When a man dies, he takes with him his unique combination of
knowledge and understanding of that knowledge. Many facts are, of
course, commonly known and stay among the living, as is much
understanding. Still, no two people have ever known the exact
same sets of facts (unless they knew absolutely nothing), just as
no two human minds work in exactly the same way; which is what
makes our study of mankind and its history so fascinating.
I feel this especially with the passing of my father last week,
at the age of 88, having lived a full and happy life all the way
to the end. Dad was not cheated by life, and our family feels
very fortunate especially when considering those whose lives have
been cut short or limited in some way. I do miss him, and not the
least because of his extraordinary mind and the things he knew.
What I hope will be of particular interest and significance to
readers of the Spectator is his perspective, drawn on
deep personal involvement culminating in twenty-four years
chairing the judicial selection committees of Senators James L.
Buckley and Alfonse D’Amato, on the Conservative Movement.
Dad’s first campaign involvement came in 1952, when, as a young
lawyer and a World War II combat veteran, he was a convention
page for Senator Robert A. Taft. His most memorable task was to
escort John Wayne through a tsunami of admirers to Taft’s hotel
room and back. Dad’s father was in the room with Taft when Henry
Cabot Lodge started the outrageous “Thou shalt not steal” chant
at Taft just as Thomas E. Dewey was closing his fateful deal with
Richard Nixon and Earl Warren to swing California’s support to
the Eisenhower ticket. His father reported that Taft slapped his
knee and said, “That does it” — effectively signing Lodge’s
political death warrant. It was no coincidence that John F.
Kennedy (who defeated Lodge in 1952) was one of the first
Senators to eulogize Taft when he died, that Taft rated a chapter
in Profiles in Courage, or that Kennedy chaired the
Senate committee that declared Taft one of the five greatest
Senators ever.
As Dad saw it, the deeply personal and bitter feud between Taft
and Dewey gave birth to the movement. This is in no way to slight
his dear friend and client William F. Buckley, whose wit, energy,
and astounding creativity brought renewed force to the movement
after Taft’s death and gave it a flair that Taft did not have. On
the other hand, Taft had built a formidable political
organization, based on fundamental political principles of
limited government, nationwide in scope, and ready, willing, and
able to march forward singing Bill Buckley’s tune. Much of the
Goldwater organization in 1964 were Taft alumni; again, it was no
coincidence that Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen, who had
vehemently denounced Dewey from the podium at the 1952
convention, nominated Goldwater in 1964. By contrast, the
Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford Administrations drew heavily on Dewey
alumni and largely froze out anyone who had any connection with
Taft.
Dad was heavily involved in the founding of the New York
Conservative Party with J. Daniel Mahoney, who later became his
law partner, and chaired New Yorkers for Goldwater in 1964. The
Conservative Party essentially comprised old Taft supporters, who
had no use for the Dewey machine in New York, especially as
Nelson Rockefeller took it even further to the left. A vivid
memory from the Goldwater campaign was the traditional Republican
rally at Madison Square Garden. Thanks heavily to Marvin Liebman,
the Garden was packed despite a total lack of support from the
Rockefeller organization. Dad always greeted Marvin thereafter as
“the man who saved my life at Madison Square Garden.”
Dad had close involvement in Bill Buckley’s 1965 Mayoral campaign
and in Jim Buckley’s 1968 and 1970 Senatorial campaigns. While
Bill Buckley’s mayoral campaign is justifiably recognized for
permanently setting the Conservative Party on the New York
political map, Jim Buckley’s showing that a conservative could
draw significant statewide support in liberal New York to the
point of winning an election deserves its share of recognition as
well, as does his performance in the Senate. It was Jim Buckley
who introduced tuition tax relief legislation, across the board
tax cuts, indexation of income tax brackets, and crackdowns on
entitlement fraud — all declared dead on arrival by the very
liberal Senate but all enacted into law or very seriously debated
in subsequent years. And many of the fine staffers Jim Buckley
hired themselves served the movement with distinction in
Republican administrations, on Capitol Hill, and at think tanks.
In 1975, the New York Conservative Party came out as one of the
first supporters of Ronald Reagan. Having islands of support even
in the liberal Northeast unquestionably helped persuade Reagan to
challenge President Ford in one of the most successful yet least
studied campaigns in modern political history. Dan Mahoney may
have been the first person to break the ice when he introduced
Reagan at a Conservative dinner in the fall of 1975 as “the next
President of the United States,” something no Republican
politician would have dared to do at the time. Obviously without
1976, 1980 would not have happened. Again, however, the
Republican Party remained split along almost the same lines as
the old Dewey-Taft feud. It took Ronald Reagan himself, by
offering the Vice Presidency to George Bush in 1980 and by
including Republicans from both wings of the Party in his
administration, to bury that feud for good.
A number of Dad’s views, while not reflecting the mainstream of
conservative thought today, speak to a far deeper conservatism. A
firm believer in limited government, for example, Dad thought
that government should do a first-class job anywhere it is
involved. While some might find this self-contradictory,
directing a government’s energy towards excellence simultaneously
checks it from sprawling into a behemoth of mediocrity.
Contrary to many apostles of the “free market,” Dad firmly
believed that fraud was the number one enemy of free enterprise
capitalism. In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, he
wrote, “As to our status as the world’s leading financial market,
in the long run this will be determined by the strength of our
currency… [and] the cleanliness and objectivity of our
marketplace.” He was no fan of over-regulation, however. He
preferred the rigorous enforcement of the laws that already
existed, so that the market could function with the knowledge of
what was expected from it but would also remain wary about
approaching, much less crossing, the line.
Finally, clean and honorable government was a central pillar of
his conservatism. This was not just a truism to be mouthed while
defending the conduct of perjurers and bagmen, and I think it
derived from his father who, as Corporation Counsel to Mayor
LaGuardia, recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for New York
City by prosecuting corrupt Tammany Hall transactions. Dad knew
in advance of, probably advised, and greatly admired Jim
Buckley’s call for President Nixon’s resignation in March 1974,
long before the roof finally caved in, and he always liked to
point out that it was Barry Goldwater who convinced the President
that he had to resign. On a practical level too, he thought it a
terrible political mistake to allow the quality of the opposition
to become the lowest common denominator for our own side. As
conservatives try to regroup from the debacles of 2006 and 2008,
they should ponder over this thought and look again for leaders
of the stature of Taft, Goldwater, Buckley, and Reagan.
