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George Goodman

American author and economics commentator (1930-2014)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ5539790 ↗
Source-derived summary

George Jerome Waldo Goodman (August 10, 1930 – January 3, 2014) was an American author and economics broadcast commentator, best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith (which was assigned by Clay Felker at New York magazine in order to keep his published articles about Wall Street anonymous). He published fiction under his own name.

Background, education, and career

Goodman was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Alexander Mark Goodman and Viona Cremer Goodman. He attended Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude, and served as an editor of The Harvard Crimson. Goodman won a Rhodes Scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read for the B. Litt. His first novel, The Bubble Makers, published simultaneously in the UK and the United States, was written during this period.

In 1954, before the Special Forces became the Green Berets, he joined the US Army Special Forces in the Intelligence group known as Psywar (psychological warfare). In 1961, Goodman married American actress Sally Brophy, with whom he had two children. She died in 2007.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “George Goodman” is american author and economics commentator (1930-2014). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through George, Goodman and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1930, 2014, 1954, 1961—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1930-08-10. For this dossier, George, Goodman and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american author and economics commentator (1930-2014)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5539790. VIAF identifies the subject as 98222732. The Library of Congress control number is n50035300. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 2014, 1954 and 1961.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “George Goodman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow George Goodman primary sources, George Goodman archive and George research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “George Goodman”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “George Goodman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.