1970s -- were "liberals mugged by reality."
Kristol was born in New York's Brooklyn neighborhood, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. During World War II, he served as a combat infantryman.
Copyright 2009 AFP American Edition
