Events

217 – Roman Emperor Caracalla is assassinated (and succeeded) by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus.

1093 – The new Winchester Cathedral is dedicated by Walkelin.

1139 – Roger II of Sicily is excommunicated.

1149 – Pope Eugene III takes refuge in the castle of Ptolemy II of Tusculum.

1271 – In Syria, sultan Baybars conquers the Krak of Chevaliers.

1730 – Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York City, is dedicated.

1740 – War of Jenkin's Ear: Three British ships capture the Spanish third-rate ''Princesa''.

1767 – Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders.

1808 – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Baltimore is promoted to an archdiocese, with the founding of the dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) by Pope Pius VII.

1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.

1832 – Black Hawk War: Around three-hundred United States 6th Infantry troops leave St. Louis, Missouri to fight the Sauk Native Americans.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Mansfield – Union forces are thwarted by the Confederate army at Mansfield, Louisiana.

1866 – Italy and Prussia ally against Austrian Empire.

1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.

1893 – The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

1895 – In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. the Supreme Court of the United States declares unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional.

1904 – The French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland sign the ''Entente cordiale''.

1904 – British mystic Aleister Crowley transcribes the first chapter of ''The Book of the Law''.

1904 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after ''The New York Times''.

1906 – Auguste Deter, the first person to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, dies.

1908 – Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.

1911 – Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity.

1913 – The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, becomes law.

1916 – In Corona, California, race car driver Bob Burman crashes, killing three, and badly injuring five, spectators.

1918 – World War I: Actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin sell war bonds on the streets of New York City's financial district.

1929 – Indian Independence Movement: At the Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts and bombs to court arrest.

1935 – The Works Progress Administration is formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 becomes law.

1942 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad – Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.

1942 – World War II: The Japanese take Bataan in the Philippines.

1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases by common carriers and public utilities.

1945 – World War II: After an air raid accidentally destroys a train carrying about 4,000 Nazi concentration camp internees in Prussian Hanover, the survivors are massacred by Nazis.

1946 – The last meeting of the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations, is held.

1946 – Électricité de France, the world's largest utility company, is formed as a result of the nationalisation of a number of electricity producers, transporters and distributors.

1950 – India and Pakistan sign the Liaquat-Nehru Pact.

1952 – U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.

1953 – Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by Kenya's British rulers.

1954 – A Royal Canadian Air Force Canadair Harvard collided with a Trans-Canada Airlines Canadair North Star over Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, killing 37 people.

1959 – A team of computer manufacturers, users, and university people led by Grace Hopper meets to discuss the creation of a new programming language that would be called COBOL.

1959 – The Organization of American States drafts an agreement to create the Inter-American Development Bank.

1960 – The Netherlands and West Germany sign an agreement to negotiate the return of German land annexed by the Dutch in return for 280 million German marks as Wiedergutmachung.

1961 – A large explosion on board the in the Persian Gulf kills 238.

1968 – BOAC Flight 712 catches fire shortly after take off. As a result of her actions in the accident, Barbara Jane Harrison is awarded a posthumous George Cross, the only GC awarded to a woman in peacetime.

1970 – Bahr el-Baqar incident: Israeli bombers strike an Egyptian school. 46 children are killed.

1974 – at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run to surpass Babe Ruth's 39-year-old record.

1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.

1975 – Voyageurs National Park is established in northern Minnesota.

1985 – Bhopal disaster: India files suit against Union Carbide for the disaster which killed an estimated 2,000 and injured another 200,000.

1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid controversy over racially charged remarks he had made while on ''Nightline''.

1992 – Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.

1993 – The Republic of Macedonia joins the United Nations.

1999 – Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress.

2004 – Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.

2005 – Over four million people attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

2006 – Shedden massacre: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, are found in a field in Ontario, Canada. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos motorcycle gang.

2008 – The construction of the world's first building to integrate wind turbines is completed in Bahrain.

2008 – Yi So-Yeon becomes the first Korean and second Asian woman to go into space.

Births

1320 – King Peter I of Portugal (d. 1367)

1336 – Tamerlane (Timur), Central Asian, Turkic conqueror (d. 1405)

1533 – Claudio Merulo, Italian composer (d. 1604)

1541 – Michele Mercati, Italian physician (d. 1593)

1605 – King Philip IV of Spain, (d. 1665)

1641 – Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney, English statesman (d. 1704)

1692 – Giuseppe Tartini, Italian composer (d. 1770)

1732 – David Rittenhouse, American astronomer, inventor, and mathematician (d. 1796)

1761 – Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, Founder of the Society of Mary (d. 1850)

1818 – August Wilhelm von Hofmann, German chemist (d. 1892)

1818 – King Christian IX of Denmark (d. 1906)

1826 – Pancha Carrasco, Costa Rican war heroine (d. 1890)

1827 – Ramón Emeterio Betances, Puerto Rican politician, medical doctor and diplomat (d. 1898)

1842 – Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of George Armstrong Custer (d. 1933)

1859 – Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher (d. 1938)

1865 – Charles W. Woodworth, American entomologist (d. 1940)

1869 – Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (d. 1939)

1871 – Clarence Hudson White American photographer (d. 1925)

1874 – Stanisław Taczak, Polish general (d. 1960)

1875 – King Albert I of Belgium (d. 1934)

1883 – R. P. Keigwin, English academic (d. 1972)

1885 – Dimitrios Levidis, Greek composer (d. 1951)

1888 – Dennis Chavez, American politician (d. 1964)

1889 – Sir Adrian Boult, British conductor (d. 1983)

1892 – Richard Neutra, American architect (d. 1970)

1892 – Mary Pickford, Canadian actress (d. 1979)

1896 – Yip Harburg, American lyricist (d. 1981)

1902 – Andrew Irvine, British mountaineer (d. 1924)

1904 – John Hicks, British economist, Bank of Sweden Prize winner (d. 1989)

1904 – Hirsch Jacobs, American thoroughbred horse trainer and owner (d. 1970)

1905 – Helen Joseph, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1992)

1905 – Erwin Keller, German field hockey player (d. 1971)

1906 – Raoul Jobin, French Canadian tenor (d. 1974)

1908 – Hugo Fregonese, Argentine film director (d. 1987)

1909 – John Fante, American novelist (d. 1983)

1910 – George Musso, American football player (d. 2000)

1911 – Melvin Calvin, American chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1997)

1911 – Emil Cioran, Romanian philosopher and essayist (d. 1995)

1912 – Alois Brunner, Austrian Nazi

1912 – Sonja Henie, Norwegian figure skater and actress (d. 1969)

1914 – María Félix, Mexican actress (d. 2002)

1918 – Betty Ford, Former First Lady of the United States(d. 2011)

1918 – Glendon Swarthout, American author (d. 1992)

1919 – Ian Smith, Former Prime Minister of Rhodesia (d. 2007)

1920 – Carmen McRae, American jazz singer (d. 1994)

1921 – Franco Corelli, Italian tenor (d. 2003)

1921 – Jan Novák, Czech composer (d. 1984)

1923 – George Fisher, American cartoonist (d. 2003)

1923 – Edward Mulhare, Irish actor (d. 1997)

1924 – Frédéric Back, German-born Canadian short film director and screenwriter

1924 – Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, English soldier and historian (d. 2006)

1926 – Henry N. Cobb, American architect

1926 – Shecky Greene, American comedian

1926 – Shirley Mills, American actress (d. 2010)

1926 – Jürgen Moltmann, German theologian

1928 – Leah Rabin, widow of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (d. 2000)

1928 – Monty Sunshine, English jazz clarinetist

1929 – Walter Berry, Austrian bass-baritone (d. 2000)

1929 – Jacques Brel, Belgian singer/composer (d. 1978)

1929 – Renzo De Felice, Italian historian (d. 1996)

1930 – Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, Duke of Parma (d. 2010)

1931 – John Gavin, American actor and politician

1932 – Sultan Iskandar of Johor, also the 8th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia (d. 2010)

1933 – Fred Ebb, American composer (d. 2004)

1934 – Kisho Kurokawa, Japanese architect (d. 2007)

1935 – Albert Bustamante, American politician

1935 – Oscar Zeta Acosta, American attorney, politician, and Chicano Movement activist (d. 1974?)

1937 – Seymour Hersh, American journalist

1938 – Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and former United Nations Secretary General

1939 – Mary Leona Gage, American beauty pageant contestant and actress (d. 2010)

1940 – John Havlicek, American basketball player

1941 – Darlene Gillespie, Canadian-born American actress

1941 – Peggy Lennon, American singer (The Lennon Sisters)

1941 – Vivienne Westwood, English fashion designer

1942 – Roger Chapman, British rock singer (Family, Streetwalkers)

1942 – Douglas Trumbull, American film director

1943 – Tony Banks, British politician (d. 2006)

1943 – Michael Bennett, American dancer/choreographer (d. 1987)

1943 – Miller Farr, American football player

1944 – Hywel Bennett, Welsh actor

1944 – Odd Nerdrum, Norwegian painter

1945 – Derrick Walker, British racing team owner

1946 – Catfish Hunter, American baseball player (d. 1999)

1946 – Stuart Pankin, American actor

1946 – Tim Thomerson, American actor

1947 – Tom DeLay, American politician and convict

1947 – Steve Howe, English guitarist (Yes, Asia, GTR)

1947 – Robert Kiyosaki, American investor

1947 – Larry Norman, American singer/songwriter (d. 2008)

1947 – Pascal Lamy, Director-General of WTO

1948 – Michael Leshner, Canadian lawyer and gay rights advocate

1949 – John Madden, English film director

1949 – Brenda Russell, American singer/songwriter

1950 – Grzegorz Lato, Polish footballer

1951 – Gerd Andres, German politician

1951 – Geir Haarde, former Icelandic prime minister

1954 – G.V. Loganathan, American professor (d. 2007)

1954 – Gary Carter, American baseball player

1955 – Ricky Bell, American football player (d. 1984)

1955 – Gerrie Coetzee, South African boxer

1955 – Kane Hodder, American actor and stuntman

1955 – Ron Johnson, American politician, junior senator of Wisconsin.

1955 – Barbara Kingsolver, American novelist

1955 – David Wu, Taiwanese-born American politician

1956 – Christine Boisson, French actress

1956 – Jim Piddock, English actor, writer and producer

1956 – Justin Sullivan, English musician (New Model Army)

1957 – Fred Smerlas, American football player

1958 – Detlef Bruckhoff, German footballer

1960 – John Schneider, American actor

1961 – Richard Hatch, American reality television personality

1962 – Evan Davis, British journalist and television presenter

1962 – Paddy Lowe, British engineer

1962 – Izzy Stradlin, American musician (Guns N' Roses)

1963 – Julian Lennon, English musician and singer

1963 – Terry Porter, American basketball player and coach

1963 – Alec Stewart, English cricketer

1963 – Seth Tobias, American financial commentator (d. 2007)

1964 – Lisa Guerrero, American sports broadcaster

1964 – Biz Markie, American rapper/disc jockey

1964 – John McGinlay, Scottish footballer

1965 – Michael Jones, New Zealand rugby player and coach

1966 – Mark Blundell, British racing driver

1966 – Mazinho, Brazilian footballer

1966 – Bobby Ologun, Nigerian television personality

1966 – Evripidis Stylianidis, Greek politician

1966 – Robin Wright Penn, American actress

1966 – Dalton Grant, British high jumper

1967 – Arwyn Davies, Welsh actor

1968 – Patricia Arquette, American actress

1968 – Patricia Girard-Léno, French athlete

1968 – Tracy Grammer, American folk singer

1972 – Paul Gray, American bassist (Slipknot) (d. 2010)

1973 – Khaled Badra, Tunisian footballer

1973 – Emma Caulfield, American actress

1973 – Alex S. Gonzalez, American baseball player

1974 – Chino XL, American rapper

1974 – Holger Hott Johansen, Norwegian orienteerist

1974 – Nnedi Okorafor, Nigerian American writer

1974 – Nayden Todorov, Bulgarian conductor

1975 – Anouk, Dutch singer

1975 – Francesco Flachi, Italian footballer

1975 – Timo Pérez, Dominican baseball player

1977 – Mehran Ghassemi, Iranian journalist (d. 2008)

1977 – Mark Spencer, American computer programmer

1978 – Ana de la Reguera, Mexican actress

1978 – Bernt Haas, Swiss footballer

1978 – Rachel Roberts, Canadian model and actress

1979 – Jeremy Guthrie, American baseball player

1979 – Alexi Laiho, Finnish guitarist and singer (Children of Bodom, Sinergy, Kylähullut)

1980 – Manuel Ortega, Austrian singer

1980 – Katee Sackhoff, American actress

1981 – Brian Burres, American baseball player

1981 – Lito Sheppard, American football cornerback

1981 – Taylor Kitsch, Canadian actor and model

1981 – Frédérick Bousquet, French swimmer

1983 – Allu Arjun, Indian film actor

1983 – Adrian Bellani, American actor

1984 – Ezra Koenig, American singer (Vampire Weekend)

1984 – Júlia Liptáková, Slovak model

1984 – Taran Noah Smith, American actor

1984 – Kirsten Storms, American actress

1985 – Patrick Schliwa, German rugby player

1986 – Igor Akinfeev, Russian footballer

1986 – Félix Hernández, Venezuelan baseball player

1986 – Erika Sawajiri, Japanese actress, model and singer

1987 – Royston Drenthe, Dutch footballer

1988 – Kim Myung-Sung, South Korean baseball player

1989 – Hitomi Takahashi, Japanese singer

1989 – Alex DeLeon, American singer (The Cab)=

1992 – Shelby Young, American actress

Deaths

217 – Caracalla, Roman Emperor (b. 188)

956 – Gilbert of Chalon, Duke of Burgundy

1143 – John II Komnenos, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1087)

1364 – King John II of France (b. 1319)

1461 – Georg Purbach, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1423)

1586 – Martin Chemnitz, Lutheran reformer and theologian (b. 1522)

1587 – John Foxe, English writer (b. 1516)

1691 – Carlo Rainaldi, Italian architect (b. 1611)

1697 – Niels Juel, Danish admiral (b. 1629)

1704 – Hiob Ludolf, German orientalist (b. 1624)

1704 – Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney, English statesman (b. 1641)

1725 – John Wise, English clergyman (b. 1652)

1735 – Francis II Rákóczi, leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburg (b. 1676)

1848 – Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer (b. 1797)

1857 – Mangal Pandey, Indian soldier (b. 1827)

1861 – Elisha Otis, American elevator builder (b. 1811)

1870 – Charles de Bériot, Belgian composer (b. 1802)

1906 – Auguste D, First recorded Alzheimer's victim (b. 1850)

1919 – Loránd Eötvös, Hungarian physicist (b. 1848)

1920 – Charles Tomlinson Griffes, American composer (b. 1884)

1931 – Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Swedish writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1864)

1936 – Robert Bárány, Austrian physician, Nobel laureate (b. 1876)

1942 – Kostas Skarvelis, Greek songwriter (b. 1880)

1950 – Vaslav Nijinsky, Polish-born ballet dancer (b. 1890)

1958 – Ethel Turner, Australian author (b. 1872)

1965 – Lars Hanson, Swedish actor (b. 1886)

1968 – Barbara Jane Harrison, Air stewardess (b.1945)

1973 – Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist and sculptor (b. 1881)

1974 – James Charles McGuigan, Catholic archbishop of Toronto (b. 1894)

1978 – Ford Frick, American baseball commissioner (b. 1894)

1981 – Omar Bradley, U.S. general (b. 1893)

1984 – Pyotr Kapitsa, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1894)

1985 – J. Fred Coots, American songwriter (b. 1897)

1986 – Yukiko Okada, Japanese idol singer (b. 1967)

1990 – Ryan White, American AIDS activist (b. 1971)

1991 – Per Yngve "Dead" Ohlin, Swedish metal singer (Mayhem) (b. 1969)

1992 – Daniel Bovet, Swiss-born pharmacologist, Nobel laureate (b. 1907)

1993 – Marian Anderson, American contralto (b. 1897)

1994 – François Rozet, French Canadian actor (b. 1899)

1996 – George W. Jenkins, American businessman (b. 1907)

1996 – Ben Johnson, American actor (b. 1918)

1996 – León Klimovsky, Argentine film director (b. 1906)

1997 – Laura Nyro, American singer and composer (b. 1947)

2000 – Claire Trevor, American actress (b. 1910)

2002 – María Félix, Mexican actress (b. 1914)

2004 – Enda Colleran, Gaelic footballer (b. 1941)

2005 – Eddie Miksis, American baseball player (b. 1926)

2005 – Onna White, Canadian choreographer (b. 1924)

2006 – Gerard Reve, Dutch writer (b. 1923)

2007 – Sol LeWitt, American artist (b. 1928)

2008 – Timothy Beaumont, Baron Beaumont of Whitley (b. 1928)

2008 – John Button, Australian politician (b. 1933)

2008 – Stanley Kamel, American actor (b. 1943)

2009 – Piotr Morawski, Polish mountaineer (b. 1976)

2010 – Jack Agnew, Irish-born American World War II veteran (b. 1922)

2010 – Malcolm McLaren, British music manager (b. 1946)

2010 – Teddy Scholten, Dutch singer (b. 1926)

Holidays and observances

Birkat Hachama, observed once every 28 years, the next one is in 2037 (Hebrew)

Buddha's Birthday, also known as ''Hana Matsuri'', "Flower Festival" (Japan)

Christian Feast Day:

*Constantina

*Julie Billiart of Namur

*Perpetuus

*Walter of Pontoise

*April 8 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

DABDay – Draw A Bird Day (International)

Earliest day on which Fast and Prayer Day can fall, while April 15 is the latest; celebrated on the second Friday in April (Liberia)

International Day of the Roma

External links

BBC: On This Day

On This Day in Canada

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Category:Days of the year Category:April

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name	Christopher Hitchens
birth name	Christopher Eric Hitchens
birth date	April 13, 1949
birth place	Portsmouth, England
death date	December 15, 2011
death place	Houston, Texas, U.S.
occupation	Writer, journalist, public speaker
alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
nationality	English American
citizenship	British and American
religion	None
subject	Politics, religion, history, biography, literature
spouse
relatives	Peter Hitchens (brother)
influences	George Orwell, Leszek Kolakowski, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Eliot, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John Stuart Mill, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Richard Hofstadter, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Israel Shahak, Isaiah Berlin, Émile Zola, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag
influenced	Johann Hari, Martin Amis, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins
signature	CH Signature 2.jpg|200px
website	}}

Christopher Eric Hitchens, nicknamed "Hitch", (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author, essayist and journalist, whose books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. He was a columnist and literary critic for ''The Atlantic'', ''Free Inquiry'', ''The Nation'', ''Salon'', ''Slate'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''World Affairs'', and became a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in September 2008. He was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a ''Prospect''/''Foreign Policy'' poll.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and for his excoriating critiques of Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Britain's royal family, among others. His confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. As a political observer, polemicist and self-defined radical, he rose to prominence as a fixture of the left-wing publications in his native Britain and in the United States. His departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left following Ayatollah Khomeini's issue of a ''fatwā'' calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face". His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind".

Identified as a champion of the "New Atheism" movement, Hitchens described himself as an antitheist and a believer in the philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Hitchens said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." According to Hitchens, the concept of a god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. He wrote at length on atheism and the nature of religion in his 2007 book ''God Is Not Great''.

Though Hitchens retained his British citizenship, he became a United States citizen on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial on 13 April 2007, his 58th birthday. Asteroid 57901 Hitchens is named after him. His memoir, ''Hitch-22'', was published in June 2010. Touring for the book was cut short later in the same month so he could begin treatment for newly diagnosed esophageal cancer. On 15 December 2011, Hitchens died from pneumonia, a complication of his cancer, in the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Life and career

Early life and education

His mother, Yvonne Jean (née Hickman), and father, Eric Ernest Hitchens (1909–1987), met in Scotland while both were serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. Yvonne was at the time a "Wren" (a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service), and Eric a "purse-lipped and silent" commander, whose ship HMS ''Jamaica'' helped sink Nazi Germany's battleship ''Scharnhorst'' in the Battle of the North Cape. His father's naval career required the family to move a number of times from base to base throughout Britain and its dependencies, including in Malta, where Christopher's brother Peter was born in Sliema in 1951.

Hitchens's mother having argued that "if there is going to be an upper class in this country, then Christopher is going to be in it,", in the late fifties and early sixties he was educated at Mount House School in Tavistock in Devon, then at the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and then at Balliol College in Oxford, where he was tutored by Steven Lukes and read philosophy, politics, and economics. Hitchens was "bowled over" in his adolescence by Richard Llewellyn's ''How Green Was My Valley'', Arthur Koestler's ''Darkness at Noon,'' Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''Crime and Punishment'', R. H. Tawney's critique on ''Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,'' and the works of George Orwell. In 1968, he took part in the TV quiz show ''University Challenge''.

Hitchens has written of his homosexual experiences when in boarding school in his memoir, ''Hitch-22''. These experiences continued in his college years, when he allegedly had relationships with two men who eventually became a part of the Thatcher government.

In the 1960s Hitchens joined the political left, drawn by his anger over the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, racism, and "oligarchy", including that of "the unaccountable corporation". He would express affinity with the politically charged countercultural and protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. However, he deplored the rife recreational drug use of the time, which he describes as hedonistic.

He joined the Labour Party in 1965, but along with the majority of the Labour students' organization was expelled in 1967, because of what Hitchens called "Prime Minister Harold Wilson's contemptible support for the war in Vietnam". Under the influence of Peter Sedgwick, who translated the writings of Russian revolutionary and Soviet dissident Victor Serge, Hitchens forged an ideological interest in Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist socialism. Shortly after he joined "a small but growing post-Trotskyist Luxemburgist sect".

Journalistic career (1970–1981)

Hitchens began working as a correspondent for the magazine ''International Socialism'', published by the International Socialists, the forerunners of today's British Socialist Workers Party. This group was broadly Trotskyist, but differed from more orthodox Trotskyist groups in its refusal to defend communist states as "workers' states". Their slogan was "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism".

Hitchens left Oxford with a third class degree. His first job was with the London ''Times Higher Education Supplement'', where he served as social science editor. Hitchens admitted that he hated the position, and was later fired; he recalled, "I sometimes think if I'd been any good at that job, I might still be doing it." In the 1970s, he went on to work for the ''New Statesman'', where he became friends with the authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, among others. At the ''New Statesman'' he acquired a reputation as a fierce left-winger, aggressively attacking targets such as Henry Kissinger, the Vietnam War, and the Roman Catholic Church.

In November 1973, Hitchens' mother committed suicide in Athens in a suicide pact with her lover, a former clergyman named Timothy Bryan. They overdosed on sleeping pills in adjoining hotel rooms, and Bryan slashed his wrists in the bathtub. Hitchens flew alone to Athens to recover his mother's body. Hitchens said he thought his mother was pressured into suicide by fear that her husband would learn of her infidelity, as their marriage had been strained and unhappy. Both her children were then independent adults. While in Greece, Hitchens reported on the constitutional crisis of the military junta. It became his first leading article for the ''New Statesman''.

American career (1981–2011)

After moving to the United States in 1981, Hitchens wrote for ''The Nation'', where he penned vociferous critiques of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and American foreign policy in South and Central America. He became a contributing editor of ''Vanity Fair'' in 1992, writing ten columns a year. He left ''The Nation'' in 2002 after profoundly disagreeing with other contributors over the Iraq War. There is speculation that Hitchens was the inspiration for Tom Wolfe's character Peter Fallow in the 1987 novel ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', but others — including Hitchens (or he indicated as such while alive) — believe it to be ''Spy Magazine''s "Ironman Nightlife Decathlete" Anthony Haden-Guest. In 1987, his father died from cancer of the esophagus.

Hitchens spent part of his early career in journalism as a foreign correspondent in Cyprus. Through his work there he met his first wife Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, with whom he had two children, Alexander and Sophia. His son, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, born in 1984, has worked as a researcher for London think tanks the Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion. Hitchens continued writing essay-style correspondence pieces from a variety of locales, including Chad, Uganda and the Darfur region of Sudan. His work took him to over 60 countries. In 1991 he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Before Hitchens' political shift, the American author and polemicist Gore Vidal was apt to speak of Hitchens as his "Dauphin" or "heir". In 2010, Hitchens attacked Vidal in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece headlined "Vidal Loco," calling him a "crackpot" for his adoption of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Also, on the back of his book ''Hitch-22,'' among the praise from notable writers and figures, a Vidal quote endorsing Hitchens as his successor is crossed out with a red 'X' and a message saying "NO C.H." His strong advocacy of the war in Iraq had gained Hitchens a wider readership, and in September 2005 he was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by ''Foreign Policy'' and ''Prospect'' magazines. An online poll ranked the 100 intellectuals, but the magazines noted that the rankings of Hitchens (5), Noam Chomsky (1), and Abdolkarim Soroush (15) were partly due to supporters publicising the vote.

In 2007 Hitchens' work for ''Vanity Fair'' won him the National Magazine Award in the category "Columns and Commentary". He was a finalist once more in the same category in 2008 for some of his columns in ''Slate'' but lost out to Matt Taibbi of ''Rolling Stone''. He won the National Magazine Award for Columns about Cancer in 2011. Hitchens also served on the Advisory Board of Secular Coalition for America and offered advice to Coalition on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life.

Literature reviews

Hitchens wrote a monthly essay on books in ''The Atlantic'' and contributed occasionally to other literary journals. One of his books, ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', is a collection of such works, and ''Love, Poverty and War'' contains a section devoted to literary essays. In ''Why Orwell Matters'', he defends Orwell's writings against modern critics as relevant today and progressive for his time. In the 2008 book ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left'', many literary critiques are included of essays and other books of writers, such as David Horowitz and Edward Said.

During a three-hour interview by ''Book TV'', he named authors who have had influence on his views, including Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse and Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Political views

The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' referred to Hitchens as a "gadfly with gusto". In 2009, Hitchens was listed by ''Forbes'' magazine as one of the "25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media". However, the same article noted that he would "likely be aghast to find himself on this list", since it reduces his self-styled radicalism to mere liberalism. Hitchens' political perspective can be found in his wide ranging writings which include many of the political dialogues he published.

Socialism

Hitchens became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire." In 2001, he told Rhys Southan of ''Reason'' magazine that he could no longer say "I am a socialist." Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. Capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalisation as "innovative and internationalist", but added, "I don't think that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system, are by any means all resolved." He stated that he had a renewed interest in the freedom of the individual from the state, but that he still considered libertarianism "ahistorical" both on the world stage and in the work of creating a stable and functional society, adding that libertarians are "more worried about the over-mighty state than the unaccountable corporation" whereas "the present state of affairs ... combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of the insurance companies."

In 2006, in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating, "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist". In a June 2010 interview with ''The New York Times'', he stated that "I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist". In 2009, in an article for ''The Atlantic'' entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx", Hitchens frames the late-2000s recession in terms of Marx's economic analysis and notes how much Marx admired the capitalist system he was calling for the end of, but says that Marx ultimately failed to grasp how revolutionary capitalist innovation was. Hitchens was an admirer of Che Guevara, commenting that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do — fought and died for his beliefs." However, in an essay written in 1997, he distanced himself somewhat from some of Che's actions.

He continued to regard both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as great men, and the October Revolution as a necessary event in the modernization of Russia. In 2005, Hitchens praised Lenin's creation of "secular Russia" and his discrediting of the Russian Orthodox Church, describing it as "an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition".

Iraq War and the war on terror

The years after the ''fatwa'' issued against Salman Rushdie saw Hitchens looking for allies and friends. In the United States he became increasingly critical of what he called "excuse making" on the left. At the same time, he was attracted to the foreign policy ideas of some on the Republican-right that promoted pro-liberalism intervention, especially the neoconservative group that included Paul Wolfowitz. Around this time, he befriended the Iraqi dissident and businessman Ahmed Chalabi. In 2004, Hitchens stated that neoconservative support for US intervention in Iraq convinced him that he was "on the same side as the neo-conservatives" when it came to contemporary foreign policy issues. Hitchens had also been known to refer to his association with "temporary neocon allies".

Following the September 11 attacks, Hitchens and Noam Chomsky debated the nature of radical Islam and the proper response to it. In October 2001, Hitchens wrote criticisms of Chomsky in ''The Nation''. Chomsky responded and Hitchens issued a rebuttal to Chomsky to which Chomsky again responded. Approximately a year after the September 11 attacks and his exchanges with Chomsky, Hitchens left ''The Nation'', claiming that its editors, readers and contributors considered John Ashcroft a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden, and that they were making excuses on behalf of Islamist terrorism; in the following months he wrote articles increasingly at odds with his colleagues.

Christopher Hitchens argued the case for the Iraq War in a 2003 collection of essays entitled ''A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq'', and he has held numerous public debates on the topic with George Galloway and Scott Ritter. Though he admitted to the numerous failures of the war, and its high civilian casualties, he stood by the position that deposing Saddam Hussein was a long-overdue responsibility of the United States, after decades of poor policy, and that holding free elections in Iraq had been a success not to be scoffed at. He argued that a continued fight in Iraq against insurgents, whether they be former Saddam loyalists or Islamic extremists, was a fight worth having, and that those insurgents, not American forces, should have been the ones taking the brunt of the blame for a slow reconstruction and high civilian casualties.

Criticism of George W. Bush

Prior to September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens was highly critical of Bush's "non-interventionist" foreign policy. He also criticized Bush's support of intelligent design and capital punishment.

Although Hitchens defended Bush's post-September 11 foreign policy, he criticized the actions of U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib and Haditha, and the U.S. government's use of waterboarding, which he unhesitatingly deemed as torture after being invited by ''Vanity Fair'' to voluntarily undergo it. In January 2006, Hitchens joined with four other individuals and four organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ''ACLU v. NSA'', challenging Bush's warrantless domestic spying program; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.

Presidential endorsements

Hitchens would elaborate on his political views and ideological shift in a discussion with Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads.tv. In this discussion Hitchens revealed himself to be a supporter of Ralph Nader in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, who was disenchanted with the candidacy of both George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Hitchens made a brief return to ''The Nation'' just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election and wrote that he was "slightly" for Bush; shortly afterwards, ''Slate'' polled its staff on their positions on the candidates and mistakenly printed Hitchens' vote as pro-John Kerry. Hitchens shifted his opinion to "neutral", saying: "It's absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it's unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There's no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end".

In the 2008 presidential election, Hitchens in an article for ''Slate'' stated, "I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity." He was critical of both main party candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. Hitchens went on to support Obama, calling McCain "senile", and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin "absurd", calling Palin a "pathological liar" and a "national disgrace".

Blumenthal–Hitchens feud

Hitchens and Carol Blue chose to submit an affidavit to the trial managers of the Republican Party in the trial of impeachment of Bill Clinton. In the affidavit, Blue and Hitchens swore that their then-friend, Sidney Blumenthal, had described Monica Lewinsky as a stalker. This allegation contradicted Blumenthal's own sworn deposition in the trial, and it resulted in a hostile exchange of opinion in the public sphere between Hitchens and Blumenthal. Following the publication of Blumenthal's ''The Clinton Wars,'' Hitchens wrote several pieces in which he accused Blumenthal of manipulating the facts.

Israel–Palestine

Hitchens had said of himself, "I am an Anti-Zionist. I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians."

A review of his autobiography ''Hitch-22'' in the ''Jewish Daily Forward'' refers to Hitchens as "a prominent anti-Zionist" and says that he views Zionism "as an injustice against the Palestinians". Others have commented on his anti-Zionism as well suggesting that his memoir was "marred by the occasional eruption of [his] anti-Zionism". The ''Jewish Daily Forward'' quoted him saying of Israel's prospects for the future, "I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable."

In ''Slate'', Hitchens pondered the notion that, instead of curing antisemitism through the creation of a Jewish state, "Zionism has only replaced and repositioned" it, saying: "there are three groups of 6 million Jews. The first 6 million live in what the Zionist movement used to call Palestine. The second 6 million live in the United States. The third 6 million are distributed mainly among Russia, France, Britain, and Argentina. Only the first group lives daily in range of missiles that can be (and are) launched by people who hate Jews." Hitchens argued that instead of supporting Zionism, Jews should help "secularize and reform their own societies", believing that unless one is religious, "what the hell are you doing in the greater Jerusalem area in the first place?"

During a town hall function in Pennsylvania with Martin Amis, Hitchens stated that "one must not insult or degrade or humiliate people" and that he "would be opposed to this maltreatment of the Palestinians if it took place on a remote island with no geopolitical implications". Hitchens described Zionism as "an ethno-nationalist quasi-religious ideology" and stated his desire that if possible, he would "re-wind the tape [to] stop Hertzl from telling the initial demagogic lie (actually two lies) that a land without a people needs a people without a land".

He continued to say that Zionism "nonetheless has founded a sort of democratic state which isn't any worse in its practice than many others with equally dubious origins." He stated that settlement in order to achieve security for Israel is "doomed to fail in the worst possible way", and the cessation of this "appallingly racist and messianic delusion" would "confront the internal clerical and chauvinist forces which want to instate a theocracy for Jews". However, Hitchens contended that the "solution of withdrawal would not satisfy the jihadists" and wondered "What did they imagine would be the response of the followers of the Prophet [Muhammad]?" Hitchens bemoaned the transference into religious terrorism of Arab secularism as a means of democratization: "the most depressing and wretched spectacle of the past decade, for all those who care about democracy and secularism, has been the degeneration of Palestinian Arab nationalism into the theocratic and thanatocratic hell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad". He maintained that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a "trivial squabble" that has become "so dangerous to all of us" because of "the faith-based element."

Hitchens collaborated on this issue with prominent Palestinian advocate Edward Said, in 1988 publishing ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question''.

Domestic policy

Hitchens actively supported drug policy reform and called for the abolition of the "War on Drugs" which he described as an "authoritarian war" during a debate with William F. Buckley. He supported the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, citing it as a cure for glaucoma and as treatment for numerous side-effects induced by chemotherapy, including severe nausea, describing the prohibition of the drug as "sadistic". On the issue of abortion, Hitchens prioritized in affirming that he believed a fetus should be regarded as an "unborn child", but opposed the overturning of ''Roe v. Wade'' and supported the development of medical abortion techniques, and fundamentally believed in access to contraceptives and reproductive rights as "the only thing that is known to cure poverty", and in order to prevent surgical abortion altogether.

Other

Other issues Hitchens wrote on the subjects of included his support for the reunification of Ireland, abolition of the British monarchy, and his condemnation of the war crimes of Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman in Yugoslavia, and the Bosnian War.

Critiques of specific individuals

Hitchens was known for his scathing critiques of public figures. Three figures — Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Mother Teresa — were the targets of three separate full length texts, ''No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton'', ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', and ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice''. Hitchens also wrote book-length biographical essays about Thomas Jefferson (''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America''), George Orwell (''Why Orwell Matters''), and Thomas Paine (''Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography'').

However, the majority of Hitchens's critiques took the form of short opinion pieces, some of the more notable being his critiques of: Jerry Falwell, George Galloway, Mel Gibson, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, Michael Moore, Daniel Pipes, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, and Cindy Sheehan.

Views on religion

Hitchens often spoke out against the Abrahamic religions, or what he called "the three great monotheisms" (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). He said: "The real axis of evil is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam". In his book, ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens expanded his criticism to include all religions, including those rarely criticized by Western secularists such as Hinduism and neo-paganism. His book had mixed reactions, from praise in ''The New York Times'' for his "logical flourishes and conundrums" to accusations of "intellectual and moral shabbiness" in the ''Financial Times''. ''God Is Not Great'' was nominated for a National Book Award on 10 October 2007.

Hitchens contended that organized religion is "the main source of hatred in the world", "[v]iolent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children", and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal on its conscience". In ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens contends that:

[A]bove all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man and woman [referencing Alexander Pope]. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

His book rendered him one of the major advocates of the "New Atheism" movement, and he also was made an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. Hitchens said he would accept an invitation from any religious leader who wished to debate with him. He also served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for atheists and humanists in Washington, DC. In 2007, Hitchens began a series of written debates on the question "Is Christianity Good for the World?" with Christian theologian and pastor, Douglas Wilson, published in ''Christianity Today'' magazine. This exchange eventually became a book by the same title in 2008. During their book tour to promote the book, film producer Darren Doane sent a film crew to accompany them. Doane produced the film ''Collision'': "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?" which was released on 27 October 2009.

On 26 November 2010 Hitchens appeared in Toronto, Canada at the Munk Debates, where he debated religion with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a convert to Roman Catholicism. Blair argued religion is a force for good, while Hitchens was against it. Preliminary results on the Munk website said 56 per cent of the votes backed the proposition (Hitchens' position) before hearing the debate, with 22 per cent against (Blair's position), and 21 per cent undecided, with the undecided voters leaning toward Hitchens, giving him a 68 per cent to 32 per cent victory over Blair, after the debate.

In February 2006, Hitchens helped organize a pro-Denmark rally outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Hitchens was accused by William A. Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberties of being particularly anti-Catholic. Hitchens responded "when religion is attacked in this country [...] the Catholic Church comes in for a little more than its fair share". Hitchens had also been accused of anti-Catholic bigotry by others, including Brent Bozell, Tom Piatak in ''The American Conservative'', and UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge. In an interview with ''Radar'' in 2007, Hitchens said that if the Christian right's agenda were implemented in the United States "It wouldn't last very long and would, I hope, lead to civil war, which they will lose, but for which it would be a great pleasure to take part." When Joe Scarborough on 12 March 2004 asked Hitchens whether he was "consumed with hatred for conservative Catholics", Hitchens responded that he was not and that he just thinks that "all religious belief is sinister and infantile". Piatak claimed that "A straightforward description of all Hitchens's anti-Catholic outbursts would fill every page in this magazine", noting particularly Hitchens' assertion that U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts should not be confirmed because of his faith.

Hitchens was raised nominally Christian, and went to Christian boarding schools but from an early age declined to participate in communal prayers. Later in life, Hitchens discovered that he was of partially Jewish ancestry. According to Hitchens, when his brother Peter took his fiancée to meet their maternal grandmother, who was then in her 90s, she said of his fiancée, "She's Jewish, isn't she?" and then announced: "Well, I've got something to tell you. So are you." Hitchens found out that his maternal grandmother, Dorothy Levin, was raised Jewish (Dorothy's father and maternal grandfather had both been born Jewish, and Dorothy's maternal grandmother – Hitchens' matrilineal great-great-grandmother – was a convert to Judaism). Hitchens' maternal grandfather converted to Judaism before marrying Dorothy Levin. Hitchens' Jewish-born ancestors were immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Poland). In an article in the ''The Guardian'' on 14 April 2002, Hitchens stated that he could be considered Jewish because Jewish descent is matrilineal. In a 2010 interview at New York Public Library, Hitchens stated that he was against circumcision, a Jewish tradition, and that he believed "if anyone wants to saw off bits of their genitalia they should do when they're grown up and have made the decision for themselves".

In February 2010, he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

Personal life

Marriages and children

Hitchens married Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, in a Greek Orthodox church in 1981; the couple had a son, Alexander and a daughter, Sophia. In 1989 Hitchens left Meleagrou for Carol Blue, an American writer. The couple married in a New York synagogue; they had a daughter, Antonia.

Relationship with his younger brother

Hitchens' younger brother by two-and-a-half years, Peter Hitchens, is a Christian and socially conservative journalist in London, although, like his brother, he had been a Trotskyist in the 1970s. The brothers had a protracted falling-out after Peter wrote that Christopher had once joked that he "didn't care if the Red Army watered its horses at Hendon" (a suburb of London). Christopher denied having said this and broke off contact with his brother. He then referred to his brother as "an idiot" in a letter to ''Commentary'', and the dispute spilled into other publications as well. Christopher eventually expressed a willingness to reconcile and to meet his new nephew (born in 1999); shortly thereafter the brothers gave several interviews together in which they said that their personal disagreements had been resolved. They appeared together on 21 June 2007 edition of the BBC current affairs discussion show ''Question Time''. The pair engaged in a formal televised debate for the first time on 3 April 2008, at Grand Valley State University, and at the Pew Forum on 12 October 2010.

Smoking and drinking

A June 2006 profile on Hitchens by NPR stated: "Hitchens is known for his love of cigarettes and alcohol — and his prodigious literary output." However, in late 2007 he gave up smoking, undergoing an epiphany in Madison, Wisconsin. His brother Peter later wrote of his surprise at this decision. It was while writing his memoir ''Hitch-22'' that he resumed smoking cigarettes and continued until his cancer diagnosis. Hitchens admitted to drinking heavily; in 2003 he wrote that his daily intake of alcohol was enough "to kill or stun the average mule", noting that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto, smashed, polluted, shitfaced, squiffy, whiffled, and three sheets to the wind."

British politician George Galloway, founder of the socialist Respect Party, on his way to testify in front of a United States Senate sub-committee investigating the scandals in the U.N. Oil-for-Food programme, called Hitchens a "drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay", to which Hitchens quickly replied, "only some of which is true". Later, in a column for ''Slate'' promoting his debate with Galloway which was to take place on 14 September 2005, he elaborated on his prior response: "He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a 'popinjay' (true enough, since the word's original Webster's definition is a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest)."

Oliver Burkeman writes, "Since the parting of ways on Iraq [...] Hitchens claims to have detected a new, personalised nastiness in the attacks on him, especially over his fabled consumption of alcohol. He welcomes being attacked as a drinker 'because I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem.' He drinks, he says, 'because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored. But I can work with or without it. It takes quite a lot to get me to slur.'"

In the question and answer session following a speech Hitchens gave to the Commonwealth Club of California on 9 July 2009, one audience member asked what was Hitchens' favorite whisky. Hitchens replied that "the best blended scotch in the history of the world" is Johnnie Walker Black Label. He also playfully indicated that it was the favorite whisky of, among others, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, the Palestinian Authority, the Libyan dictatorship, and "large branches of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family". He concluded his answer by calling it the "breakfast of champions" and exhorted the audience to "accept no substitute".

In his 2010 memoir ''Hitch-22'', Hitchens wrote: "There was a time when I could reckon to outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, but I now drink relatively carefully." He described his current drinking routine on working-days as follows: "At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker's amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No 'after dinner drinks' — ​most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. 'Nightcaps' depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there."

Reflecting on the lifestyle that supported his career as a writer he said:

I always knew there was a risk in the bohemian lifestyle ... I decided to take it because it helped my concentration, it stopped me being bored — it stopped other people being boring. It would make me want to prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. If you ask: would I do it again? I would probably say yes. But I would have quit earlier hoping to get away with the whole thing. I decided all of life is a wager and I'm going to wager on this bit ... In a strange way I don't regret it. It's just impossible for me to picture life without wine, and other things, fueling the company, keeping me reading, energising me. It worked for me. It really did.

Esophageal cancer and death

In June 2010, Hitchens postponed his book tour for ''Hitch-22'' to undergo treatment for esophageal cancer. He announced that he was undergoing treatment in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece entitled "Topic of Cancer". Hitchens said that he recognised the long-term prognosis was far from positive, and that he would be a "very lucky person to live another five years". In November 2010, Hitchens canceled a scheduled appearance in New York, where he was to debate religion writers David Hazony and Stephen Prothero on the subject of the Ten Commandments. Earlier that year, he published a piece in ''Vanity Fair'' on the subject, and was working on a book about the Ten Commandments as well.

During his illness, Hitchens was under the care of Francis Collins and was the subject of Collins' new cancer treatment which maps out the human genome and selectively targets damaged DNA.

In April 2011, Hitchens was forced to cancel an appearance at the American Atheist Convention, and instead sent a letter that stated, "Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death." He closed with "And don't keep the faith." The letter also dismissed the notion of a possible deathbed conversion, in which he claimed that "redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before." In June 2011, he spoke to a University of Waterloo audience via a home video link.

In October 2011, Hitchens made a public appearance at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston, TX. ''Atheist Alliance of America'' was also a participant in the joint convention.

In November 2011, George Eaton wrote in the ''New Statesman'':

The tragedy of Hitchens' illness is that it came at a time when he enjoyed a larger audience than ever. Of his tight circle of friends – Amis, Fenton, McEwan, Rushdie – Hitchens was the last to gain international renown, yet he is now read more widely than any of them." Eaton revealed that Hitchens would like to be remembered as a man who fought totalitarianism in all its forms although many remember him as a "lefty who turned right", and his support of the Iraq War and not his support of the War in Bosnia on the side of the Moslems. Eaton concluded, "The great polemicist is certain to be remembered, but, as he is increasingly aware, perhaps not as he would like."

Hitchens died on December 15th, 2011 at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to medical research.

Reactions to death

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "Christopher Hitchens was a complete one-off, an amazing mixture of writer, journalist, polemicist, and unique character. He was fearless in the pursuit of truth and any cause in which he believed. And there was no belief he held, that he did not advocate with passion, commitment and brilliance. He was an extraordinary, compelling and colorful human being whom it was a privilege to know."

Richard Dawkins, British evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and a friend of Hitchens', said, "I think he was one of the greatest orators of all time. He was a polymath, a wit, immensely knowledgeable, and a valiant fighter against all tyrants including imaginary supernatural ones."

Norman Finkelstein, American political scientist and author, wrote, "When I first learned that Hitchens was diagnosed with an excruciating and terminal cancer, it caused me to doubt my atheism. The news came just as Hitchens was about to go on a book tour for his long-awaited memoir. It was as if he was setting out on his victory lap when the adulating crowds were supposed to fawn over him and — wham! — his legs were lopped off at the kneecaps. The irony could not be more perfect: the god that the vindictive but witty Mr. Hitchens made a career scoffing at turns out to be ... vindictive but witty. When I heard that Hitchens was dead, I took a deep breath. The air felt cleaner, as if after a 40-day and 40-night downpour." Finkelstein also added, "I get no satisfaction from Hitchens's passing. Although he was the last to know it, every death is a tragedy, if only for the bereft child — or, as in the case of Cindy Sheehan, bereft parent — left behind.

Sam Harris, American writer and neuroscientist, wrote, "I have been privileged to witness the gratitude that so many people feel for Hitch’s life and work — for, wherever I speak, I meet his fans. On my last book tour, those who attended my lectures could not contain their delight at the mere mention of his name — and many of them came up to get their books signed primarily to request that I pass along their best wishes to him. It was wonderful to see how much Hitch was loved and admired — and to be able to share this with him before the end. I will miss you, brother."

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and former head of the Human Genome Project who helped treat Hitchens' illness, wrote, "I will miss Christopher. I will miss the brilliant turn of phrase, the good-natured banter, the wry sideways smile when he was about to make a remark that would make me laugh out loud. No doubt he now knows the answer to the question of whether there is more to the spirit than just atoms and molecules. I hope he was surprised by the answer. I hope to hear him tell about it someday. He will tell it really well."

British columnist and author Peter Hitchens, who had a tumultuous relationship with his older brother Christopher, wrote that he and Christopher "got on surprisingly well in the past few months, better than for about 50 years as it happens," and praised his brother as "courageous."

Irish-American political journalist Alexander Cockburn, founder of the left-wing political magazine ''CounterPunch'' wrote an obituary critical of Hitchens, criticizing his support for the Iraq War, criticisms of Mother Teresa, and criticisms of their mutual friend Edward Said and concluded, "I found the Hitchens cult of recent years entirely mystifying. He endured his final ordeal with pluck, sustained indomitably by his wife Carol."

Tributes followed from the philosopher Daniel Dennett, the physicist Lawrence Krauss, the actor Stephen Fry, the writer Ian McEwan, the philosopher A.C. Grayling; and ''Vanity Fair'', in which he was remembered as an "incomparable critic and masterful rhetorician".

Film and television appearances

As referenced from the Internet Movie Database, Hitchens Web or Charlie Rose. {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- ! Year ! Film and/or Television |- |1984 |align="left" | ''Opinions'': "Greece to their Rome" |- |1988 |align="left" | ''Frontiers (TV series)'' |- |1993 |align="left" | ''Everything You Need to Know'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Hell's Angel'' |- |1996 |align="left" | ''Where's Elvis This Week?'' |- |1996–2010 |align="left" | ''Charlie Rose (talk show)'' (13 episodes) |- |1998 |align="left" | ''Princess Diana: The Mourning After'' |- |1999–2002 |align="left" | ''Dennis Miller Live'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2002 |align="left" | ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' |- |2003 |align="left" | ''Hidden in Plain Sight'' |- |2003–2009 |align="left" | ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (TV show) (6 episodes) |- |2004 |align="left" | ''Mel Gibson: God's Lethal Weapon'' |- |2004–2006 |align="left" | ''Newsnight'' (TV show) (3 episodes) |- |2004–2010 |align="left" | ''The Daily Show'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Penn & Teller: Bullshit!'' (TV show)(1 episode, s03e05) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''The Al Franken Show'' (TV show)(1 episode) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope'' |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'' |- |2005–2008 |align="left" | ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' (TV show)(3 episodes) |- |2006 |align="left" | ''American Zeitgeist'' |- |2006 |align="left" | ''Blog Wars'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Manufacturing Dissent'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Question Time (TV series)'' (1 episode) |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Your Mommy Kills Animals'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Personal Che'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Heckler'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''In Pot We Trust'' |- |2008 |align="left" | ''Discussions with Richard Dawkins'': Episode 1: "The Four Horsemen" |- |2008 | style="text-align:left;"| ''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed '' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Holy Hell'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Presidency'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Collision: "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?"'' |- |2010 |align="left" | ''Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune'' |}

Selected publications

1984 ''Cyprus''. Quartet. Revised editions as ''Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger'', 1989 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and 1997 (Verso)

1988 ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question'' (contributor; co-editor with Edward Said) Verso, ISBN 0-86091-887-4 Reissued, 2001

1990 ''The Monarchy'', Chatto & Windus Ltd

1990 ''Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies'', Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)(June 1990)

1995 ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice'', Verso

1997 ''The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification'', Verso

1999 ''No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family'', Verso

2000 ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', Verso

2001 ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger''. Verso.

2001 ''Letters to a Young Contrarian'', Basic Books

2002 ''Why Orwell Matters'' also ''Orwell's Victory'', Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-03050-5

2004 ''Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays'', Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-580-3

2005 ''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America'', Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-059896-4

2007 "Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography ", Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN 0871139553

2007 ''The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer'', [Editor] Perseus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-306-81608-6

2007 ''God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'', Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-57980-7 / Published in the UK as ''God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion'', Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-586-6

2008 ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq and the Left'' (with Simon Cottee and Thomas Cushman), New York University Press

2008 ''Is Christianity Good for the World? — A Debate'' (co-author, with Douglas Wilson), Canon Press, ISBN 1-59128-053-2

2010 ''Hitch-22: A Memoir'', Twelve, ISBN 978-0-446-54033-9

2011 ''Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens'', Twelve. UK edition as ''Arguably: Selected Prose'', Atlantic, ISBN 1-4555-0277-4 / ISBN 978-1-4555-0277-6

References

External links

Daily Hitchens, an archive of material on or by Hitchens

in 2010

Drexel Interview (One-hour video interview) with Paula Marantz Cohen, June 2010

Christopher Hitchens collected news and commentary at ''The Boston Globe''

"Journalist Christopher Hitchens fully embraces the Bush war camp" from the World Socialist Website, October 2002

"Christopher Hitchens" feature story in ''Prospect'' magazine, May 2008

"Incendiary Author Spares No Targets" feature story in ''The New Zealand Herald'', May 2008

"Such, Such are His Joys" David Brooks assessment in ''The New York Times'', 1 July 2010

Hitchens on Dying with Cancer, video interview with ''The Atlantic'', August 2010

"Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'" ''The Guardian'', 13 November 2010

"Christopher Hitchens's Jewish Problem" feature article on ''Jewish Ideas Daily,'' 13 December 2010

A debate between Hitchens and Berlinski 2010

Outspoken and outrageous: Christopher Hitchens a 60 Minutes profile aired 6 March 2011

''Booknotes'' interview with Hitchens on ''For the Sake of Argument'', 17 October 1993.

;Articles by Hitchens

Contributor page at ''Vanity Fair''

Column archive at ''The Atlantic''

Article archive at ''The Guardian''

Hitchens articles at ''Slate''

Article archive at Journalisted

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Name	Ken Blackwell
Order	Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio
Term start	1979
Term end	1980
Predecessor	Bobbie L. Sterne
Successor	David S. Mann
Office2	Ohio Secretary of State
Term start2	January 8, 1999
Term end2	January 8, 2007
Governor2	Robert A. Taft II
Successor2	Jennifer L. Brunner
Birth date	February 28, 1948
Birth place	Cincinnati, Ohio
Birthname	John Kenneth Blackwell
Nationality
Party	Republican Party
Alma mater	Xavier University
Profession	Politician & Syndicated Columnist
Religion	Evangelical
Website	}}

John Kenneth Blackwell (born February 28, 1948) is a former secretary of state of the U.S. state of Ohio who made an unsuccessful bid as the Republican nominee for Governor of Ohio in the 2006 election. He was the first African-American to be the candidate for governor of a major party in Ohio. He is currently Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee's Platform Committee and was a candidate for chairman of the RNC.

Blackwell gained national prominence for his dual roles as Chief Elections Official of Ohio and honorary co-chair of the "Committee to re-elect George W. Bush" during the 2004 election. Allegations of conflict of interest and voter disenfranchisement led to the filing of at least sixteen related lawsuits naming Blackwell. Regarding voter disenfranchisement, a federal appellate court ruled, in agreement with Blackwell, that provisional ballots cast in the wrong polling location should not be counted in the election, but the court overturned his directive to poll workers that they refuse to issue provisional ballots unless satisfied as to the voter's residence. Blackwell was also named in a 2006 lawsuit related to his office's public disclosure of the Social Security numbers of Ohio residents.

A staunch conservative, Blackwell successfully led the campaign for the 2004 Ohio Constitution Amendment banning state recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions, despite opposition from many other Republican leaders. He is a proponent of gun ownership rights, and has stated that he is against abortion except in order to protect the life of the mother. He was defeated by Ted Strickland in the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial election.

Early years

Blackwell was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to George (a meatpacker) and Dana (a part-time nurse) Blackwell. He has two brothers, Carl and Charles. He married his wife Rosa in 1969 while he was in college. They have three children, Kimberly, Rahshann (a Denver resident and Ohio Northern Law School graduate) and Kristin.

Blackwell attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio on a football scholarship. Blackwell received a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Xavier in 1970 and his Master of Education degree, also from Xavier, in 1971. He taught at Xavier from 1974 to 1991 and has served as a trustee of Wilberforce University and Wilmington College. After college, he was invited to the Dallas Cowboys' training camp; he states that he gave up football when he was told he would have to convert from linebacker to offensive lineman.

Political career

From 1979 to 1980, Blackwell served as Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio. Earlier, he had been a member of the Cincinnati city council.

One of the first orders of business of Blackwell's administration as mayor of Cincinnati was the establishment of a crowd control task force stemming from the deaths of 11 concert fans at a concert by the British rock group The Who at Riverfront Coliseum on December 3, 1979.

Blackwell was a member of the Charter Party, Cincinnati's third party, which is generally supported by left-leaning voters. However, when he began to consider statewide and national offices, he became a Republican.

Blackwell served in the administration of President George H. W. Bush as undersecretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1989 to 1990. He returned to Cincinnati to run for the first district seat in the United States House of Representatives being vacated by Tom Luken. Blackwell lost to Luken's son, Charlie Luken, by a narrow 51% to 49% margin. Following his close defeat, President Bush appointed Blackwell ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Blackwell served in that post from 1992 to 1993.

Blackwell was appointed Ohio State Treasurer by then-Gov. George Voinovich in 1994 to complete the term of Mary Ellen Withrow, who was appointed U.S. treasurer by President Bill Clinton. Blackwell was elected treasurer in 1994 and was elected Ohio Secretary of State in 1998. That year, Blackwell considered a run for governor, but Ohio Republican Party chairman Robert T. Bennett persuaded Blackwell to run for secretary of state instead, leaving the governorship open to Bob Taft. Blackwell was national chairman of longtime friend Steve Forbes' presidential campaign in 2000. Blackwell was re-elected secretary of state in 2002.

Blackwell, a strict fiscal and social conservative, has become a vocal critic of the moderate wing of the Ohio Republican Party, including Taft, for adopting tax increases in the face of budget shortfalls in recent years. He has also demanded the resignation of Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Larry Householder, a Republican, whose staff became embroiled in fund-raising scandals.

He was also the most prominent Republican to support adding an amendment to the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. The state's Republican U.S. Senator George Voinovich and then-Senator Mike DeWine opposed the amendment's broad language, fearing it could bar not only same-sex marriage but also civil unions, domestic partnerships, and possibly wills and any legal contracts for homosexuals. Taft later also came out against the amendment, expressing his concern that its ambiguous language would have unintended consequences and leave the state open to a number of lawsuits. During the campaign Blackwell lobbied hard for this measure and was widely credited with attracting many conservative evangelical African Americans to the polls to vote for the measure and for Bush's re-election. The amendment passed with the approval of 61.64% of the voters.

Ohio Secretary of State

Involvement in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

As Secretary of State of a hotly contested swing state, Blackwell played a prominent role in the 2004 national election. As Secretary of State, Blackwell held the position of ''Chief Elections Officer'', overseeing Ohio's elections process. In Congressional testimony, Blackwell stated that every Republican holder of statewide office in Ohio was named an honorary "co-chair" of the Bush campaign, that the position carried no responsibilities, and that previous Ohio Secretaries of State from both parties had held similar honorary positions.

Blackwell also announced he would enforce an Ohio State election law decreeing that any person who appeared at a polling place to vote but whose registration could not be confirmed would be given only a provisional ballot; if it were later determined that the person had attempted to vote in the wrong precinct, then their provisional ballot would not be counted. He also directed poll workers to refuse to distribute provisional ballots unless they were satisfied as to the voter's residence. The Democratic party promptly filed a lawsuit claiming that the policy was "intended to disenfranchise minority voters" and in violation of federal election law, specifically section 302 of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

On October 21, 2004, U.S. District Court Judge James G. Carr issued an order rejecting Blackwell's policy. Blackwell said that he would go to jail rather than comply.

Blackwell appealed the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. On October 26, 2004, the Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court agreed with the plaintiffs and the District Court that Blackwell's directive violated HAVA to the extent that it empowered poll workers to withhold a provisional ballot based on their "on-the-spot determination at the polling place." The court also ruled, however, that if a subsequent review concluded that the voter was not entitled to vote in that precinct, then the provisional ballot would not be counted. (pdf)(pdf) In accordance with the Court of Appeals ruling, provisional ballots cast in the wrong precincts were not counted in Ohio's 2004 elections.

Democratic members of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary asked Blackwell to explain irregularities in the Ohio election in two letters, (pdf) (pdf) and requested his presence at a Public Congressional Hearing. (pdf) He did not attend the hearing, but responded to the first letter, refusing to comply with their requests for explanation, noting that he was already responding to requests from the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Justice. (pdf)

Keith Olbermann has interviewed Blackwell regarding the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy. (video)

On December 27, 2004, Blackwell requested a court order to protect him from being interviewed in the Moss v. Bush case, a challenge of the presidential vote, and fought a subpoena, arguing that the litigation was frivolous.

List of legal suits and rulings

As Ohio Secretary of State, Blackwell has been a party to many election-related lawsuits. Some of these include:

''Moss v. Bush''; Dismissed at request of plaintiff after certification of electoral votes

''Beacon Journal Publishing Company, Inc. and Charlene Nevada v. J. Kenneth Blackwell and the Board of Elections''; Ohio was ordered to permit reporters to enter polling places during the Fall 2004 election, notwithstanding ORS § 3501.35.(pdf)

''Lucas County Democratic Party et al. v. Blackwell'' ''The Sandusky County Democratic Party v. J. Kenneth Blackwell''; Blackwell was forced to pay nearly $65,000 in legal fees to the Sandusky County Democratic party. ''The League of Women Voters of Ohio et al. v. Blackwell'' ''Miller et al. v. Blackwell et al.'' ''Spencer v. Blackwell'' ''Summit County Democratic Central and Executive Committee et al. v. Blackwell et al.'' ''American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. et al. v. Blackwell'' ''State of Ohio Ex Rel. Matthew Wolf, et al. v. Blackwell'' ''Sarah White v. J. Kenneth Blackwell and the Board of Elections of Lucas County, Ohio'' ''Nader et al. v. Blackwell'' ''Schering v. Blackwell'' ''Ohio Democratic Party v. Blackwell''; Upheld in federal appeals court in favor of Blackwell ''Anita Rios et al. v. Blackwell'' ''State ex. rel David Yost et al. v. National Voting Rights Institute et al.''

Release of Ohio Social Security numbers

On March 1, 2006 Blackwell's office accidentally published a list of 1.2 million Social Security numbers of Ohio citizens on a website along with their business filings. A Federal class-action lawsuit was filed by Darrell Estep who claimed that the release of the data had caused his Social Security number to appear three times on the website. The lawsuit was settled on March 28, 2006 after the numbers were removed from the website, a registration process was enacted to view the data and Blackwell's office agreed to make monthly progress reports to the court. The data was part of a centralized voter database, required by Federal law. At that time, Blackwell promised to only retain the last four digits of the Social Security number in the database to prevent future problems.

However, on April 26, 2006, Blackwell's office disclosed Ohio Social Security numbers again, mailing out computer disks containing the names, addresses, and the Social Security numbers of 5.7 million registered voters in Ohio (80% of all registered voters in the state). The list was released as a standard practice under the Freedom of Information Act and Help America Vote Act. Blackwell's office apologized, indicating that the release of the Social Security numbers was accidental and attempted to recall all 20 of the disks. At least one recipient of the disks has refused to comply.

Jim Petro, then Republican Attorney General of Ohio, has launched an investigation into the disclosure, citing a legal requirement to "investigate any state entity where there may be a risk of a loss of private data." Blackwell stated that he considered the issue to be closed, but Petro disagreed, saying that he will use "maximum due diligence" to ensure that the data was not copied before it was returned. Ohio law requires that individuals be notified if their Social Security numbers are compromised.

Diebold controversies

Ohio State Senator Jeff Jacobson asked Blackwell in July 2003 to disqualify Diebold Election Systems' bid to supply voting machines for the state, after security problems were discovered in its software, but was refused. Blackwell had ordered Diebold touch screen voting machines, reversing an earlier decision by the state to purchase only optical scan voting machines which, unlike the touch screen devices, would leave a "paper trail" for recount purposes.

On April 4, 2006, the ''Columbus Dispatch'' reported that Blackwell "owned stock [83 shares, down from 178 shares purchased in January 2005] in Diebold, a voting-machine [and ATM] manufacturer, at the same time his office negotiated a deal" with the company. After discovering the stock ownership, Blackwell promptly sold the shares at a loss. He attributed the purchase to an unidentified financial manager at Credit Suisse First Boston who he said had, without his knowledge, violated his instructions to avoid potential conflict of interest.

When Cuyahoga County's primary was held on May 2, 2006, officials ordered the hand-counting of more than 18,000 paper ballots after Diebold's new optical scan machines produced inconsistent tabulations, leaving several local races in limbo for days and eventually resulting in a reversal of the outcome of one race for state representative. Blackwell ordered an investigation by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections; Ohio Democrats demanded that Blackwell, due to his prior role in acquiring the Diebold equipment as well as his status as the Republican gubernatorial candidate in this election, recuse himself from the investigation due to conflicts of interest, but Blackwell did not do so.

2006 Ohio gubernatorial campaign

Campaign and national significance

Blackwell was the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio in 2006. He beat state Attorney General Jim Petro in the 2006 Republican primary. (The then current governor, Republican Bob Taft, could not run because of term limits.) Blackwell's opponents in the general election were Democratic Congressman Ted Strickland, Libertarian professor emeritus Bill Peirce and Green Bob Fitrakis. Blackwell chose Ohio State Representative Tom Raga to be his running mate. Blackwell was the first African-American to be nominated as a candidate for the Ohio governorship by either major political party.

There had been increased national attention on the ability of the Republican party to maintain control in Ohio. On a national level, ''The New York Times'' went so far as to suggest that the results of the election would be a "bellwether" for the 2008 US presidential election.

Blackwell faced an uphill battle; according to a broad survey reported by ''The Plain Dealer'' on April 30, 2006, Ohio voters would "prefer to see a Democrat occupy the governor's mansion." Still, he had his supporters. John Stemberger, president and general counsel for the Florida Family Policy Council, was quoted as saying that Blackwell could "potentially be president of the United States someday, and the first black president at that." Blackwell's campaign relied heavily on accusations that Ted Strickland was not a resident of Ohio, and later that Ted Strickland was gay. Both of these accusations played heavily in campaign literature that failed to resonate with Ohio voters. Due to his poor management of this campaign, Blackwell's ability to compete on a national stage was called into question.

On November 7, 2006 Ted Strickland was elected Governor, defeating Blackwell by a 24% margin.

Conservative platform

Blackwell has taken some very conservative positions. In 2005, he supported keeping Terri Schiavo on life support indefinitely, saying, "I really do think that life is sacred, no matter how painful." When asked on ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' if he would keep her on life support for 30 years, Blackwell said he would.

In his 2002 campaign for re-election to the post of Secretary of State, Blackwell took the position that he would favor abortions in the case where the life of the mother was at stake. He has since taken a more conservative position of opposing abortions even in the case where the mother's life is at risk.

May 2 primary

Blackwell won the Republican Primary on May 2, 2006 against Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro with 56% of the vote. Blackwell's strongest support came from his home town of Cincinnati and much of rural Ohio. The run up to the primaries was dominated by strongly critical television ads that Blackwell and his opponent Jim Petro ran against one another.

Blackwell was criticized by Petro, for declining to engage in three planned debates which had been organized by the ''Dayton Daily News'' and the City Club of Cleveland. The debate at the City Club of Cleveland occurred on April 25, 2006, despite Blackwell's absence. The event was originally scheduled to be broadcast on public television around Ohio. According to the Columbus Dispatch, "Blackwell said he has 'shared plenty of forums' with Petro and that he wants to focus on talking to Republicans in the final days of the campaign."

On April 29, the Hamilton County Democrats publicly demanded that Ken Blackwell pull radio ads which urged unregistered Democrats to ask for Republican primary ballots on May 2, 2006 (rather than the issues only ballot which unregistered voters normally get) and thereby become registered Republicans. The Democrats argued that the ads are using "illegal and unethical political tactics."

Campaign finance

During the primary, Blackwell led the Republican candidates in his ability to raise significant amounts of money for his campaign. He raised $1.09 million between January 31, 2006 and April 12, 2006, from approximately 12,000 individuals and businesses. This was nearly $800,000 more than his main competition, Jim Petro, but less than the $1.1 million raised by his main Democratic competition, Ted Strickland. Blackwell, along with 14 other candidates, (including Petro and Strickland) were accused by the Ohio Citizen Action group of failing to meet Ohio's campaign contribution law which requires best efforts to disclose the names, addresses, employment status, employer, and place of employment of individuals who donate $100 or more to a political campaign. Blackwell, Petro, and Strickland all received a "B letter grade" from the group for their levels of disclosure.

On April 16, 2006, the ''Toledo Blade'' reported that Blackwell had accepted more than $1 million dollars in campaign contributions from "employees of firms seeking business with the statewide offices he's held over the past 12 years." Furthermore, the same organizations donated $1.34 million dollars to the Ohio Republican Party, $1.29 million of which was forwarded directly to Blackwell's campaign fund. Several of the firms which have been awarded contracts from Blackwell's office have also been hired on to his gubernatorial campaign. The investigators argue that the suggestion of ''quid pro quo'' based on the actions of contributors raise an issue of a serious conflict of interest. Petro has responded by demanding that a law which bans political contributors from being awarded state contracts. Blackwell has stated that no illegal activity took place. In response to Petro's call for reform, Blackwell stated "If you are asking me ... 'Am I advocating for campaign spending limits?' No. Never have. Never will."

After winning their respective primaries, both Blackwell and his Democratic opponent were able to raise record sums, in part because of the national attention paid to the race. As of September 9, 2006, Strickland led Blackwell, $11.2 million to $10 million.

Support from religious groups

Blackwell had been well supported by many religious leaders in Ohio both politically and financially; according to campaign filings, Blackwell has received $25,031 from clergy and more than 27 times as much as Strickland.

However, on January 16, 2006, a group of 31 pastors, led by Rev. Eric Williams, pastor of North Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) in Columbus, wrote a 13-page letter to the IRS alleging that Blackwell has enjoyed "special treatment" by two Ohio "mega-churches," World Harvest Church and Fairfield Christian Church. In the letter, the pastors accused the two organizations of sponsoring at least nine events with Blackwell as the sole invited politician, "partisan voter-registration drives," and distribution of biased voting guides. Rev. Russell Johnson, pastor of the Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio defended his actions by saying that the event in question was not a "meet the candidate forum," but rather he was giving Blackwell "an award for courageous leadership." Blackwell later called the group of 31 pastors "bullies."

On April 19, 2006, e-mails sent on behalf of the Blackwell campaign by Johnson on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006, came to light in the Columbus Dispatch. Both the Blackwell campaign and Russell Johnson, on behalf of Fairfield Christian Church, denied all wrong-doing. The e-mails in question subsequently emerged on various online media outlets, clearly showing that the e-mails had been sent from within Johnson's church office on the evening of Easter Sunday to Church personnel and employees of the church-owned Fairfield Christian Academy.

On May 7, 2006, the members of the Lord of Life Lutheran church in Columbus, Ohio publicly complained that Blackwell's campaign workers placed fliers on the windshields of those attending the church service on April 30, two days before the May 2 primary. The church pastor, Rev. Jim Wilson, stated "the tactic was offensive and suggested the church was endorsing Blackwell." Wilson said that he had tried to contact the Blackwell campaign in response to the incident but did not get a "satisfactory response." When questioned, Blackwell's campaign said the practice was "standard... for Republicans and Democrats."

On Wednesday, May 14, 2007, Ken Blackwell was appointed a senior fellow at the well-known conservative religious, political group Family Research Council.

As the organizations are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, not-for-profit organizations, they are explicitly barred from campaigning for, endorsing candidates or "becoming involved in any activity which is beneficial or harmful to any candidate." Johnson and Rev. Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest church have argued that the investigation is politically motivated and violates their constitutional right to free speech. Mark Everson, commissioner of the IRS responded "you don't have an automatic or constitutional right to a tax exemption, and that's where the line has been drawn."

Support from pro-gun organizations

Ken Blackwell has earned an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) Political Victory Fund. Blackwell is also endorsed by the Ohio Gun Collectors Association, Ohioans for Concealed Carry and Gun Owners of America.

"I unequivocally support the Second Amendment right of every law-abiding Ohioan to keep and own firearms for hunting, personal protection and any other lawful purpose," said Blackwell. "I am proud to receive the NRA’s highest rating and will be an unflinching advocate for gun owners as governor."

RNC Chairman Election

Blackwell announced his intentions to run in the 2009 RNC Chairmanship Election, but withdrew after the 5th round of voting. He won early endorsement from the state chairmen in Louisiana (Roger F. Villere, Jr.), Texas (Tina Benkiser), and Oklahoma (Gary Jones).

RNC Chairman Vote

''Source: CQPolitics, and Poll Pundit {|class="wikitable" |- ! Candidate ! Round 1 ! Round 2 ! Round 3 ! Round 4 ! Round 5 ! Round 6 |- | Michael Steele | 46 | style="background:cornflowerblue;"|48 | style="background:cornflowerblue;"|51 | 60 | style="background:cornflowerblue;"| 79 | style="background:limegreen;"| 91 |- | Katon Dawson | 28 | 29 | 34 | style="background:cornflowerblue;"| 62 | 69 | 77 |- | Saul Anuzis | 22 | 24 | 24 | 31 | 20 |style="background:lightgrey;"|''Withdrew'' |- | Ken Blackwell | 20 | 19 | 15 | 15 |style="background:lightgrey;"|''Withdrew'' |style="background:lightgrey;"| |- | Mike Duncan | style="background:cornflowerblue;"| 52 | style="background:cornflowerblue;"| 48 | 44 |style="background:lightgrey;"|''Withdrew'' |style="background:lightgrey;"| |style="background:lightgrey;"| |- |} : Candidate won that Round of voting : Candidate withdrew :Candidate won RNC Chairmanship

Association with Family Research Council (FRC)

Family Research Council identifies Ken Blackwell as a Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment. According to the organization's 2010 form 990 filing with the Internal Revenue Service, Blackwell was paid $162,000 as an independent contractor.

Bibliography

Kenneth Blackwell and Jerome R. Corsi. ''Rebuilding America: A Prescription for Creating Strong Families, Building the Wealth of Working People, and Ending Welfare''. WND Books, May 4, 2006. ISBN 1-58182-501-3

Kenneth Blackwell and Ken Klukowski. ''The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency''. Lyons Press, April 27, 2010. ISBN 0762761342

See also

Election Results, U.S. Representative from Ohio, 1st District

References

"Broadening the Field for 2008" by Tara Ross, ''The American Enterprise Online'', December 2, 2004, retrieved October 29, 2005

External links

Ken Blackwell profile, at NNDB

The Chicago Tribune: The anti-Obama

Ken Blackwell's site - Blackwell for RNC chairman site

Hardball with Chris Matthews, March 22, 2005, Terri Schiavo case

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