07.02.18 Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post, passed away on June 21, 2018 at the age of sixty-eight. Mr. Krauthammer was best known for his insightful and often acerbic political commentary and wit. In addition to his work in the political arena, Mr. Krauthammer wrote many articles on chess including one each year for twenty years for Time magazine.

Thanks to Fred Irons for contributing to this report.

While in his first year at Harvard Medical School, Mr. Krauthammer became paralyzed at the waist after a diving board accident severed his spine. He continued his studies at Harvard and became a resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1975. In 1978, he moved to Washington, D.C. and worked in the Carter administration.

In the late 1970's and 1980's, Mr. Krauthammer began a career as a columnist and political commentator writing for The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, and Fox News--a career that continued until 2017 when he stopped writing his column and commenting due to his advancing cancer.

In an interview, he fondly recalled meeting a friend in Cambridge, Mass. in 1970 and seeing a chess clock for the first time. The two played blitz chess until dawn and his chess addiction was established.

An example of Mr. Krauthammer's writings on chess can be found in this article in the National Post: Chess in not a Olympic sport. But it should be.

We also highly recommend his essay The Romance of Chess that appeared in New Republic on July 18, 1983 and in Burt Hochberg's The 64-Square Looking Glass: The Great Game of Chess in World Literature.