Robert Hedges Yoakum was born on March 8, 1922 in Phoenix, Arizona, to Guy and Eunice Abbot Yoakum. He was raised in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, where his father served as a Congregational minister and writer. In 1938, the family moved to Chicago, where Robert Yoakum graduated from Austin High School in 1940. While attending Northwestern University (1940-1942), Yoakum co-wrote the column "On the Curve" for the college newspaper, the Daily Northwestern. Leaving school in July 1942, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps where he served as a correspondent for the XIX Tactical Air Command, a unit attached to General George Patton's forces. He was awarded a bronze star for writing the story of his unit in a booklet entitled, "Fly, Seek and Destroy." Yoakum also participated in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. After he was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in October 1945, he attended the University of Chicago (1945-1947).
Yoakum worked as a correspondent for Reuters (1948-1949) in Paris and on occasion for the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). While working as a writer and city editor for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune (1949-1952), he co-wrote a weekly column, "Mostly About People," with fellow writer Art Buchwald for the Tribune. He also served as Deputy Secretary General for the World Veterans Federation (WVF), a non-governmental organization that advocated for veterans around the world and was dedicated to "Peace with Freedom."
After his stint in Europe, he returned to the United States and wrote newspaper and magazine articles for several years for various publications including the Columbia Journalism Review and the The New Republic. Among his notable writings for European and American publications are articles on the Marshall Plan, French labor strikes, North African independence movements, and congressional ethics, specifically the Senator Thomas Dodd investigation. Yoakum also tried to start a news magazine, but the project stalled due to lack of funding.
His time as a speechwriter included working for President John F. Kennedy, as part of the "brain trust" of writers working under Archibald Cox, then a professor at Harvard Law School who had previously served as head of the Wage Stabilization Board under President Harry Truman's administration. Speeches approved by Cox would then be forwarded to main Kennedy speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, for further vetting.
During a year in London and at the prompting of editor Harold Evans, Yoakum began writing a humor column in the Sunday Times in 1970, and once back in the United States began publishing twice-weekly columns (1971-1986) under the title, "Another Look," which was eventually syndicated to over 80 national and international newspapers, initially by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and then through his own company, Yoakum Features.
Yoakum also worked on a number of book projects: A Candidate's Handbook: Time-Tested Political Ploys for Bamboozling the Voters with William Attwood, and a memoir (both unpublished), and Restless Legs Syndrome: Relief and Hope for Sleepless Victims of a Hidden Epidemic (2006). He also co-founded the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation, circa 1992.
In 1953, Yoakum married Alice Blum, who later became an attorney, and with whom he had three children: Elizabeth, Ellen, and Robert (d. 1997). He died in Lakeville, Connecticut, on October 2, 2016.
