CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR KILPATRICK DIES

James J. Kilpatrick, best known for his 60 Minutes "Point-Counterpoint" clashes with Nicholas von Hoffman and later Shana Alexander in the 1970s, died Sunday of congestive heart failure in Washington D.C. He was 89. In its obituary, the New York Times observed that in 1963 he submitted an article to The Saturday Evening Post with the title "The Hell He Is Equal," in which he argued that "the Negro race … is in fact an inferior race." However, the magazine decided not to publish it after the Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls. Kirkpatrick, the newspaper said, later reexamined his defense of segregation, telling Time magazine in 1970 that he was raised in the South where "I accepted segregation as a way of life. Very few of us, I suspect, would like to have our passions and profundities at age 28 thrust in our faces at 50."