|
Although it expresses his thoughts and philosophy and its premises guided his actions The Conscience of a Conservative was not directly written by Barry Goldwater. It was ghostwritten in 1959 by L. Brent Bozell, a prominent conservative thinker and speechwriter, at the behest of Goldwater's strong supporters inside the conservative movement. Bozell took Goldwater's syndicated newspaper columns (also ghostwritten, by Stephen Shadagg, Goldwater's campaign manager) as the basis for his effort; his intimate knowledge of the state of conservative thinking helped form the disjointed and diverse articles into a comprehensive discourse. When the book was ultimately published its fidelity to Goldwater's beliefs was patent. At the time Goldwater was a second-term senator from Arizona who didn't think he was right for a presidential run. He was not well educated and although he had been raised Episcopalian he feared that his notably Jewish name would cause too many problems outside Arizona. He eventually allowed an unsuccessful draft-Goldwater presidential movement to proceed in 1960 despite the fact that he didn't really believe he could-or perhaps even should-be president. All that would change within three years. By 1963 one hundred thousand hardback and four hundred thousand paperback copies of The Conscience of a Conservative had been sold. It was a watershed event in American political history because the book did something that hadn't been done as starkly before: it made flat statements, demanded specific action, and offered (in what would become the title of a later biography about Goldwater) a choice-not an echo. The reason Goldwater was able to do this and chose to do so lay in the fact that he did not aspire to the presidency; he sought truth and sense in politics and hence he was plainspoken and demanding. He was a person who wanted to do something, not just be someone. If what he said squashed his chances for the presidency-so be it. The book, a manifesto more than simply a treatise, was whittled down from its rough draft of two hundred pages to just 127 by the time of publication. Goldwater's spare words and straightforward positions philosophically embrace alternatives to all that conservatives found wrong with Republican President Dwight Eisenhower's leadership in the 1950s, and more to the point, the socialistic foundations of the modern Democrat party crafted during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. It also presciently addresses what they would find even more wrong with President Kennedy's policies. It was Kennedy's indecisiveness in the Bay of Pigs fiasco that finally motivated Goldwater to take action. (The Bay of Pigs operation, which the U.S. supported logistically, was a failed invasion of Cuba in 1961 by Cubans domiciled in Florida. This incident occurred shortly after Fidel Castro succeeded in a military takeover of Cuba, also with U.S. support, following which he instituted a Soviet-style communist government.) Goldwater saw a lack of courage in the mood of the American governing elite as his rallying point. There were historical forces at work, forces that Goldwater felt were undermining American character and independence. These were found in the drift toward an over-regulated, over-taxed 177 economy and a demeaning welfare state that were unacceptable to him. There were also national defense issues that Goldwater wanted to bring to the public discussion. He was not afraid to use them as props and further proof of the need for resolution in calling out the real danger: communism. Although that danger was authentic there were complicating factors in the mix of rhetoric. The Soviets had launched the first successful earth satellite, had put the first human in space, and allegedly held a wide edge in missile technology. This latter fact, which was a significant political issue in the five-year period between 1957 and 1961, was actually not true. President Eisenhower knew the political claim by the Democrats that we were falling behind the Soviets was false because he had in his quiver all the information from the U2 spy planes that were over-flying the Soviet Union on a regular basis. The Russians were anything but ready to claim technological superiority in rocketry regardless of their space successes. But Ike wouldn't release that information to Congressional Democrats (or Republicans) for fear of having the spy program compromised (a not unreasonable concern). To Ike the over-flights were more valuable than any political capital he was losing by not revealing them. When a U2 spy plane was shot down over Russia in 1960 and the intelligence gained through that program was revealed to Congress a lot of the political bluster was diminished by the news. Based on the information available up until 1960 there was widespread discontent with Eisenhower; one of his critics was Goldwater. During the 1964 presidential campaign Goldwater's fearless and confrontational statements regarding the communist threat, founded in the missile gap allegations (which by then were somewhat exaggerated) and Soviet expansionism in the Third World, would cost him dearly. It was during this time when the country faced nuclear devastation at the hands of the Soviet Union that no one knew specifically what to do. These issues were the "third-rail" of national politics that Goldwater faced head-on. However, the same utterances twenty-five years later by Ronald Reagan from his bully pulpit in the White House caused dramatic changes in the world. By then Goldwater looked more perceptive than pretentious or paranoid. But this was not so in the beginning. Goldwater's book was designed to make a conservative statement that would capture the country's attention. It outlines positions that he had often presented in small venues. He found his message appealed equally strongly to a wider audience when he came to the national stage. His western independence was an asset in getting his views across, even if his cowboy appearance, born of his Arizona roots, was not. The book's key premise is that man is as much a spiritual being as a biological one. Goldwater appeals to the human spirit by stating that the material prosperity of our population is not the sole measure of life and should not be the first aim of our government. He avers that we must be able to care for ourselves personally to maintain both our dignity and our humanity. Goldwater and his fellow conservatives understood that legislators and bureaucrats were impeding progress on individual and societal levels by restricting or obstructing the opportunities for self-reliance and self-betterment. The aim of conservatives was to dismantle inappropriate government intervention in society but not government itself, a distinction that had not yet seen enough light in the early 1960s, especially in the liberal press, to be understood fully. Anarchy was not the conservative goal. The movement sought to provide maximum individual liberty within a framework of order designed to ensure that one person's actions did not impinge on another's freedom. In other words, conservatives proposed a field of play upon which the 178 government should act as referee to ensure individual liberty might flower but would not otherwise intervene in the outcome. Most importantly, Goldwater felt that politics had come to neglect principles while trying to care for individuals. He wanted the country to heed the warning of John Adams, that the greatest menace to society is the political individual who knows better than the people what is best for them. Such a person doesn't just offer, "Let me do that for you"-he insists on taking the reins; "get out of the way" is his demand. Goldwater contends that our government had fallen to that level. Goldwater's second front, echoed so successfully by conservatives in the last quarter of the twentieth century, is that property and freedom are inextricably intertwined. He forcefully makes this point in his discussion of the government's power to tax. Although he recognizes the strong emotional appeal of welfarism, he sees its dangers equally clearly. He outlines his goals in brief form:
I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more No matter the clarity and simplicity of
Goldwater's words, it would still be thirty-five years before big
government's give-away welfare antics would begin to be brought to heel.
This change did not come about because liberal politicians saw their public
charity was not working, not altering people's lives for the better. Change
came because the American people eventually were bold enough to vocalize the
bright side of an ancient proverb: give a man a fish, feed him for a day;
teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. When incentive was introduced
into the welfare system positive news became routine. There was one area,
however, where welfarism did achieve the purposes for which it was
intended-those espousing the free lunch of then current programs were
re-elected repeatedly based on their "good works." About the Author Reprint available through: |
|