A native of the Washington, DC, area, Philip Terzian has been a journalist since the early 1970s. Reporter and editor at the Anniston (Ala.) Star, Reuters, and US News & World Report; assistant editor of The New Republic; assistant editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times; associate editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald; and editor of the editorial pages at The Providence Journal. During 1978-79 he was a speechwriter for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.
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For 20 years he wrote a syndicated column, was a Pulitzer finalist for distinguished commentary, has reported from a dozen foreign countries, and been a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion, Commentary, Harper's, The American Spectator, the Times Literary Supplement, and other publications. He has been a Pulitzer juror, media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and is a member of the American Council on Germany. He was Literary Editor and later Senior Editor of The Weekly Standard from 2005 until 2018, and is author of Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century, published by Encounter Books in 2010.
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Married, and the father of two, he lives in Fairfax County, Virginia.