Last week I declared Edward Jay Esptein’s Assume Nothing: Encounters With Assassins, Spies, Presidents, and Would-Be Masters of the Universe my book of the year. I followed up by email with Ed, asking him how he was doing and telling him I wanted to visit him in New York. Ed responded that he was “just recovering from his first bout of covid” and asked how I was doing.

I am sad to report that Ed passed away yesterday at the age of 88. His death is noted on Twitter by his friend Michael Wolff.

In the absence of a decent obituary of Ed at the moment, let me add Wolff’s collection of his related articles.

As I wrote last week, Ed was my ideal of a journalist. He was brilliant, meticulous, dogged, and passionate about following the evidence wherever it took him. Ed led an adventurous and intriguing life driven by his own intellectual curiosity. Every one of his many books is worth reading. Every one of his many books stands as a model of investigative journalism. Moreover, as one can infer from his memoir, it may be only a slight exaggeration to say that he was friends with everyone.

I wrote about Ed and interviewed him several times for Power Line. In 2007 I met Ed for dinner in New York City along with my oldest daughter. For me it was a lifetime highlight. Ed was one of a kind. There is no one to take his place.

Boswell said of Johnson: “I find myself unable to express all that I felt upon the loss of such a ‘Guide, Philosopher, and Friend.’ I shall, therefore, not say one word of my own, but adopt those of an eminent friend, which he uttered with an abrupt felicity, superior to all studied compositions:—’He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best:—there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.'” So it can be said of Ed. RIP.