Rupert Cornwell, a celebrated foreign correspondent and commentator for The Independent, has passed away.
Rupert, a founding member of the newspaper when it started in 1986, worked in the then Soviet Union, was a London-based diplomatic correspondent, and served two separate stretches as a correspondent and commentator in Washington DC.
He was known for his deep insight and elegant, understated writing, on everything from US politics and international affairs, to baseball and history.
He continued to write for The Independent - his final dispatches were on the rising power and influence of Ivanka Trump and an obituary of the philanthropist David Rockefeller - up until almost the very end, even as he underwent treatment for cancer.
The half brother of David Cornwell, whose pen name is John le Carré, Rupert was a friend and mentor to many of those he worked with. He was known as someone generous with his time and advice, and unfailingly modest.
Before joining The Independent, he was employed by both Reuters and the Financial Times, and worked in Paris, Brussels, Rome and Bonn, as well as being a political reporter at Westminster.
“Rupert was as humble as he was brilliant, his peerless range extending far beyond the politics of Moscow or Washington, to boxing, ballet and baseball," said Christian Broughton, editor of The Independent.
"In many ways he was a journalist of a bygone, romantic age, but he will remain an inspiration to generations who have passed through The Independent, and will be missed by all who knew him to be such a warm, lovely man.”
During his time in Rome, he wrote God’s Banker, an investigation into the 1982 murder in London of Roberto Calvi, a powerful financier with links to both the Catholic church and the mafia.
Rupert passed away on Friday afternoon at Washington’s Sibley Memorial Hospital, in the presence of his family.
Rupert is survived by his widow, Susan, a Reuters correspondent whom he met in Bonn, and two sons.
More to follow, including full obituary and tributes...
