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Home , Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, Garet Garrett, Lawrence Dennis, William Henry Chamberlin

JournololLikrtu~onSrudler,Vol. 2. No. I. m.85-96 Pcrgamon Prcrs, 1978. Piintcd in0rc.t Britain

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE OLD RIGHT*

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD Deporrmenr of Social Sciences. Polyrechnic Inslirule of New York

The categories of "right" and "left" have been Big government, government intervention, changing so rapidly in recent years in America social and economic, foreign and domestic, were that it becomes difficult to recall what the labels considered to be invasions of the of the stood for not very long ago. In the case of the and a grave and increasing threat to left, this has become common knowledge, and freedom in America. The Old Right favored the we are all familiar with the contrasts between liberty of the individual as its central principle, "Old Left" and "", as well as with the and advocated a free-enterprise and free-market rapidchanges that the "new" Left itself has been economy as the economic corollary and applica- undergoing. But in the case of the right-wing, tion of that principle. The menace to that liberty which has rarely been an object of careful was its polar opposite: intervention and control scrutiny by journalists or historians, no such by coercive government. categories have come into play. The "Right" is The Old Right applied its aversion to govern- now largely identified with the Buckley-National ment to foreign policy as well as domestic. It Review-Goldwater-Reagan conservative move- held the increasing interventions of the ment, as well as the less reputable and more American government in the affairs of other "extreme" Birch variant. As a result of nations to be illegitimate, and even imperialist. this identification, the deep changes which have intrusions that benefited neither the American occurred in the right have been largely ignored. people nor the world as a whole. It held such The purpose of this paper is to sketch a very intervention to be destructive of peace, and as different "right-wing", a right that we can well posing a potentially grave menace in fastening label the "Old Right", since it was the dominant Big Government upon Americans at home. War conservative force in American politics and was considered legitimate only for strict self- political thought until approximately the mid- defense, and hence the foreign policy of the Old 1950s, a right that was replaced by the currently Right was American neutrality in foreign familiar movement which we might label the quarrels, or to use the interventionist pejorative, "", albeit it is no longer very new. It "isolationist". is our contention that the "Old Right" was different enough in concept and program to deserve the difference in terms, and, further, I that there are many striking resemblances The Old Right emerged as a fully-formed between its outlook and that of the New Left. ideological and political movement in the mid Here there is only space to concentrate on the and late 1930s, as an opposition to the New foreign policy of the Old Right. Deal, first in its domestic and then in its foreign The major thrust of the Old Right, set forth manifestations. As in all large-scale political consistently by its theoreticians and of course movements, the Old Right was a mixture of more fuzzily by its political figures, was a deep complex strands; it was certainly not a hostility and antipathy to government power. monolith. This diversity was enhanced by its overriding definition as a movement in opposi- The original version of this paper war delivered at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, lion, a movement coming to Oppose ~pril1972, in Washington, D.C. the in all of its aspects. But despite 86 MURRAY N. ROTHBARD this necessarily negative cast, the opposition was A. Taft, were vital parts of the pervasive clearly to burgeoning Big Government; and the Communistic "Red Netw~rk".'~' other side of that coin of opposition was a And yet, in a few short years, the ranking of commitment to the positive virtues of individual isolationism on the ideological spectrum under- liberty unhampered by government coercion. went a sudden and dramatic shift. As the The purest, and most ideological, strand of Roosevelt Administration moved rapidly the developed Old Right was a commitment to towards war in the late 1930s. in and the -to individual liberty, to roughly Far East, the great bulk of the liberals and the laissez-faire economics, and to an anti- Left "flip-flopped" dramatically on behalf of interventionist foreign policy. Not only was war and foreign intervention. In the course of opposition to war and a heritage of this mass conversion, gone virtually without a such English laissez-faire liberals as Cobden, trace was the old insight of the Left into the evils Bright, and the Manchester School, but the lead of the Versailles treaty or the urgent need for its in opposition to America's war against Spain revision. Not only that; but to the liberals and had been taken by such laissez-faire leaders as the Left the impending war against the Axis William Graham Sumner and the founder of the powers became a great moral crusade, a Anti-Imperialist League, the Boston merchant "people's war for " and "against and publicist Edward Atkinson. Such laissez- " - outrivalling in the grandiloquence faire individualists as Senators William E. of their rhetoric the Wilsonian apologia for Borah (Rep., Idaho) and James A. Reed (Dem., which these same liberals and Mo.), and intellectuals such as Oswald Garrison radicals had vehemently repudiated for two Villard, editor of , and individualist decades. Indeed, in their new-found historio- libertarians such as and Francis graphy, the liberals and left cast F.D.R. in a Neilson, participated strongly in the opposition newly constructed Pantheon of "strong", war- to World War I. Joined by one of the leading making Presidents, in the line of Lincoln and intellectuals of the 1920s, the individualist .131 H. L. Mencken, they also took the lead in For the new interventionists it was not enough criticizing the Versailles-imposed world that had to champion a new-found cause; they also felt emerged after the wa1.1'~ called upon to castigate their old allies, day in The newly formed Old Right of the 1930s was and day out, as "reactionaries", "Fascists", a coalition of radical individualists, such as "anti-Semites1', and "followers of the Goebbels Nock and Mencken, who had been considered line". Joining with great enthusiasm in this "leftists" during the war and the 1920s, and campaign of vilification, at least for most of the conservative Democrats and Republicans, such period, was the Communist Party and its allies. as , who came to resist the Before and during World War 11, the developed corporate state of the New Deal Communists were delighted to plunge into their despite his own previous giant strides in the newfound role as American superpatriots, same direction. The new right-wing particularly proclaiming that " is twentieth- denounced the aggrandizement of the Executive, century Americanism." the federal bureaucracy, and the office of the The pressure upon those liberals and President under the New Deal. progressives who continued to oppose the During and after World War I, "isolation- coming war was bitter and intense. Many ism", or opposition to American wars and to personal tragedies resulted. Thus, Dr. Harry the Versailles system, had often been dubbed as Elmer Barnes, the leading militant of World "left-wing". Thus, as late as the mid-1930s, to War I revisionism, was unceremoniously the rightist Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling pacifism and relieved of his popular column in the New York opposition to war was per se an unpatriotic evil; World-Telegramas the result of severe pressure to Mrs. Dilling, such old progressives and by pro-interventionist advertisers.lq Typical of individualists as Senators Burton K. Wheeler the treatment accorded to those liberals who and William E. Borah, as well as young Robert held fast to theil principles was the purgation THE FOREIGN POLlClI OF THE OLD RIGHT 87 from the ranks of liberal journalism of John T. that "make the world safe for US. investments, Flynn and . In his privileges, and markets" far better expressed the regular column in the Nation, Villard had real intent of the coming American intervention continued to oppose Roosevelt's "abominable than the old Wilsonian "make the world safe for militarism" and his drive to war. For his pains democracy". "After the sorry sight which Villard was forced out of the magazine which he American Liberals made of themselves twenty had long served as a distinguished editor. In his years ago", Nock acidly declared, they are ready "Valedictory", in the issue of June 22, 1940, once again "to save us from the horrors of war Villard declared that "my retirement has been and militarism [by] plunging us into war and precipitated . . . by the editors' abandonment of militarism." Decrying the growing hysteria the Nation's steadfast opposition to all prepara- about the foreign Enemy, Nock pinpointed the tions for war, to universal military service, to a true danger to liberty at home: "no alien State great navy, and to all war, for this in my policy will ever disturb us unless our Govern- judgment has been the chief glory of its great ment puts us in the way of it. We are in no and honorable past." The reply of the Nation's danger whatever from any government except editor, Freda Kirchwey, was characteristic: such our own, and the danger from that is very great; writings as Villard's, she wrote, were frighten- therefore our own Government is the one to be ing, and constitute "a danger more present than watched and kept on a short leash."16' Fascism", for his policy was "exactly the policy The opponents of war were not only being for America that the Nazi propaganda in this shut out from liberal journals, but from much country support^".^^^ of the mass media as well. For as the Roosevelt John T. Flynn, in his turn, was ejected from Administration moved inexorably toward war, his popular and long-running column, "Other much of the Eastern Establishment that had People's Money", in November, 1940; the opposed the New Deal eagerly made its peace column had appeared continuously in The New with the administration, and moved into Republic since May, 1933. Once again, the now positions of power. The new reconciliation was pro-war editors could not tolerate Flynn's symbolized by the return to a high government continuing attacks on war preparations and on post of prominent Wall Street lawyer Dean the artificial economic boom induced by arm- Acheson, who had departed his post of Under- aments spending. secretary of the Treasury in the early 1930s in Neither did the old-time libertarian leaders high dudgeon at Roosevelt's experimental fare much better. When the libertarian and monetary schemes; and of Acheson's mentor isolationist Paul Palmer lost his editorship of Henry Lewis Stimson as Secretary of War. in 1939, H. L. Mencken Although Eastern business was solidly in the and Albert Jay Nock lost their monthly Roosevelt camp as part of the war coalition, the opportunity to lambast the New Deal. His pro-interventionist forces were yet successful in national outlet gone, Mencken retired from pinning the "extreme Right-wing" label on all politics and into autobiography and his study of the isolationists. There were two major reasons the American language. Apart from a few essays for this success. One was the successful capture in the Atlantic Monthly, Nock could only find of liberal journals by the pro-war forces, who an outlet in the isolationist Scribner's Commen- continued to denounce the isolationists as tator, which folded after Pearl Harbor and left "reactionaries" and tools of the Nazis. The Nock with no further opportunity to be heard. accusers were led by columnist and radio But Albert Nock had managed to get in a few commentator Walter Winchell, then at the blows before the changing of the guard at the beginning of hi long-time career as calumniator Mercury. Nock had warned that the emerging of all dissenters to American war crusades. war in Europe was the old story of competing Publicist Dorothy Thompson accused the , with the Liberals available, as isolationist America First Committee of being before, to provide an ideological cover with "Vichy Fascists", and Secretary of the Interior Wilsonian rhetoric. Nock commented scornfully Harold L. Ickes publicly pinned the label of 88 MURRAY N. ROTHBARD "Nazi fellow travellers" on isolationist leaders alliance as an ultra-conservative and represent- General Robert E. Wood and Charles A. ative of big business. On the eve of Pearl Lindbergh, and even on his old friend Oswald Harbor, young Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ever Garrison Villard. And Time and Life, whose ready to pin the "business" label on all publisher Henry Luce was an ardent champion opposition to liberalism, attacked the Republic- not only of American entry into the war but also an party in the Nation as reflecting a business of the "American Century" that he envisioned community dragging its heels on entry into the as emerging from the war, went so far as to war. In a rebuttal that appeared the day before claim that Lindbergh's and Senator Burton K. Pearl Harbor, Senator Taft sharply corrected Wheeler's salutes to the American flag were Schlesinger's view of the locus of "conserva- mimics of the fascist salute."l And in a tism" within the Republican party: best-selling book, UnderCover(l943). lauded by The most conservative members of the party - the , john Roy Carlson, a Wall Street bankers, the society group, nine-tenths of secret agent of the pro-war Friends of the plutocratic newspapers, and most of the party's financial contributors - are the ones who favor Democracy, lumped isolationists, anti-Semites, intervention in Europe ... .The war party ismade up of and actual pro-Nazis together, in a potpourri of the business community of thecilies, the newspaper and guilt by association, as constituting the "Nazi magazine writers, the radio and movie commentators, underworld of America". So virulent was this the Communists, and the university intelligentsia."' campaign that, near the end of the war, John T. Driven out of the media and journals of Flynn was moved to write an anguished opinion by their erstwhile allies, condemned as pamphlet in protest, The Smear Terror, which, reactionaries and Neanderthals, the left and however, could only find its way as a privately liberal opponents of war found themselves printed and therefore virtually unknown forced into a new alliance with individualists pamphlet. and with laissez-faire Republicans from the Another reason that the interventionists could middle west. Damned everywhere as "ultra- successfully dub isolationists as right-wingers is rightists", many of the old liberals and leftists that much of Mid-Western business, not tied to found themselves moving "rightward" ideologi- investments in Europe and Asia, were free to cally as well; in many ways, this move reflect the isolationist sentiments of their region. "rightward" was a self-fulfilling prophecy by In the business world, the interventionist- the pro-war left. It was under this pressure that isolationist struggle was largely an Eastern vs the final forging of the "Old Right" was Mid-Western split. Thus, the America First completed. And the vanguard role of the Committee, the leading anti-war organization, Communist Party in vilifying these anti-war was founded by young R. Douglas Stuart, scion progressives understandably turned many of of the Chicago Quaker Oats fortune, and some them not only into classical liberals but into of the leading supporters of America First were almost fanatical anti-Communists as well. This General Robert E. Wood, head of Sears, is what happened to John T. Rynn, what Roebuck of Chicago, and Colonel Robert R. happened to some extent to Charles A. Beard, McCormick, of the great McCormick fortune, and what happened to such former sympathizers and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. And the of the as John Chamberlain, isolationist leader in the Senate, Robert A. Taft, Freda Utley, and . came from the most prominent family in To a large extent, it was their uncomfortable Cincinnati. The Eastern journalists were able to isolationist position on the war that started such use this split in the business world to spread the leading Trotskyists as Max Schachtman and image of their opposition as narrow, provincial, James Burnham down the road to the later small-minded, and reactionary Mid-Westerners, global anti-Communist crusade. not attuned as they themselves were to the great, John Dos Passos, a lifelong radical and cosmopolitan world of Europe and Asia. individualist pushed from "extreme left" to Taft was particularly exercised at being "extreme right" by the march of the New Deal, dismissed by the Establishment-left-liberal expressed his bitterness about the war in his THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE OLD RIGHT 89 postwar novel, The Grand Design: neglected and detailed account of the trial, At home we organized bloodbanks and civilian defense Dennis and Maximilian St. George, an attorney and imitated the rest of the world by setting up for another of the defendants, saw the irony in concentration camps (only we called them relocation centers) and stuffing into them the fact that "many of the defendants, being American citizens of Japanese ancestry . . . without fanatical anti-communists", had openly benefit of habeas corpus ... . supported the under which they were The President of the talked the sincere democrat and so did the members of Congress. In the indicted. "The moral", St. George and Dennis Administration there were devout believers in civil added, "is one of the major points of this book: liberty. "Now we're busy fighting a war; we'll deploy laws intended to get one crowd may well be used all four freedoms later on," they said ... . War is a time of Caesars. . . by them to get the authors and backers of the And the American people were supposed to say thank law. This is just another good argument for civil you for the century of the Common Man turned over and freedom of ~peech.""~l for relocation behind barbed wire so help him God. We learned. There are things we learned to do All in all, the Old Right was understandably but we have not learned, in spite of the Constitution gloomy as it contemplated American entry into and the Declaration of lndeoendence and the - meat World War 11. It foresaw that the war would debates at Rrhmond and ~hiiadelphn huw lo pul power oker ~hel~vc$of men lnluthe hands transform America into a permanent Leviathan of one man State, into a domestic totalitarian and to make him use it wisely.l9l suppressing civil liberties at home and imposing Calumny, social obloquy, private espionage, an unending global imperialism abroad, were not the only hardships faced by the pursuing the phantom of what Charles A. Beard isolationist "Old Right". As soon as the United called "perpetual war for perpetual peace". States entered World War 11, the Roosevelt None of the Old Right saw this vision of the administration turned to the secular arm to coming America more perceptively than John crush any remnants of outspoken isolationist T. Flynn in his brilliant work, As We Go dissent. In addition to routine FBI harassment, Marching, written in the midst of the war he had such isolationists as Laura Ingalls, Ralph tried so much to f~restall.~~~~ Townsend, and George Sylvester Viereck were After surveying the polity and the economy of indicted and convicted for being Japanese or fascism and national , Flynn bluntly German agents. William Dudley Pelley, along saw the New Deal, culminating in its wartime with other isolationists, was tried and convicted embodiment, as the American version of in Indianapolis for "sedition" under the fascism, the "good fascism" in sardonic Espionage Act of 1917. The Smith Act of 1940 contrast to the "bad fascism" we had was used, first to convict 18 Minneapolis supposedly gone to war to eradicate. Flynn Trotskyists of conspiracy to advocate overthrow charged that the New Deal had finally of the government (to the great glee, it might be established the corporate state that big business noted, of the Communist Party) and then to had been yearning for since the turn of the move, in the mass sedition trial of 1944, against twentieth century. "The general idea", Flynn an ill-assorted collection of 26 right-wing wrote, "was first to reorder the society by isolationist pamphleteers on the charge of making it a planned and coerced economy conspiring to cause insubordination in the instead of a free one, in which business would be armed forces. The prosecution of those who brought together into great guilds or an were universally described in the press as the immense corporative structure, combining the "indicted seditionists", was pursued with great elements of self-rule and government super- zeal by the Communist Party, by the pro-war vision with a national economic policing system liberals and the Old Left generally, and by the to enforce these decrees ... . This, after all, is not Establishment media. To their chagrin, the trial so very far from what business had been talking fizzled as a result of the spirited legal defense led about ... .""2' by a leading isolationist defendant, Lawrence The New Deal had first attempted to create Dennis, generally labelled by the liberals as the such a society in the NRA and AAA, mighty "leading American intellectual fascist". In their engines of "regimentation" hailed by labor and 90 MURRAY N. ROTHBARD business Now the advent of World War public-works project under which it proposes to I1 had reestablished this collectivist program - regulate and rule the world . . . then you will know you "an economy supported by great streams of have located the authentic fascist . . . 1181 debt and an economy under complete control, with nearly all the planning agencies functioning 11 with almost totalitarian power under a vast There is no space here to detail the resurgence bureaucracy."'141 After the war, Flynn of individualist thought that beganduring World prophesied, the New Deal would attempt to War 11, and flowered in the decade after the war, expand this system permanently into inter- or the contributions of , the national affairs. He predicted that the great leading disciple of Nock; , emphasis of vast governmental spending after formerly book reviewer of the New York the war would be military, since this is one form Herald-Tribune; the economist Ludwig von of government spending to which conservatives Mises; F. A. Hayek, author of the best selling would never object, and which workers would Road to Serfdom; or the Foundation for welcome for its creation of jobs. "Thus Economic . Here we can only focus on militarism is the one great glamorous public- the leading part that the resurgent Old Right works project upon which a variety of elements played in opposition to the development of the in the community can be brought into , immediately after the war and during agreement."flsl The post-war policy, Flynn the Korean conflict. predicted, would be "internationalist" in the In recent years, revisionist historians have sense of being imperialist. Imperialism, which reassessed the views of the major Old Right "is, of course, international . . . in the sense that political leader, Robert A. Taft, and have even war is international", will follow from the concluded that -e.g. on such matters as foreign policy of militarism: "we will do what other aid - Senator Taft was a. more consistent countries have done; we will keep alive the fears anti-imperialist and opponent of the burgeoning of our people of the aggressive ambitions of Cold War than Henry A. Walla~e."~'The other countries and we will ourselves embark problem with the exclusive focus on Senator upon imperialistic enterprises of our own."ll61 Taft, however, is that it ignores the other Imperialism will ensure the existence of Republican politicians of the "extreme Right" perpetual "enemies": "We have managed to who were far more consistent than Taft in their acquire bases all over the world ... . There is no anti-interventionist policies. In the Senate there part of the world where trouble can break out was the No. 2 Republican Kenneth Wherry of where. . . we cannot claim that our interests are Nebraska; and in particular there was the menaced. Thus menaced there must remain right-wing bloc in the House, led by such Old when the war is over a continuing argument in Right stalwartsasHoward H. Buffett of Omaha, the hands of the imperialists for a vast naval who was to be Senator Taft's mid-western establishment and a huge army ready to attack campaign manager in 1952, Clare Hoffman of anywhere or to resist an attack from all the Michigan, H. R. Grossof Iowa, Ralph W. Gwinn enemies we shall be obliged to have."l1'1 of New York, George Bender of Ohio, later A planned economy; militarism; imperialism; Taft's floor manager at the 1952 convention and for Flynn what all this added up to was his successor in the Senate, and Frederick C. something very close to fascism. For Flynn Smith of Ohio. This "extreme Right" also warned: included Colonel McCormick's Chicago The test of fascism is not one's rage against the Italian Tribune. and German war lords. The test is - haw many of the Thus, denouncing theTruman Doctrine on the essential principles of fascism do you accept . . . ? When you can put your finger on the men or the groups Howard Buffett first that urge for America the debt-supported state, the of the disastrous consequences of the looming autarchical corporative state, bent on Cold War at home: socialization of investment and the bureaucratic government of industry and society, the establishment All over the world we would soon be answering alarms of the institution of militarism as the great glamorous like an international fireman, maintaining garrisons, THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE OLD RIGHT 91

and pouring out our resources ... . into "all-out support of the present Fascist In the meantime, what will have happened at home? chineSe government".^" I Economy plans will have generally gone up in smoke, ... . Thelast great "isolationist", anti-war stand of Attempts at economy would again be smeared as the Old Right was its determined opposition to reactionary efforts to save dollars at the Cost of the lives the Korean War. This stand was all the more of American boys. Patriots who try to bring about economy would be branded as Stalin lovers. remarkable in the face of the fact that virtually The misery of the people, from continued militarism the entire Left, including Henry Wallace, and inflation, would soon become unbearable. And Senator Glen Taylor, Corliss Lamont, and the their regimentation and coercion, so lately thrown off, could be refastened in the name of stopping leadership of the Progressive Party, abandoned communism at home. their anti-war stand in the name of the liberal shibboleth of United Nations' "police action" Buffett went on to prophesy some of the specific and collective security against "aggression". domestic consequences of the emerging Cold Only the Old Right stood fast. In early 1950, the War. "Truth-telling would generally disappear isolationistsin the House had dealt a severe blow in radio, press, and movie"; military con- to our mounting intervention in Asia by scription would soon be reimposed; "the defeating the Truman Administration's $60 regimentation and coercion" of price control million aid bill for South Korea by a single vote. would be reimposed; and savings would be wiped The historian Tang Tsou noted that was the out by continuing inflation. Finally, Buffett first major setback in Congress for the questioned the morality as well as the efficacy of administrationin the field of foreign policy since the global anti-Communist crusade' Buffett the war,"1221 It Onlythedetermined efforts of declared that: Reo. Walter Judd (R... . Minn.),.. veteran inter- Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other nationalist.~~~. former missionarv in China and lands by dollars and guns. Persuasion and example are leader of the "China lobby" in Congress, that the methods taught by the Carpenter of Nazareth ... . induced the House of Representatives to reverse We~ cannot.. ~~ oractice mipht and force abroad and retain freedom~it homey We cannot talk world its decision. cooperation and practice power politic~.~~ol When the Korean War began, Representative In that same year, 1947, Representative Buffett was convinced, on the strength of George Bender kept up a drumfire of criticism of classified testimony before the Senate by the Truman Doctrine. Bender charged that the Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoeter, head of the CIA, Truman Doctrine was a "reaffirmation of the that I. F. Stone was correct and that the United nineteenth century belief in power politics." It is States was largely responsible for the eruption of a resurgence of the post-World War I policy of the conflict. Senator Taft and Colonel encircling Soviet by a "cordon- McCormick denounced the American inter- sanitaire", and a new policy of interventionism vention in Korea, Taft being particularly in Europe that will commit the United States ever exercised over what he held to be an unconstitu- further and more intensely to this unfortunate tional aggrandizement of the war powers of the course. Bender also attacked Truman's corollary President. In contrast, the liberal journals, the call for a military draft, and for engaging in Nation and , previously "secret meetings for industrial mobilization". critical of the Truman Doctrine and the Cold All this, charged Bender, was "part of the whole War, now joined up with enthusiasm. These two Truman doctrine of drawing off the resources of journals denounced Taft and McCormick for the United States in support of every reactionary joining the Communist Party in their "defeat- government in the world". And while Taft ism" on the war. The New Republic's annual himself wavered and compromised on foreign rating of Congressmen in 1950 hailed the Demo- affairs, especially with regard to support of crats for their staunchly "anti-Communist" vot- Chiang kai-Shek, Bender stood firm; warning ing record in foreign affairs (87%); while Senator Congress of the "intense pressure" of the China Taft earned only a 53% score, and such more Lobby, Bender charged that the Chinese consistent isolationists as Senator Wherry Embassy was pressuring the State Department received only a 23% mark on the New 92 MURRAY N.ROTHBARD Republic's "anti-Communist" scale. The New heels of its crushing defeat in North Korea at the Republic, furthermore, scented a recrudescence hands of the Chinese. Hoover confined his of the bad old isolationism of the days of World opposition to the concrete strategy of the War 11. The magazine sourly noted that "there situation: insisting that any land war "against has historically been a working affinity between this Communist land mass" in Asia "would be a isolationists and legalists - the former attacked war without victory, a war without a successful Roosevelt's 1941 destroyer deal as war- terminal". Any such war "would be the mongering, the latter as dictatorship. There are graveyard of millions of American boys and signs that this coalition is again tightening."'231 would end in the exhaustion of this Gibraltar of At the opening of the new Congress in early Western Ci~ilization".l~~' 1951, the Old Right isolationist forces, led by Joseph P. Kennedy's criticism was more Senators Wherry and Taft, launched an attack far-reaching. Kennedy noted the continuity of on the war by submitting a resolution his opposition to the Korean War with his prohibiting the President from sending any isolationist stand in the second World War. troops abroad without prior approval by Kennedy added that "I naturally opposed Congress. They criticized Truman's refusal to Communism but I said if portions of Europe or accept a ceasefire or to agree to peace in Korea, Asia wish to go Communistic or even have and warned that the United States did not have Communism thrust upon them, we cannot stop enough troops for a stalemated land war on the it. Instead we must make sure of our strength Asian Continent. and be certain not to fritter it away in battles An intriguing attack on Senator Taft's foreign that could not be won." But the result of the policy was now levelled by the influential Cold War, of the Truman Doctrine, and the war-liberal, and budding national security Marshall Plan, was disaster, a failure to manager, McGeorge Bundy. Bundy expressed purchase friends and the threat of a land war in worry that Taft's solid re-election victory Europe and Asia. Kennedy warned that: indicated popular support for limiting the . . . half of this world will never submit to dictalion by executive's power to lead the United States into theother half ... .What business is it of ours to supporl French colonial policy in Ind~Chinaor to achieve Mr. conflict without congressional sanction. Bundy Syngman Rhee'r concepts of democracy in Korea? opined that the normal statesman's pursuit of Shall we now send the mariner into the mountains of peace must be discarded and replaced by the Tibet to keep the Dalai Lama on his throne? power-wielder who applies diplomacy and Economically, Kennedy added, we have been military might in a permanent struggle against burdening ourselves with unnecessary debts as a world Communism, in the form of limited wars consequence of the Cold War policy. If we alternating with limited periods of peace. Bundy weaken our economy "with lavish spending criticized Taft for "appeasement" in opposing either on foreign nations or in foreign wars, we both the encircling of the Soviet Union by run the danger of precipitating another 1932 and military alliances and the intervention in Korea. of destroying the very system which we are He also denounced the very idea of public trying to save". criticism or questioning of the decisions of Kennedy concluded that the only alternative executive policy-makers, since the public merely for America is to scrap the Cold War foreign reacted ad hoc to specific situations and was not policy: "to get out of Korea", and out of Berlin fully committed to the executive policy makers' and Europe. We could not possibly contain conception of the long-run national purpose.'241 Russian armies if she chose to march through The last famous political thrust of the Europe, and, if Europe should then turn isolationist Old Right came during the debate on Communist, Communism "may break.of itself the Korean War, in the form of two, obviously as a unified force ... . The more people that it coordinated, back-to-back speeches by Herbert will have to govern, the more necessary it Hoover and Joseph P. Kennedy, in late 1950, in becomes for those who govern to justify response to the failure of the Truman themselves to those being governed. The more Administration to make peace in Korea on the peoples that are under its yoke, the greater are THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE OLD RIGHT 93 the possibilities of revolt." And here Kennedy published an article in the right-wing Washing- cited Marshall Tito as pointing the way for the ton weekly , which detailed the eventual breakup of the Communist world: imperialist record of the United States from the thus, "Mao in China is not likely to take his Spanish-American war to Korea. Morgenstern orders from Stalin . . . " noted that the "exalted nonsense" by which Kennedy realized that "this policy will, of McKinley had justified the war against Spain course, be criticized as appeasement. [But] . . . is was "familiar to anyone who later attended the it appeasement to withdraw from unwise evangelical rationalizations of Wilson for commitments ... . If it is wise in our interest not intervening in the European war, of Roosevelt to make commitments that endanger our promising the millenium . . . of Eisenhower security, and this is appeasement, then I am for treasuring the 'crusade in Europe' that appeasement." "The suggestions I make," somehow went sour, or of Truman, Stevenson, Kennedy concluded, would "conserve American Paul Douglas, or the New York Times preaching lives for American ends, not waste them in the the holy war in K0rea."l~~1 freezing hills of Korea or on the battlescarred One of the most trenchant and forceful plains of Western ."126' attacks on American foreign policy to emerge The liberal response to this Hoover-Kennedy from the Korean War was levelled by the veteran campaign, backed by Senator Taft, was conservative journalist, Garet Garrett. Garet instructive. The Nation charged that "the line began his pamphlet, The Rise of Empire (1952), they are laying down for their country should set by declaring: "We have crossed the boundary the bells ringing in the Kremlin as nothing has that lies between Republic and Empire." since the triumph of Stalingrad. Actually the Explicitly linking his thesis with his pamphlet of line taken by Pravda is that the former President the 1930s, The Revolution Was, which had did not carry isolationism far enough." And the denounced the advent of executive and statist New Republic summarized the isolationist tyranny within the republican form under the position as holding that the "Korean War was New Deal, Garrett once more saw a "revolution the creation not of Stalin, but of Truman, just within the form" of the old constitutional as Roosevelt, not Hitler, caused the Second republic. Garrett called Truman's intervention World War". The New Republic was in Korea without a declaration of war, a particularly indignant over the fact that the "usurpation" of Congressional power. He was isolationists "condemned U.S. participation in particularly exercised at the State Department's Korea as unconstitutional and provided that the response to a query by the Senate Foreign only funds available for overseas troops Relations Committee on the power of the shipment should be funds necessary to facilitate President to send troops into action abroad. The the extrication of US. forces now in Korea". State Department had responded that "use of The New Republic saw the willingness of the the congressional power to declare war . . . has right-wing to accept Soviet offers of a fallen into abeyance because wars are no longer negotiated peace as akin to appeasement of declared in advance". Garrett commented that, Hitler. It warned that "Stalin, after raising the "Caesar might have said it to the Roman ante, as he did with Hitler, and sweeping over Senate", and warned that the statement "stands Asia, would move on until the Stalinist caucus in as a forecast of executive intentions, a the Tribune tower would bring out in triumph manifestation of the executive mind, a mortal the first Communist edition of the Chicago challenge to the parliamentary prin~iple.''~~~~ Trib~ne".~'1 Garett then adumbrated the criteria, the One of the people who undoubtedly helped hallmarks for the existence of Empire. The first form the "Stalinist caucus" at Colonel is the dominance of the executive power. The McCormick's Chicago Tribune was George second, the subordination of domestic to Morgenstern, chief editorial writer, and author foreign policy; the third, the "ascendancy of the of the first revisionist book on Pearl Harbor.lz8' military mind"; the fourth, a "system of During the Korean conflict, Morgenstern satellite nations", and the fifth, "a complex of 94 MURRAY N .ROTHBARD vaunting and fear", a vaunting of unlimited The mid-1950s saw a startling sea change in national might combined with continuing fear, American . The death of Senator fear of the enemy, of the "barbarian", and of Taft dealt it a crippling blow, as had.the defeat the unreliability of the satellite allies. Garrett of the Taft forces at the 1952 convention. One found each one of the criteria applying fully to by one, death or retirement removed the Old the United States. Right bloc from the House and Senate: Wherry, Having discovered that the U.S. had all the Bender, Buffett, Taber, Gwinn, Knutson, hallmarks of Empire, Garrett added that the Hoffman, Frederick Smith, all disappeared United States, like previous Empires, feels itself from the scene. Among writers and intellectuals, to be "a prisoner of history". For beyond fear the death of Colonel McCormick removed a lies "collective security", and the playing of the vital isolationist force, as did the death of supposedly destined American role on the world Garrett and the incapacitating illness of stage. Garrett concluded: Chodorov. The right wing group, "For

It is OUT turn. America", headed by Dean Clarence Manion, Our turn to do what? of the Notre Dame Law School, still called for Our turn to assume the responsibilities of moral entering "No Foreign War unless the safety of leadership in the world. Our turn to maintain a balance of power against the the United States is directly threatened." But farces of evil everywhere - in Europe and Asia and this was only a hangover of passing days. A new Africa, in the Atlantic and in the Pacific, by air and breed was marching on the scene to take over by sea - evil in this case being the Russian barbarian. and transform the American Right wing. Our turn to keep the peace of the world. The New Right was led by William F. Buckley Our turn to save civilization. and National Review, which, from its establish- Our turn to serve mankind. But this is the language of Empire. The Roman Empire ment in 1955, immediately took charge of the never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. American right-wing. its wit, professionalism, Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The and personal and financial resources were new Spanish Empire added salvation. The British Empire added thenoblemythof the white man's burden. We on the conservative scene, and it had no real have added freedom and democracy. Yet the more journalistic rival. With the departure of that may be added to il the more it is the same isolationists Chodorov and Felix Morley, more- language still. A language of power."" over, Human Events now became a staunch The last great political gasp of the isolationist supporter of the New Right and of the Cold Old Right came in the struggle for the "Bricker War. National Review publisher William A. Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. The Rusher immediately proceeded to capture the Amendment was designed to prevent inter- nation's Young Republicans for the new national treaties or executive agreements from conservatism, and Buckley presided over the becoming the supreme law of the land or creaiion of a young political-action arm, The overriding previous internal law or provisions of Young Americans for Freedom, as well as the the Constitution. The Bricker Amendment was Conservative Party of New York. Moreover, the backed by conservative groups from the Buckley forces brought to the fore of right-wing National Economic Council and the Committee leadership in the Republican party two inter- for Constitutional Government to the Chamber nationalists: Senators , who of Commerce and the American Farm Bureau had been an Eisenhower delegate at the 1952 Federation, and by such writers as Frank convention, and William F. Knowland, who had Chodorov, an editor of Human Events, Garet been a follower of Earl Warren in California Garrett, and former Rep. Samuel Pettingill; it and who had voted against the Bricker was opposed by a coalition of liberals and the Amendment. Nafional Review also brought to new Eisenhower Administration, which sent it the intellectual leadership of the right-wing a down to defeat in the Senate in February, new coalition of traditionalist Catholics and of 1954.'32' ex-Communists and ex-radicals whose major The fight for the Bricker Amendment, concern was the destruction of the god that however, was the swan song of the Old Right. had failed them, the Soviet Union and world THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE OLD RIGHT 95

Communism. This change of focus from 6. Albert Jay Nock. "The Amazing Liberal Mind," isolationism to global anticommunism had American Mercury (August, 1938), pp. 467-472. 7. See Wayne S. Cole, America First (Madison, Wisc.: been aided, in its early years, by the advent of University of Wisconsin Press, 1953), pp. 107-110. Senator Joseph McCarthy, with whom Buckley 8. Schlesinger, in TheNation (December 6, 1941); Taft, in had been allied. Before he (aunched his crusade, The Nation (December 13, 1941); quoted in Martin, American Liberalism and World Polilier. p. 1278. incidentally, McCarthy had not been considered 9. John Dos Passos, The Grand Derign (Boston: a right-winger, but rather a middle-of-the- Houghton Mifflin Co.. 1949), pp. 416-418. roader on domestic questions and an inter- 10. Maximilian St. George and Lawrence Dennis. A Trlal on TriaI(Nationa1 Civil Rights Committee, 1946). p. 83. nationalist in foreign affairs. 11. John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching (New York: By 1960, and the advent of the Goldwater Doubleday-Doran,, 1944). movement, the swift transformation of the 12. Ibid., pp. 193-194. American Right had been completed; the 13. Ibid., p. 198. 14. Ibid.. D. 201. right-wing was now what we are familiar with ~-~~~~.7~ -- ~ today. For the remnant of libertarians and 16. Ibid., pp. 212-213. 17. Ibid.. pp. 225-226. isolationists remaining, it was once again time to 18. Ibid.. p. 252. look elsewhere for allies. 19. Thus, see Henry W. Beraer. "A Conservative Critiaue of ~ontainmeni:~enato; Taft an the Early Cold war Program." in D. Horowitz, ed.. Containment and Revolurion (Boston: Beacon Press. 1x7). pp. 125-139; Berger, "Senator Robert A. Taft Dissents from NOTES Military Escalation," in T. Paterson, ed., Cold War I. Atkinson had written and mailed anti-war pamphlets to Critics (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971). pp. American troops engaged in conquering the Phillipines, 167-204, and Ronald Radosh and Leonard P. Liggio, urging them to mutiny. Atkinson's pamphlets were "Henry A. Wallace and the Open Door," in ibid., pp. seized by the American postal authorities. On Atkinson, 16-1.- ..-. 1% see Harold Francis Williamson, Edward Atkinson: The 20. CongressionalRecord, 80th Cong., Part 11 (1947), pp. Biography ofon American Liberol, 1827-1905 (Boston, 2216-2217. 1934, reprinted by New York: Arno Press, 1972); for 21. Congrescional Record, 80th Cong. (1947), pp. 46-47, Sumner's views see the classic essay, "The Conquest of and 6562-6563. Also see Leonard P. Liggio, "Why the theunited States by Spain," in M. Polner, ed., William Futile Crusade?", Left and Righl (Spring, 1965). pp. Graham Sumner: The Conquest ofthe UnitedSlales by 43-44, reprinled,in Left and Right Selected Essays, SpoinondOtherEssays(Chicago: Henry Regnery, n.d.) 1954-65 (New York: Arno Press, 1972). pp. 139-173. 22. Tang Tsou, America's Failure in Chino, 1941-50 On Nock's contributions to individualism, see Robert (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1963). pp. M. Crunden. The Mind and Art of Albert Jay Nock 537-538. (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964). and Michael Wreszin, 23. TheNewRepublic(Sept.4, 1950); ibid. (Jan. 15, 1951). The Superfluour Anarchist: Albert Jay Nock (Provi- p. 7. Also see Liggio. "Futile Crusade," p. 57. dence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1971). 24. McGeorge Bundy. '"Appeasement,' 'Provocation,' On Mencken as a libertarian, see Murray N. and Policy," The Reporter (Jan. 9, 1951). pp. 14-16; Rothbard, "H.L. Mencken: the Joyous Libertarian," Bundy, "The Private World of Robert Taft." The New lndividuolist Review (Summer. 1962). pp. 15-27. Reporter (Dec. 11, 1951), pp. 37-39. Also see Liggio, On Villard, see Michael Wreazin, Oswald Garrison "Futile Crusade," pp. 57-60. Villord: Porifisr or Wor (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana 25. Herbert Hoover, "Our National Policies in This University Press. 1965). Crisis," Vital Speeches (Jan. 1, 1951), pp. 165-167. On the imponance in the 1920s and '30s of the 26. Joseph P. Kennedy, "Present Policy is Politically and "Conservative of Henry L. Mencken Morally Bankrupt," Vital Speeches (Jan. 1, 19511, pp. and Albert Jay Nock." see Ronald Lora, Conservolive .170-17%~ . . .. Minds in Americo (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1971), pp. 27. The Norion (Dec. 30, 1950), p. 688; The New Republic 84-106. (Nov. 20, 1950), p. 7; ibid. (Jan. 1, 1951), p. 5; 2. Elizabeth Dilling. The Roosevelr Red Record and its (Jan. IS, 1951). p. 7. Also see Liggio, "Futile Background (Chicago: by the author, 1936). Crusade," p. 56. 3. For the record of the liberal "flipflop", see James J. 28. George Morgenstern, Peorl Harbor: Story of a Secrel Martin, American Liberalism ond World Polilics War(New York: Devin Adair, 1947). (2 vols., New York: Devin Adair, 1964). 29. George Morgenstern, "The Past Marches On," Human 4. Clyde R. Miller. "' Experience Events (April 22. 1953). Human Events had been in Journalism," in A. Goddard, ed., Harry Elmer founded in 1944 by three leading pre-Pearl Harbor Barnes: Learned Crusader (Colorado Springs. Col.: isolationists: Frank Hanighen. co-author of the best- Ralph Myles, 1968). pp. 702-04. known anti-militarist muckraking book of the 1930s. 5. Martin, Americon Liberalism and World Politics, pp. Merchants of Death [H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. 1155-1 156; Wreszin, Oswald Garrison Villard, pp. Hanighen, Merchants of Death] New York: Dodd, 259-263. Mead. 1934)l; Felix Morley, distinguished writer and 96 MURRAY N. ROTHBARD

former president of Haverford College: and Chicago 31. Ibid., pp. 158-159, and 129-174. businessman Henry Regnery. 32. See Frank E. Holman, Sfory of the "8ricker"Amend- 30. Garet Garrett, The People's Poltoge (Caldwell, Id.: menr (The Fin1 Phase) (New Yark: Committee for Cmton Printers, 1953), pp. 124-125. Constitutional Government, 1954).