Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson on Wednesday announced the death of his father, Richard “Dick” Carlson, with a powerful personal tribute on social media.
Carlson’s father died at the age of 84 on Monday from a six-week-long illness at his home in Boca Grande, Florida, alongside his family and his beloved dogs. The obituary, shared by Carlson, honored his father’s life by pointing to his service in the U.S. Marine Corps. and his journalism career, while describing him as one of the “kindest and most loyal” people his family ever knew.
“Richard Warner Carlson died at 84 on March 24, 2025 at home in Boca Grande, Florida after six weeks of illness. He refused all painkillers to the end and left this world with dignity and clarity, holding the hands of his children with his dogs at his feet,” the obituary reads.
Dick Carlson, born on Feb. 10, 1941 in Massachusetts, spent years of his childhood in foster homes before being adopted by the Carlson family, the obituary said. After being thrown out of school at the age of 17, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps.
He moved to California in 1962 where he worked as a merchant seaman and then as an investigative reporter and anchor for ABC News. He later became the director of the Voice of America under former President Ronald Reagan’s administration and then moved to the Seychelles as the U.S. ambassador, leading him to know a “number of colorful leaders” and to work in dozens of countries around the world.
As a single dad, Carson’s father often brought his two sons on his reporting trips and taught them about a range of topics due to his love of reading. The obituary referred to Carlson’s father as a “free thinker” with an “outlaw spirit tempered by decency.”
“By 1975, he was married with two small boys, when his wife departed for Europe and didn’t return. He threw himself into raising his boys, whom he often brought with him on reporting trips,” the obituary reads. “At home, he educated them during three-hour dinners on topics that ranged from the French Revolution to Bolshevik Russia, PG Wodehouse, the history of the American Indian and, always, the eternal and unchanging nature of people. He was a free thinker and a compulsive book reader, including at red lights. He left a library of thousands of books, most dog-eared and filled with marginalia. His reading and life experiences convinced him that God is real. He had an outlaw spirit tempered by decency.”
The late Carlson is survived by his two sons, Tucker and Buckley, his daughter-in-law Susie and five grandchildren. He is also described as an avid lover of dogs.
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