After his death, I was struck by how many people used the phrase “my friend” in their remembrances of Christopher Hitchens. It shows how clubbable he was, despite the terrible swift sword he was unable to leave for long in its scabbard, and also how formidable were his seductive powers. Christopher never hid his intention to use people as the surfaces on which he intended to leave a fingerprint, and most of the time he made sure that this impression was a keepsake with lasting value.

My own acquaintanceship with him—it was no more than that—began in 1987 when my friend David Horowitz and I staged a Second Thoughts Conference in Washington, D.C. to provide a forum for former New Leftists who, like us, had resigned from our radical generation and embraced America as the hope of the world rather than its curse. Hitchens had already made his feelings known about such transitions in his brutal attack on Paul Johnson for his “well advertised stagger from left to right,” which he regarded as the venal maneuver of someone “who, having lost his faith, believes that he had found his reason.” But Christopher’s omnivorous curiosity was piqued by our event, and he made a point not only of attending but also of running into us at the bar of the Grand Hyatt the day before the conference began.

“Good” Christopher, as I came to think of one of his halves, was on full display that afternoon. He opened