People Remembered: Robert Novak

Robert Novak was a Washington-based conservative political columnist, but he traveled far and wide as a reporter.

Robert Novak was a Washington-based conservative political columnist, but he traveled far and wide as a reporter.

In 1978, he interviewed Chinese leader Deng Xiao-ping in China. Deng’s conciliatory message to the United States in that interview helped pave the way for Washington’s resumption of diplomatic relations with Beijing the following year.

Novak flew to Vietnam to report from that war. “We’d rag him about his specialized view of Vietnam, but he took it in good humor,” reported Tracy Wood, who saw him in Saigon’s UPI bureau that transmitted his columns to Washington. “And he did get out and actually report his side of things for his columns, not just sit in Washington and type. I never agreed with much that he wrote, but I liked him.”

When he was publisher-president of the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob Page held a cocktail party in Washington”s Willard Hotel for Novak and his reporting partner Roland Evans to mark the 25th anniversary of their column. “Every slug who was anybody in Washington came,” said Page, a former UPI executive in London, Hong Kong and New York. “The Sun-Times was their host newspaper. One of the great things about Bob was that he never forgot his reporter’s roots.”

After serving stateside as a U.S. Army lieutenant during the Korean War, Novak joined AP as a $68-a-week reporter, working in Omaha, Indianapolis and Washington. He moved to the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal in 1958 as a political reporter. Later he and Evans started writing their syndicated column that at one time was published in 300 newspapers.

Novak continued the column alone after Evans retired in 1993 and later died. For years Novak was a regular on CNN talk shows including “The Capital Gang,” “Crossfire” and ”Evans, Novak, Hunt and Shields.” Novak stirred up controversy in 2003 when he identified in his column Valerie Wilson, wife of a former U.S. diplomat, as a CIA agent.

Robert David Sanders Novak was born in a Republican home in Joliet, Illinois, the son of a chemical engineer who ran the local gas company. Robert died August 18 of a malignant brain tumor at his home in Washington at age 78.