Lecturer in Political Science and political reporter Walter Shapiro has passed away at the age of 77.
Walter wrote for leading newspapers and journals, covering 12 presidential elections, reporting form campigns trails and Washington D.C..
The Washington Post wrote “He was on the staff of The Washington Post Magazine in the early 1980s, later joined Newsweek and then Time magazine, penned columns for Esquire and USA Today and wrote for websites including Politics Daily. At the time of his death, he was a staff writer for the New Republic and a columnist for the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call.”
His friend Joe Klein write that “He was a grand, kindly soul–a political writer extraordinaire, and much more”.
His 2016 book “Hustling Hitler! The Jewish Vaudevillian Who Fooled the Führer” centered on his con-man uncle, Freeman Bernstein, who in the 1930’s cheated the Nazi Government out of $150,000 by selling them scrap metal instead of the promised nickel, a highly sought after material needed for armament production.