Nicholas von Hoffman (October 16, 1929 – February 1, 2018) was an American journalist and author. He first worked as a community organizer for Saul Alinsky in Chicago for ten years from 1953 to 1963. Later, Von Hoffman wrote for The Washington Post, and most notably, was a commentator on the CBS Point-Counterpoint segment for 60 Minutes, from which Don Hewitt fired him in 1974. von Hoffman was also a columnist for The Huffington Post. Life and career A native New Yorker of German and Russian descent, von Hoffman was born to Anna L. Bruenn, a dentist, and Carl von Hoffman, an explorer and adventurer. Von Hoffman never attended college. In the 1950s, he worked on the research staff of the Industrial Relations Center of the University of Chicago, and then for Saul Alinsky as a field representative of the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago, where his best known role was as lead organizer for The Woodlawn Organization. Ben Bradlee, former editor of The Washington Post, hired von Hoffman from the Chicago Daily News. While at the Post, he wrote a column for the paper's Style section. In her memoirs, Katharine Graham, then the newspaper's publisher, wrote of him: "My life would have been a lot simpler had Nicholas von Hoffman not appeared in the paper." She added that "I firmly believed that he belonged at the Post". Beginning in 1979 and continuing through the 1980s, von Hoffman recorded over two-hundred radio commentaries, audio op-eds in the sardonic style he used on 60 Minutes. These commentaries were broadcast on the nationally syndicated daily radio program, Byline, which was sponsored by the Cato Institute. Subjects of von Hoffman's audio op-eds included the 1984 Democratic primary candidates, the Reagan administration's foreign policy in Central America and the Middle East, and the cynical, self-serving misuse of language by politicians. Von Hoffman wrote more than a dozen books, notably: Capitalist Fools: Tales of American Business, from Carnegie to Forbes to the Milken Gang (1992), Citizen Cohn (1988), a biography of Roy Cohn, which was made into an HBO movie, and Hoax: Why Americans Are Suckered by White House Lies (2004). Von Hoffman also wrote a libretto for Deborah Drattell's Nicholas and Alexandra for the Los Angeles Opera which was performed in the 2003–2004 season under the direction of Plácido Domingo. Between April 2007 and February 2008, starting with an article about soaking the rich