A history buff's history: Bruce has always been that way

Bruce Kauffmann is a columnist and historian whose work has appeared in magazines and newspapers nationwide, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Buffalo News, American Politics magazine, Virginia Country magazine, and The Early American Review.  Formerly, he was a speechwriter for CBS News managing editor and news anchor, Dan Rather, as well as the head writer for the CBS News radio program, “Dan Rather Reporting, News Analysis and Commentary.”  In this position he won several writing awards and citations from the Writer’s Guild of America, including the Hal Terkel Memorial award for general excellence in news writing and the 1991 award for “Best Spot News Radio” writer.  More recently, his graduate thesis on James Madison was made required reading in the history department of the University of Florida, Gainesville.

A history fanatic since early childhood, he has been reading histories and biographies (“History, properly understood, is biography”) since high school. When classmates were reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, he was reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. A graduate of “Mr. Jefferson’s University” (The University of Virginia), he has continued his studies at American University, where he is working on a Masters degree in history, and Georgetown University, where he takes evening classes in history as part of GU’s Continuing Education course offerings. As a hobby he is memorizing all of Winston Churchill’s war speeches, which he listens to on long road trips.

The Second World War is of particular interest since his maternal grandfather, Major General Frank A. Allen, Jr., fought in that war and was on Dwight Eisenhower’s staff at its conclusion—becoming a great friend of Eisenhower’s and remaining so even after Ike went to the White House. Bruce listened to so many of his grandfather’s stories about the war that when his grandfather got older and his memory got hazy, Bruce would—with great deference—fill in the gaps in his grandfather’s stories until the old soldier could pick up where he left off.  Bruce remembers fondly his grandfather venting his frustration at coordinating military maneuvers with the British. “They stopped for tea every afternoon no matter what schedule they were on or they were supposed to be!”

With journalism in his blood—his family on his father’s side was one of the owners of the Washington Evening Star, once Washington, D.C.’s premiere daily newspaper—he decided to combine his love of history with his journalism background and training. In January of 2001 he launched his history column Bruce’s History Lessons. Written to be both entertaining and informative, the column covers both well-known and little known events in American and world history.  

Bruce lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife and two daughters.