Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor at National Review. He writes about a variety of subjects, including politics, foreign affairs, and the arts. He is a music critic for The New Criterion and City Arts. For National Review Online, he writes a column, “Impromptus.” He has won many awards, particularly for his work in human rights. Nordlinger’s most recent book is “Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World.” A native Michigander raised in Ann Arbor, he is a graduate of the University of Michigan. He lives in New York.
What are your responsibilities at National Review?
Well, I write pieces for National Review Magazine, a variety of pieces, and I have a web column. At first I thought the web was kind of a lark. Back when you were a schnook. Now it seems the web is everything. In fact, I wonder whether my articles really exist if they’re not on the web. Before I wondered whether they did exist if they were on the web. I thought it wasn’t real writing; therefore, I was more relaxed about it. Funny how things change in the course of just a few years. I think I wrote my very first piece for what I think of as ‘the internet’ in 2000 for the Republican Convention in Philadelphia. That’s the first time I ever wrote for the internet. I felt like a lark — who’s gonna read it? — It’s not real writing. What are they even gonna get. Now of course you read the web only. For a long time I’ve had co-workers at National Review, younger co-workers, who’ve never really held a newspaper in their hands or a magazine. It’s just something foreign to them.
When and how did you come to National Review?
I came to National Review in 1998 from the Weekly Standard Magazine in Washington and I went to National Review in order to be the managing editor of it. John [Miller, director of the Dow Journalism Program] and others lived and worked in Washington, but National Review headquarters are in New York, which is where I went to work.
What did you do as managing editor?
That’s different in every publication. Managing editors really manage the office, supervise editors and writers, keep the schedule, enforce deadlines, managing editors should be concerned with the whole operation, nuts and bolts. Managing editors is ordinarily responsible for making the trains run on time to ensure a smooth operation. Pieces come in, they’re edited, proofread, fact checked, published, illustrated, all those things. I think, in our shop, it might have been a little bit strange, but that was basically it.
What’s your talk on Tuesday about?
This is really terrible, Chris. It’s going to be about myself. Isn’t that awful? For the purpose of broader applications, I’m going to talk about how I evolved politically when I was in college; I’d say late high school and college. I’m going to speak about that and how I came to embrace conservative positions.
How did you start writing?
I always liked it. A lot. I loved reading the newspaper. It was so pleasurable. I loved the news. I loved world affairs. National affairs, American politics, and the US presidency in particular, I loved to read about it. I was an immediate junkie. I consumed all sorts of journalism.”
So, after you left college, is that what you went in to?
No, I had knocked around for a little. I had a very circuitous route. I did odds and ends. And I applied for a job at The Weekly Standard where they administered a test or two, editing tests, and that meant that my background was largely irrelevant. I could show what I could do. That made up for a thin or blank resume and without those tests I would have been SOL. So therefore, when I became managing editor at National Review, I instituted tests. Otherwise, it’s whom do you know. Not much merit to it. When I was hiring junior editors and interns at National Review, which I did for 9 years as managing editor, I never read their resumes or letters of recommendation. I didn’t even look. I just talked to them and tested them. I couldn’t have cared less. All I cared about was what they could do. Never read their resumes, didn’t care where they’d worked or where they’d been. Some people just luck into things. And the ones who don’t have anything, it doesn’t mean they’re bad, true?
You wrote a book about the history of the Nobel Peace Prize. What inspired you to explore that?
It was suggested to me by an editor. And I thought it was a good idea, a really juicy topic. Moreover, one that I could handle. I was delighted by the suggestion. When Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, Adam suggested I write a “History of the Peace Prize” thesis and I thought, “That’s an interesting idea,” but it turned into a total backburner thing. Ten years later, I revived this idea.
I just started a new book just last week. It was my first time working on it. It’ll probably be called “Children of Monsters,” and it’s about the sons and daughters of dictators. I got the idea a long time ago, 2002 when I visited Albania for the first time. How nice it is to say “visited Albania for the first time.” It happened twice. I was being shown around by a young man, my guide, and I asked about the late dictators, the late dictator was Enver Hoxha, one of the worst men in history. One of the most brutal dictators in history. Much more than the other Eastern European dictators. More like North Korea, Albania was, than like the rest of the world. And I said, “Did Hoxha have children?”
“Yeah! He had two sons and one daughter and this is what they do.” And I thought what must their lives be like? What must it be to have a last name synonymous with oppression and terror? Another one of these things that was on the backburner for years and some acting on that book just started last week.
So have you travelled a lot?
Yes I have. Yep, I’ve been very lucky to travel. Here and abroad. I’ve been seeing more of America lately: I went to an Indian reservation in South Dakota last summer, I went to Oklahoma City, I went to Raleigh, Missouri. All new areas of the country for me. Seems to me there was somewhere else. I usually travel for stories. Conferences. Sometimes talks. Sometimes a new job. Every year at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, I host a public interview series with prominent musicians. I’ve regularly attended the Oslo Freedom Forum, it’s a human rights conference. Probably my favorite event.
So you were speechwriter on the 2000 campaign for George W. Bush?
Very briefly, I took a 6 week leave of absence to work at his speech writing team in Austin from the middle of September to Election Day. The home stretch. But the election wasn’t really determined until mid-December. I can only speak from my own experience, which was brief, but you’re given points a candidate should make during a particular speech. And then you write a speech from the points. I liken it to editorial writing. You may be given marching orders, please make these points, and then you write it like an editorial. I must say I like writing anonymously. I find it quite liberating if your name isn’t on it. I can do it faster and easier whereas I might tense up a little if it’s my own. I like the freedom that anonymity brings, I like that about editorial writing.
Did you meet Bush while on the campaign?
Only just, no more than meet him. I met him as a journalist, later. I remember I left the White House once thinking, “That hour we had, I wish it could have been on television. I wish the whole world could see it, they’d be so surprised.” I don’t know why he wasn’t that loose, sharp, and articulate in public. I remember one time he gave this tour, he just went around the world speaking about various issues and situations. He was masterly! He was utterly commanding! Why he tended to freeze in his public comments I don’t know. Very impressive man, really smart. I remember just thinking, you take away all the trappings the Oval Office, the White House, the presidency, you take all those things away, put him in overalls, put him in a hardware store, he’s still impressive. It wasn’t just the trappings. He’s still very impressive. It’s hard to get elected president twice if you don’t have very much on the ball, even if you’re the son of a president. Lots of people are sons of presidents.
