Midge Decter (born July 25, 1927, in St. Paul, Minnesota) is an American neoconservative journalist and author of various books. With Donald Rumsfeld, Decter is the former co-chair of the Committee for the Free World and one of the original drivers of the neoconservative movement with her spouse, Norman Podhoretz. She is also a founder of the Independent Women's Forum, and was founding treasurer for the Northcote Parkinson Fund, founded and chaired by John Train.
Ms. Decter started her career in journalism as the secretary to the then-editor of Commentary, Robert Warshow. She resigned during her first pregnancy.
Among other positions, she was the executive editor of Harper's under Willie Morris, leaving the magazine in 1971. Her first job in publishing came as an editor at Basic Books. She is also a member of the board of trustees for the Heritage Foundation, an influential Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute.
She is one of the signatories to Statement of Principles for the Project for the New American Century.
She is the mother of the conservative syndicated columnist John Podhoretz, the youngest of her four children, and the second by Norman Podhoretz. She is also the mother of Rachel Decter who married Elliott Abrams in 1980. washingtonpost.com: Back in Political Forefront