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My Conservative Manifesto VII
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12:58 am
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1964
It's July 15, 1964 and I'm completely oblivious to the fact that I'm sitting way too close to Aunt Marie's flash as she takes this shot on the occasion of my grandmother's 64th birthday. Great Aunt Gertie Goodison, Gramma's sister, is on the far right. Next to her, speaking in Italian sign language, is Mom, then 39. Completely engrossed in the television are my 42 year old Dad and me, two weeks past my thirteenth birthday (I recall saying, just once, "I'm a teenager now; I can do whatever I want"). We were glued to the set because it was not only Gramma's birthday, it was Wednesday evening and the Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco was about to nominate Barry M. Goldwater for President of the United States.
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If the modern conservative movement took its first breath with the founding of National Review (a Journal of Fact and Opinion) in 1955, and toddled along through the founding of the Conservative Party in New York in 1962, it burst forth fully grown in 1964 with the Draft Goldwater campaign that wrested control of the Republican Party from the old liberal establishment and placed it firmly in the hands of a new and different breed, personified by a quintessential westerner with a face chiseled out of the Rocky Mountains who flew planes, took magnificent photographs, used his ham radio to patch through thousands of phone calls from servicemen overseas to their relatives back home, and who, as the Junior Senator from Arizona, preached the gospel of freedom far and wide.
He made the party stand for something, that which it had not done for decades. No big government program was off limits to his axe, no sacred cows worshiped in his cathedral. Federalism. Originalist judges. Small government at home, big stick abroad. A foreign policy that would not seek accommodation with communism, but a roll back of the soviet occupation of eastern Europe. In military matters you don't commit to war unless you intend to win it, and use every means at your disposal to do it.
The old guard liberals did not go down without a fight. The coalition of Governors Romney, Scranton and Rockefeller formed a Stop Goldwater movement that went all the way to the convention. They pulled platform fights designed to embarrass Goldwater, including trying to insert a plank condemning "extremism", specifically condemning "The Communist Party, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society."
Now the first two were certainly worthy of this distinction, and had been responsible for violence and murder and all kinds of nasty things. But the John Birch Society was back then just a fringe anti-communist group who sought to persuade through things like books and newsletters and discussion groups. They may have gone over the top with some of their conclusions, but they were no threat to the Republic. Many of their members supported Goldwater, and certainly most loathed Nelson Rockefeller.
The liberals called themselves "moderates" (Buckley once asked, "If a liberal Catholic is dying, does he ask his priest for Moderate Unction?"). They were probably a little startled to hear Goldwater tell the convention, "Let me remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And . . . moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." The convention went wild, Dad chuckled heartily, Bill Scranton and Ken Keating walked out and Barry probably threw away a few more votes.
There is a story, which I have been unable to document, that former president Eisenhower was really miffed about it and demanded that Goldwater explain himself when the nominee paid a courtesy call at Gettysburg.
"What exactly did you mean when you said, 'Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice?'"
Barry leans over and says, "I was talking about what you did at Normandy, General."
Whereupon Ike tilts his head, flashes that boyish grin, and mutters, "What do you know? I'm an extremist!"
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It was a glorious ride speeding down the mountain, the purity of the message only tempered slightly by the knowledge that we were fast approaching the cliff.
In October the old gang of Dad, Bill Smith and Ed Bablin organized a caravan, a Goldwater Victory Parade starting at the Auriesville Shrine and winding our way through Montgomery County. It was on that day that I met the Bablin kids, the lovely daughters and the oldest son Mark who would become a life-long friend through many a political battle as we caught the torch from the failing hands of our fathers.
And then, almost when it was too late, we all got on the telephone and told everyone to watch the television that night. An important speech was being given on behalf of Barry Goldwater.
That was the night I learned of the existence of a guy named Ronald Reagan.
Buy my novel The Evil Has Landed
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