Remembering Midge Decter

Midge Decter, best known for her leadership of the neoconservative movement, died at the age of 94 on May 9, 2022.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) was proud to present our Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom to Midge Decter in 2008. From 1980 through 1990, Midge Decter acted as Executive Director of the Committee for a Free World, an anti-communist organization. She worked as an editor variously at Midstream, Commentary, the Hudson Institute, CBS Legacy Books, Harper’s, Saturday Review/World, and Basic Books. She authored The Liberated Woman and Other Americans (1970), The New Chasity and Other Arguments against Women’s Liberation (1972), Liberal Parents, Radical Children (1975), and Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait (2003).

The following is a tribute from Dr. Lee Edwards, VOC Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus said, “Midge Decter was a Cold Warrior extraordinaire who received our Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom for her life-long opposition to communism and all forms of tyranny. She was a founder of the Committee for a Free World and a prominent member of the Committee on the Present Danger. She understood the critical importance of securing peace and freedom through strength. She was a realist about our dangerous world and an idealist about helping those in need. As a founding neoconservative, along with Irving Kristol and her husband Norman Podhoretz, Midge was a champion of freedom at home and abroad.”