VOLUME XVIII, NUMBER 4, FALL 2018

A Journal of Political Thought and Statesmanship The Way We Hate Now by William Voegeli

Andrew C. McCarthy: Michael Anton: Christopher Caldwell: Impeachment Trump & What is Populism? the Philosophers James W. Ceaser: David P. Goldman: Jonah Goldberg John M. Ellis: Woodrow Wilson e Diversity Delusion Joseph Epstein: Allen C. Guelzo e American Amy L. Wax: Charles R. Kesler: Language Gender Police Harry V. Jaa at 100

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Book Review by Matthew Continetti Sources of the Reagan Doctrine Paving the Way for Reagan: The Influence of Conservative Media on U.S. Foreign Policy, by Laurence R. Jurdem. University Press of Kentucky, 278 pages, $45

ver since herbert croly and walter nfluence, after all, is a rather slip- up, and especially the Reagan Doctrine of sup- Lippmann founded the New Republic in pery concept. Are editors and writers whis- port for anti-Communist guerrillas, reflected E1914 to guide the ascendant Progressive Ipering in politicians’ ears? Or do their ar- Burnham’s policy of rolling back Soviet gains administration of Woodrow Wilson, journals ticles reflect the politicians’ agendas? When rather than simply containing them. Reagan of political opinion have come to be associat- Henry Kissinger served in the Nixon White awarded the presidential Medal of Freedom ed with presidents of similar ideological bent. House, for example, his close friend William to Burnham and (posthumously) to NR se- During Bill Clinton’s two terms the New Re- F. Buckley, Jr., nior editor, and author of Witness, Whittaker public became known as “the in-flight magazine Chambers. He spoke at the opening of Na- of Air Force One.” President George W. Bush saw Kissinger about twenty times and tional Review’s Washington bureau during his had the Weekly Standard. President Obama sat spoke with him on the phone frequent- first term, and attended the magazine’s 30th for long, discursive interviews with the Atlan- ly. But the conservative commentator’s anniversary gala during his second. “The man tic. The Trump White House is thought to be visits had little to do with Kissinger’s standing before you was a Democrat when influenced by the journal you’re reading now. need for foreign policy advice. Kissinger he picked up his first issue in a plain brown Publications such as these supply historical wanted Buckley to use his influence with wrapper,” Reagan told the celebratory crowd and intellectual context, public policy sugges- others on the Right to show that he was in 1985. “And even now, as an occupant of tions, and even personnel to elected officials in favor of the administration’s initiatives. public housing, he awaits as anxiously as ever who must navigate a bewildering, hostile rush However, as M. Stanton Evans and Da- his biweekly edition—without the wrapper.” of events. vid Keene both recalled, many of their Historian Laurence Jurdem has written a colleagues were suspicious of Kissinger ontributors to national review fair-minded analysis of the political influence and thought he was taking advantage of populated the Reagan Administra- of three such journals: Human Events, Nation- National Review’s editor in chief. Ction. The president made Buckley al Review, and Commentary. “Between 1964 protégé Anthony Dolan head of speechwrit- and 1980,” Jurdem argues, “by providing an Those suspicions may have been well founded. ing. He worked alongside other National Re- ideological perspective on important national When National Review senior editor James view alumni, including Aram Bakshian, Jr., issues, the publications of conservative opin- Burnham filed a column critical of Nixon’s for- and Mona Charen. Jeane Kirkpatrick’s 1979 ion played a fundamental role in reviving the eign policy with the headline “The Kissinger Commentary essay “Dictatorships and Double political fortunes of the American Right, cul- Doctrine,” Buckley changed it to “The Sonnen- Standards” led to her becoming one of Rea- minating in the election of Ronald Reagan.” feldt Doctrine,” after Kissinger’s deputy. gan’s foreign policy advisors and eventually Through close readings of these magazines, Reagan was different. He liked to crib ambassador to the United Nations. She was and by examining their positions on such is- from Human Events during his years as an joined in the administration by Commentary sues as arms control, multilateralism, the after-dinner speaker, and continued to do so contributors Elliott Abrams, Michael Novak, opening to China, the Panama Canal treaties, when he entered politics in 1966 as a candi- Richard Pipes, and Carl Gershman. the Middle Eastern oil embargo, and the Iran date for governor of California. Staffers wor- Not every aspect of Reagan’s foreign policy hostage crisis, Jurdem describes a consistency ried that the conservative publication made sprang from the pages of National Review and of thought and prescription that, in his view, Reagan vulnerable to attacks that he was out Commentary. The editors of both publications shaped Republican foreign policy. “[T]he ideo- of the mainstream—a fear that persisted af- criticized his diplomacy with Mikhail Gor- logical consistency with which these publica- ter he was elected president in 1980. Senator bachev. But there was never any doubt that tions presented their arguments,” he concludes, Paul Laxalt once mentioned a recent article Reagan was a man of the Right, a principled “played a critical role in the development of the from Human Events in conversation with the statesman. And, unlike many politicians, he 1980 GOP agenda.” president. “Reagan said he had not seen it,” re- was not afraid to credit and to honor the Maybe. What Jurdem proves without a called Laxalt. “Well, the sons of bitches were thinkers and publications that had shaped doubt is the critical role Human Events, Na- hiding it from him.” The president ordered him—and thereby the world—the most. In tional Review, and Commentary played on the that multiple copies of Human Events be de- 1994, in one of his last public appearances, worldview of Ronald Reagan. What is more livered to the White House every weekend. Reagan addressed the 50th birthday party of difficult to discern is their influence on GOP As Reagan put it in a letter to Buckley in Human Events by video. “With your help,” he foreign policy in general—or even on Rea- 1962, “I’d be lost without National Review.” said, “we won the war with the evil empire and gan’s foreign policy itself. Although small-cir- His 1982 address to the British parliament, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.” As he culation journals of ideas may help define the and his speech to the National Association of had put it a few years before: “All in all, not climate of opinion in a given era, intellectu- Evangelicals the following year, drew heavily bad, not bad at all.” als are often shocked by how difficult it is for from Burnham’s prescriptions for full-scale even their friends to implement policies they ideological and political assault on the legiti- Matthew Continetti is editor in chief of the would like. macy of the Soviet Union. His defense build- Washington Free Beacon.

Claremont Review of Books w Fall 2018 Page 78 “ e Claremont Review of Books is an outstanding literary publication written by leading scholars and critics. It covers a wide range of topics in trenchant and decisive language, combining learning with wit, elegance, and judgment.” Paul Johnson

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