In 1946, when he was in the eighth grade, he helped raise money for the Irgun Zvai Leumi — by passing a contribution basket at performances of Ben Hecht’s play, A Flag is Born.

[7] While at Yale Law, Navasky co-founded with Richard Lingeman a magazine of political satire called Monocle, which ran until 1965.

"[6] Eventually, Navasky realized his greatest passion was for journalism, and he chose it as his profession ahead of law.

[10] He worked as a manuscript editor and staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and was a frequent book reviewer.

He also wrote a New York Times Book Review monthly column, "In Cold Print", about the publishing business.

He held the position for many years and was immortalized in Calvin Trillin's "Uncivil Liberties" column as "the wily and parsimonious Victor S. Navasky" or "The W. & P." for short.

[12] In one of his most controversial editorial stances, Navasky was a longtime defender of alleged Soviet spy Alger Hiss.

Beginning with a critical review of Allen Weinstein's book Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case in an April 1978 issue of The Nation, Navasky maintained that Hiss's guilt had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

[13] Kai Bird wrote, "Navasky quite simply thought Chambers made an unreliable witness.

In the course of his research, he pored through House Un-American Activities Committee testimony and interviewed over 150 actors, writers, directors, and producers.

Daniel Aaron praised Navasky's achievement in the New York Review of Books: "One can only applaud the adroitness with which he has put together a lucid and persuasive narrative from such a mare's nest of fact and supposition".

[15] After winding down his responsibilities at The Nation, Navasky accepted a post as director of the George T. Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism at Columbia University.

In 2005, Navasky received the George Polk Book Award[20] given annually by Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting.

I believed in civil rights and civil liberties, I favored racial integration, I thought responsibility for the international tensions of the Cold War was equally distributed between the United States and the U.S.S.R.[15]In 2013, Navasky published his final book, The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power, which looked at the impact over the centuries of provocative political cartoons.