24 Facts About Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Claud Cockburn was a Scottish-born Irish-American political journalist and writer.

Alexander Cockburn wrote the "Beat the Devil" column for The Nation, and another column for The Week in London, syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

Alexander Cockburn was born on June 6,1941, in Scotland and grew up in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland.

Alexander Cockburn was the eldest son of journalist, Claud Cockburn, a former Communist author, and his third wife, Patricia Byron, nee Arbuthnot.

Alexander Cockburn grew up between his family home in Ireland and Glenalmond College, an independent boys' boarding school, in Perthshire, Scotland.

Alexander Cockburn later studied English at Keble College, University of Oxford.

Alexander Cockburn graduated from Oxford in 1963, after which he worked at the New Left Review, becoming its managing editor in 1966.

Alexander Cockburn was assistant editor at the Times Literary Supplement, and in 1967 worked at New Statesman.

In 1967 Alexander Cockburn co-edited The Incompatibles: Trade Union Militancy and the Consensus with Robin Blackburn.

In 1968, Alexander Cockburn published a letter to The Times supporting British socialists protesting the Vietnam War.

Alexander Cockburn moved to the United States in 1972 and lived there for the rest of his years.

Alexander Cockburn contributed pieces to The New York Review of Books, Esquire, Harper's, and, from 1973 to 1983, The Village Voice.

In 1975 Alexander Cockburn wrote Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death.

In 1987, Alexander Cockburn completed the first of a series of books collecting columns, diary entries, letters, and essays dating from 1976, titled Corruptions of Empire; the cover featured a portrayal of Admiral George Alexander Cockburn torching the White House.

Alexander Cockburn lived in New York City for many years, before moving to Petrolia in Humboldt County in northern California in 1992.

Alexander Cockburn criticized economic and political sanctions imposed on the Iraqi government by the United Nations.

Alexander Cockburn interpreted the rise of these ideas as a sign of the decline of the American Left.

Alexander Cockburn criticized conspiracy theories related to the 1963 assassination of US president Kennedy and the Country Walk case.

Alexander Cockburn did suggest in writing that he US government had prior knowledge of the 1941 Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor.

Alexander Cockburn supported free speech, writing that "Free speech counts most when it's most risky".

In December 1968, Alexander Cockburn married writer Emma Tennant; their daughter Daisy Alice Alexander Cockburn was born in February 1969.

Alexander Cockburn had a complicated personal and professional relationship with British author and journalist Christopher Hitchens.

Alexander Cockburn didn't want his friends and readers to shower him with sympathy.

Alexander Cockburn didn't want to blog his own death as Christopher Hitchens had done.