Richard Reeves

Richard Furman Reeves (November 28, 1936 – March 25, 2020) was an American writer, syndicated columnist, and lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Life and career Reeves was born in 1936 in New York City, the son of Dorothy (Forshay), an actress, and Furman W. Reeves, a judge in Hudson County, New Jersey. He received his Mechanical Engineering degree from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1960. After graduation, he spent a year working as an engineer for Ingersoll-Rand, after which he moved to journalism. From 1961–1965, Reeves co-founded and worked for the Phillipsburg Free Press (New Jersey), then worked for Newark Evening News and the New York Herald Tribune before being assigned the post of Chief Political Correspondent for The New York Times in 1966. In 1971, Reeves left the Times to lecture at Hunter College. The opinions of Reeves generally had a liberal bent—he opposed the war to topple Saddam Hussein as "stupid and unnecessary" (column, March 19, 2003)—but shunned "extreme" leftist positions. He paid close attention to happenings overseas and often filled his columns with explanations of current trends based on history. Many of his columns focused on the world's reaction to political actions of the United States. He also published nine books, mostly about American politics. In 1993, he appeared in the film Dave, one of several journalists who played themselves in the film.