ABSTRACT
I. F. Stone is one of those lucky people who all but attended their own funeral. Like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn ("He warn't bad so to say,” cried Aunt Polly, “only mischeevous”), Stone, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday and the publication of his final book, The Trial of Socrates (1987), was treated to the kind of mass media respect and veneration that is almost always reserved for the comfortably deceased. The very establishment press organs that had shunned his reporting, ignored his scoops, and branded his views dangerously radical at best, procommunist at worst, joined in the celebration of what one article at the time called “Izzymania.” When Stone's heart gave out eighteen months later, the entire process was repeated, with the lengthy respectful obituaries, op-ed page tributes, and two standing-room-only memorial services attended by the biggest names in the business.
