Richard Reeves, the columnist and author whose books explored subjects as varied as the American presidency, the role of the media in American politics and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, died on Wednesday at the age of 83, The New York Times reported.
Throughout his career Reeves wrote more than a dozen books. His most recent, published in 2015, was Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II, in which he blames two Army officers stationed on the West Coast of greatly exaggerating the dangers posed by Japanese Americans and singles out Earl Warren, who would go on to be the chief justice of the United States, as another responsible party.
He lectured at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and from 1979 until 2014 he wrote a syndicated column that appeared in more than 100 newspapers. He also wrote books on John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, and was often unsparing in his portraits of presidents, whether they were the subject of a book or a newspaper column.
Reeves had a short-lived career as an engineer prior to entering the world of journalism. He helped found and edit the Phillipsburg Free Press before working as a reporter for the Newark Evening News, the New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times, where his career eventually took off.
From there, he wrote for Esquire and New York magazine, was a frequent commentator on PBS public affairs programs and was chief correspondent for Frontline from 1981 to 1984. Over the years he won many awards for his work, among them an Emmy for the ABC documentary "Lights, Camera...Politics!"