Campus Cons and the New Mccarthyism
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CHAPTER 3 CAMPUS CONS AND THE NEW MCCARTHYISM DAVID HOROWITZ’S LONG CRUSADE At the 2005 College Republican National Convention, David Horowitz, arguably one of the most notorious and caustic pugilists of the culture wars, brought down the proverbial house by asserting that: “Universities are a base of the left. Universities are a base for terrorism.” He also informed his obsequious audience that the “future of the free peoples of the world” depended on the “Republican Party” and ultimately on the youthful army of right-wingers in attendance.452 Such bombast was hardly new terrain for Horowitz who, in late October of 2001, spent three hours speaking to the deleterious Dr. Laura Schlessinger about “campus leftists” who “hate America more than terrorists; this from a man who claims to yearn for ‘serious’ dialogue.453 Of course, long before 9/11, Horowitz had already amassed an impressive fortune (with generous funding from the Scaife, Bradley, Olin, Smith-Richardson/Randolph and other foundations) maligning liberals and leftists who allegedly controlled the media, the entertainment industry, and the levers of power at the nation’s institutions of higher learning. At the age of 71, he now controls a sizable empire under the rubric of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (formerly known as the Center for the Study of Popular Culture) dedicated to advancing a far right agenda. Before exploring his corporate-funded kingdom and a few of its various projects and campaigns, it is worth briefly chronicling Horowitz’s transformation from a militant leftist to an authoritarian firebrand and Republican strategist. Horowitz was born in 1939 to a Jewish family in Forest Hills, New York. His parents, Phil and Blanche Horowitz were schoolteachers in Sunnyside Gardens, Queens and they taught (what was then termed) “Negro history” in their spare time. Horowitz recollects growing up in a household filled with prints by William Gropper—the American social realist painter who produced some of the most riveting portraits of social protest and labor unrest and who was actively involved in supporting the organized labor movement throughout his career—and old issues of the Communist Party newspaper Daily Worker.454 In 1952, his father came under intense scrutiny because of his political views and after refusing to answer the question of whether he was a Communist, he was dismissed for “insubordination” despite having served in the school system for twenty-eight years. As a result, his relations with the party became strained and he eventually quit. Nonetheless, the senior Horowitz remained “a fellow traveler, and David grew up in a milieu of red summer camps, Paul Robeson concerts and May Day parades.”455 After he graduated from Columbia University, Horowitz went to the University of California at Berkeley to begin work on a Master’s degree. His arrival there coincided with protests in San Francisco that had been organized to contest the egregious 93 CHAPTER 3 activities of the House Un-American Committee (HUAC). Police used excessive and brutal force to quell the demonstrators and the scenes of such violence were recounted by Horowitz in his 1962 publication entitled Student: The Political Activities of the Berkeley Students—one of the first texts of the New Left. That same year, Horowitz moved his young family to Europe, where they would spend six years—most of it in London. In addition to becoming affiliated with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Horowitz was also greatly influenced by socialist scholar Ralph Miliband and Trotsky biographer Isaac Deutscher. His work during this period consisted of various efforts aimed at reconstructing socialist theory in the aftermath of Stalinist atrocities. In 1968, Robert Scheer (journalist, professor, and now editor of the online magazine Truthdig) contacted Horowitz about a possible return to California to work at Ramparts, which under the editorial leadership of Scheer and Warren Hinckle, had become one of the most vibrant and widely-circulated publications of the New Left. Horowitz obliged his old Berkeley comrade and joined the magazine. Sherman notes, however, that Scheer and Horowitz’s camaraderie quickly dissipated. As a result of internecine tensions, Scheer was expelled because he wasn’t “left enough for the fiery insurgents.”456 By 1974, Horowitz found himself keeping company with the Bay Area Black Panthers, particularly Huey Newton who Horowitz once referred to as a “political soul mate.” Horowitz became Newton’s confidant, wrote essays for the Panther’s official newspaper publication, and even created a tax-exempt foundation that raised more than $100,000 for the Panther’s cause. In July 1974, Newton was accused of murdering a 17-year-old prostitute, Kathleen Smith. Newton fled to Cuba, failed to make his court appearance, and was conse- quently placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list. After three years in exile, he returned to the United States and was tried twice—based largely on circumstantial evidence— for the offense before being acquitted after both court cases ended in deadlock. The events surrounding Newton’s 1974 flight precipitated the departure of many black activists from the party but Horowitz remained. A short time later, Elaine Brown, Newton’s successor, asked Horowitz to recommend someone to manage the Panther’s finances and he, in turn, suggested Betty Van Patter, a 42-year-old white woman who had been employed at Ramparts. Van Patter accepted the position but soon uncovered what appeared to be troubling activities including racketeering, drug operations, and prostitution at a Panther-run bar in Oakland. She apparently reported these practices to Brown who then fired her. On December 13, 1974, Van Patter vanished; her body was found a month later, with a massive head wound, in the San Francisco Bay. Brown denied any Panther involvement in Van Patter’s death and, officially, the case remains unsolved. Horowitz, nonetheless, was convinced that the Panthers had somehow been involved. Traumatized and surrounded by “personal darkness,” he became clinically depressed. His downward spiral eventually contributed to the collapse of his first marriage after he had a series of extramarital affairs.457 According to most accounts of Horowitz’s life history, this context catalyzed his conversion to the right. In the early 1980s, Horowitz started hosting “second thoughts” conferences that were essentially revival-like forums where former radicals could purge themselves 94 .