Midge Decter

Midge Decter (b. 25 July, 1927; née Midge Rosenthal) is one of the original drivers of the neo-conservative movement with her spouse, Norman Podhoretz. With Donald Rumsfeld, Decter is the former co-chair of the Committee for the Free World and a founder of the Independent Women's Forum. She is the mother of right-wing syndicated columnist, John Podhoretz and of Rachel Decter, a product of her marriage to Moshe Decter. Her first job was secretary to the editor of Commentary, the intellectual magazine published by the American Jewish Committee. She later worked as an assistant editor at Midstream magazine, managing editor at Commentary, editor at Harper's Magazine, and was an editor at Legacy Books and at Basic Books.

According to Jim Lobe:

"Podhoretz and his spouse, Midge Decter, a polemical powerhouse in her own right, created a formidable political team in the 1970s as they deserted the Democratic Party, and then, as leaders of the Committee on the Present Danger -- like PNAC a coalition of mainly Jewish, neo-conservatives and more traditional right-wing hawks like Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- helped lay the foreign-policy foundation for the rise of Ronald Reagan.

Quotes

Posted 22 May 2004, at Max Blumenthal's Blogspot:

"'We're not in the Middle East to bring sweetness and light to the world. We're there to get something we and our friends in Europe depend on. Namely, oil.'" --Decter on the Warren Olney Show, 89.9, Los Angeles, (21 May 2004)

Affiliations

Think Tanks and Lobbies

• Accuracy in Media - National Advisory Board
• Advisory Committee on European Democracy and Security - co-chair
• American Jewish Committee
• Capital Research Center
• Center for Security Policy
• Coalition for a Democratic Majority - National Chairman
• Committee for the Free World - Executive Director
• Committee on the Present Danger
• Foreign Policy Research Institute - Board of Advisors
• Heritage Foundation - board of trustees
• Hoover Institution
• Hudson Institute
• Independent Women's Forum
• Institute on Religion and Public Life - Senior Fellow
• Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress
• Jamestown Foundation - Advisory Board
• Jewish Policy Center - Board of Fellows
• Nicaraguan Freedom Fund - Board of Directors
• Project for the New American Century
• Radio Broadcasting to Cuba - appointed by Reagan to the Advisory board on March 13, 1985.

Editorial

• Commentary Magazine - Managing Editor
• Harper's - Executive Editor
• Midstream - Assistant Editor
• The Saturday Review - Managing Editor

Conferences

• 1979 Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism

Resources and References

Publications

• Losing the First Battle, Winning the War
• The liberated woman and other Americans
• Liberal Parents, Radical Children
• The new chastity and other arguments against women's liberation
• Always Right: Selected Writings of Midge Decter
• Rumsfeld : A Personal Portrait. The "Rumsfeld" of the title is Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Maureen Dowd's "Drunk on Rummy", to the say the least, provides insight on the long-term relationship between Decter and Rumsfeld, as well as interesting notes on fellow neo-con Paul Dundes Wolfowitz.

Resources

• Midge Decter on NameBase.com.
• NNDB
• Always Right. Selected Writings of Midge Decter (Edited, with an introduction, by Phillip N. Truluck) offered by Heritage Foundation.
• Midge Decter, Breaking Away, Hoover Digest, 2002: "Adapted from the new book An Old Wife's Tale: My Seven Decades in Love and War, by Midge Decter (Regan Books/HarperCollins, 2001).
• Maureen Dowd, Drunk On Rummy, 28 September 2003. (Accessed: 2 October 2007)