American Conservative editor Jon B. Utley dies at 86
Jon B. Utley, a long-time publisher of The American Conservative and a tireless opponent of U.S. military interventions, died March 19 at the age of 86 after a battling cancer. He was a 38-year member of the National Press Club and long-time resident of Georgetown.
Utley combined success in business with conservative commentary during a colorful career opposing communism and U.S military involvement abroad. He broke with neo-conservatives over U.S. intervention in the Balkans, Iran and Afghanistan. Born in Moscow and spirited out of the country by his British-born mother, Freda Utley, after his father became a victim of Stalin's purges. She became a prominent anticommunist author and activist.
Jon Utley graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1956 and studied in Germany and France before working for AIG in Latin America. He later worked in the U.S. in real estate and managed an oil drilling partnership in Pennsylvania. He spoke Spanish, French and German.
While working in Columbia in 1960, Utley started the country's only English-language newspaper, the Bogota Bulletin. He traveled widely on business in South America and the Caribbean and from 1969-1974 was a correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers in Peru and wrote for the Journal of Commerce and International Reports. In 1981 he became associate editor of the Times of the Americas, a Washington-based paper covering Latin America. He wrote for numerous conservative publications, including The Washington Times, Inquirer, Conservative Digest and Human Events plus The Washington Post, Miami Herald and Harvard Business Review. In 1986, he began a 17-year stint as a commentator for the Voice of America.
Utley's conservative affiliations included serving on the boards of the Council for Inter-American Security, The Conservative Caucus Foundation, and the Reagan Foundation.
Daniel McAdams, founder and executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, said Utley "understood that war and empire was the greatest threat to the old order, to decency, to actual patriotism, to our country." McAdams said in a tribute that "anyone who knew Jon Utley will undoubtedly best recall his most prominent feature: a smile that seemed a million miles wide. That animated his entire face and elevated the space around him. That made you feel like you were the only person in the world. Jon was absolutely magnetic."
Mark Weber, director of The Institute for Historical Review, said of Utley that "through his own work and many writings, and in his support for a range of groups – mostly conservative, anti-war and libertarian – he defended intellectual freedom and historical rigor, and promoted public awareness of the forces that push for war and oppression."
Tributes from his fellow journalists at The American Conservative can be found at https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/jon-basil-utley-a-man-for-all-seasons/