John O'Sullivan CBE (born April 25, 1942) is a leading British conservative political commentator and journalist and currently Vice President and executive editor of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.[1]. During the 1980s he was a senior policywriter and speechwriter in 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister, and remains close to Thatcher until this day.
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John O'Sullivan was born in Liverpool. He was educated at St Mary's College, Crosby[2] and received his higher education at the University of London. He stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate in the 1970 British general election.
O'Sullivan is Editor-at-Large of the opinion magazine National Review and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Prior to this, he was the Editor-in-Chief of United Press International, Editor-in-Chief of the international affairs magazine, The National Interest, and a Special Adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1991 New Year's Honours List.
He is the founder and co-chairman of the New Atlantic Initiative, an international organization dedicated to reinvigorating and expanding the Atlantic community of democracies. The organization was created at the Congress of Prague in May 1996 by President Václav Havel and Lady Margaret Thatcher.
O'Sullivan has published articles in Encounter, Commentary, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Policy Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The American Spectator, The Spectator, The American Conservative, Quadrant, The Hibernian and other journals, and is the author of The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister (November 2006). He also lectures on British and American politics and is the Bruges Group's representative in Washington DC
He is known for O'Sullivan's First Law (a.k.a. O'Sullivan's Law), paraphrased by George Will as stating that any institution that is not libertarian and classically liberal will, over time, become collectivist and statist.
O'Sullivan currently resides in Decatur, Alabama with his wife Melissa and stepdaughters - Katherine, who is 23, and Amanda, 17.