A Word from London

 

Herbert London

            Herbert London is John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at N.Y.U., President of the Hudson Institute, author of Decade of Denial, published by Lexington Books, and publisher of American Outlook. He can be reached at: www.herblondon.org.

My Encounters with President Ronald Reagan

Feeling betrayed by the party of my choice for its leftward lurch in the 1970s, I agonized publicly about my decision to leave the Democratic party and become a Republican. To my astonishment, I received a letter form the White House. It said simply

I understand your concern. I was once a Democrat and finally came to the conclusion I am better off in the Republican party. Look what it’s done for me.

It was signed by President Ronald Reagan.

This was my first encounter with President Reagan, but by no means my last.

In 1984 the Hudson Institute, in collaboration with the Heritage Foundation, assembled a group of scholars at the behest of Attorney General Edward Meese to consider the agenda for a second Reagan administration. The group was lively and the meetings contentious at times. After several months of wrangling about topics as varied as SDI and the flat tax, a report was prepared.

Those of us who participated met in the Oval Office with President Reagan at a meeting presided over by the estimable Ed Meese. As I recall, Ed asked each of us to comment about some aspect of the report. When he reached Governor Pete Dupont, erstwhile governor of Delaware, Pete discussed with great passion his belief that the cost of litigation and the proliferation of lawyers in Washington militated against business enterprise.

At that point, President Reagan, who had not uttered a word, brightened. He said, with all seriousness, “Pete, we’ve solved that problem.” I was amazed at that response, but listened attentively.

The president went on to note that he requested the FDA to assist with this matter. Apparently the Food and Drug Administration has laboratories where it conducts experiments with mice. President Reagan then said with a twinkle in his eye,

I’ve suggested to the director that instead of mice, he use lawyers. There are many more lawyers in Washington than mice. And two, we have found that in the past scientists often develop a strange affection for the mice. We are confident that will never happen with the lawyers.

His timing was impeccable. Those of us prepared to offer solutions to perceived problems realized the Reagan maxim, “don’t ask, just stand there” had profound meaning. President Reagan had a remarkable way of turning meetings around with his keen insight and good humor. Moreover, he understood intuitively that not every problem has a solution and the problem of today may not seem so urgent a year from now.

In 1986 I received a call from the White House in which I was told that the president read a recent book of mine, Why Are They Lying to Our Children? and decided to deliver a speech to educators about the essential theme. My argument was seemingly consistent with the Reagan contention that if one is truthful, there is much that can be appreciated about American life and achievements. I argued in the book that a sense of doom and gloom had insinuated itself into educational materials that often lacked balance and relied on unproven assumptions. In fact, I maintained that “in a world of manic pessimism, realism seems like manic optimism.” Reagan loved that comment.

President Reagan delivered his speech at the Washington Hilton. I was thrilled when he made specific reference to my book and challenged those assembled to tell the American story with both blemishes and accomplishments. When the speech ended, William Bennett, who was then Secretary of Education, reintroduced me to the president by saying I was the author of the book he had referenced and I was the person who taught Bill whatever he knows about rock music—a generous, but inaccurate claim. Without skipping a beat President Reagan quipped “since Bill taught me what I know about this music, I guess I should express my appreciation to you.”

At every subsequent meeting with the president he always referred to me as the man who indirectly taught him whatever he knew about rock-n-roll. I never pointed out that there really isn’t much to know, albeit I suspect President Reagan knew as much.

More than a decade later, I was walking through the gardens of Weston Park in England with Lady Thatcher, a fortuitous event prompted by attendance at the same meeting. Our conversation was ostensibly about recent American history, particularly the Cold War. When I seized the moment to discuss President Reagan’s role, she stopped me and said, “There is only one thing worth noting, the ‘Great One’ won the war.” She didn’t think any further elaboration was necessary; neither did I.

He was great; he helped to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Empire and through it all he evidenced good humor, warmth and manliness.

What more can anyone say about a person? I was privileged to have had the chance to be in his company. Those memories will not soon be forgotten.

Overcoming National Despair

If the 9/11 commission hearings have indicated anything at all, it is that the nation is divided over the war in Iraq. It often seems as if partisan issues transcend national welfare. The danger we face is that the political climate could lead to stasis or a retreat in the war on terrorism.

Whether Americans will resign themselves to an attenuated war on terrorism and make the requisite sacrifice as was done during the Cold War or will fasten onto a positive vision of the future, will ultimately make all the difference in this conflict.

To suggest that the United States faces new, more fearsome dangers than was ever the case before is to state the obvious. Everyone realizes weapons of mass destruction and the manifold ways in which they can be delivered pose a threat qualitatively different from any in the past.

Whether a high income, low birthrate nation like the U.S. can tolerate the loss of American soldiers in daily Iraqi battles remains to be seen. It is already clear that some members of the press corps have adopted the Ted Kennedy position that the war in Iraq is the 21st century Vietnam quagmire.

As I see it what must be guarded against is fatalism, a fear that conditions are out of control and we have neither the will nor means to deal with them. Based on the hearings in Washington one might well be left with the impression that our counter-intelligence efforts are feeble and bureaucratic infighting militates against the prophylactic devices the nation expects from its government.

Overcoming this growing fatalism and sustaining national esprit despite the tocsin in the air is a national imperative. How it can be done isn’t easily determined.

Writing in the 1950s, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin argued,

A fairly uniform symptom of disintegration in any culture is the substitution of quantitative colossalism for a sublime quality; of glittering externality for inner value; of a show for a substance.

Surely the feverish tempo of accelerated change that is part and parcel of contemporary life tends to diminish adherence to lasting values.

Here, then, is the challenge for a people that has already faced so many dangers: to retain a vision of the nation that upholds its heritage and is capable of defending its present.

The United States holds the key to civilization. Should the nation’s willingness to defend itself and its international interest falter, life will never be the same. Americans fight not only for self-defense against sanguinic and shadowy foes, they fight for the foundations of Western civilization in Scripture, literature, traditions, and morality.

Our test at the moment is a test of will. There is little doubt that the ordeal we face—the bloodshed and the threats—have already led to catharsis, a national soul searching that resulted in one shining moment after 9/11 in philosophical solidarity, if not political unity.

The eternal lessons of life and death are perpetually forgotten and then recalled. People must live through anguish in order to discover enlightenment. Life is alpha and omega, with the cosmic flow taking microcosmic forms. As a result, world history is a contest in which the strong, the determined, and the self-assured triumph.

If true, this notion suggests that the U.S., as the world’s hegemon, cannot be defeated unless its determination wanes. A victory on the battlefield is sometimes preceded by a depletion of will. Hence, overcoming fatalism translates into the maintenance of superior military strength and support for the national characteristics that give determination vitality.

I suspect—since I don’t have evidence to substantiate the claim—that the seed of national piety—perhaps the reemergence of a civic religion would be a better way of putting it—is starting to emerge. It springs from a tortured conscience, from the trials of the moment, from spiritual hunger, and from a search for meaning in a world made barren by the depredations in popular culture.

Those who believe that war is unnecessary or cannot solve any problem are now finding it difficult to turn the other cheek after 3,000 of their fellow Americans were killed at the World Trade Center for no other reason except their American heritage. Accommodationists are baffled by an enemy that has only destruction as its goal. Many Americans wonder when the scourge of terrorism will abate and when our armies or God’s grace will grant tranquility. They wait in vain, for our enemy is intent on testing our mettle, our essential national fortitude.

One condition necessary to sustain cultural vitality is a national tradition, a common understanding of the nation’s founding and history, so that the efforts of the past can animate the present. The transmission of tradition does not require a great leader or a single spokesman; it does require history that reveals achievement as much as imperfection. Unfortunately revisionists so dominate the historical profession that mainly mistakes and misdeeds qualify for investigation. This is a tragedy whose effect is already evident in youngsters unfamiliar with the nation’s past and in amnesia about history as a ubiquitous condition.

A recent report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, “The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum,” indicates that most college students can graduate without having studied American history or American government.

The unity of America’s disparate people is predicated on an idea, a collective consciousness, and a common destiny. A sense of the past is a source of all future collective action. To instill this sense requires an exalted leap that goes beyond the personal and the present. It requires a vision of what ought to be. This vision, I should hastily note, is not one devoted to material conditions. History has demonstrated repeatedly that rich nations may produce indulgences that can enervate the soul and sap the spirit. It is wise to recall that the external trappings of power have typically failed to save many empires from collapse, however impressive they may have seemed in their time.

The United States must guard against such indulgences and simultaneously instill a knowledge of respect for its past glory and unique accomplishments. This nation cannot allow itself to be deflated from without or weakened from within. Nations survive for many reasons, not the least of which is civic pride—a belief that the idea behind the nation is worth defending, and if events call for it, sacrificing one’s life. Nations remain strong so long as their citizens can utter with pride the words, “I believe.” These words serve as a bulwark against the understandable impulse to seek safety, insulation from the horrors on the world stage.

America as an inspired idea—notwithstanding her many detractors across the globe—is sufficient reason for overcoming fatalism. But in the midst of mangled and burned bodies and blood on the streets of Fallujah and elsewhere, idealism seems a faraway impulse.

Yet it is precisely in the moment of despair that reminders of the past should be evoked. The words “I believe” are the armor against the day’s horrible headlines. They are words forged into the national psyche. But they are also easily forgotten unless passed on from one generation to the next.

In the middle of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War President Abraham Lincoln was disconsolate. Seeking solace from despair, the president turned to his minister who suggested the words in the Bible might be comforting. Lincoln proceeded to read the Bible and there in the Book of Proverbs he found words that were indeed helpful in overcoming depression: “When there is no vision, a people perish.”

Those words are as true now as they were then. They give comfort now as they did then. And they offer a challenge. We must seek to reclaim our vision as a nation and understand what we must defend and why we must do so now. To do any less is to lose all we value.

Anti-Semitism on This Side of the Atlantic

At this time of war and contentious claims raw sentiment is often palpable. Words can be hurtful. They reveal feelings long held dormant.

No where was this more apparent than in a May 7, 2004, column for the state newspaper of Columbia, South Carolina, by the 82-year-old Senator Ernest Hollings. In this piece Hollings accused President Bush of invading Iraq “to secure Israel” and “to take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.”

He argued that former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, all of whom are Jewish, were trying “to guarantee Israel’s security.”

Senator George Allen of Virginia, Senate Republican campaign chairman, accused Hollings of making “anti-Semitic, political conspiracy statements.” Despite several opportunities to recant, Hollings refused to do so.

Hollings, of course, is not alone. The Internet is filled with innuendo of precisely this variety. But for a distinguished senator to make comments of this kind is truly remarkable.

The anomalous nature of his statement is evident in the 1998 legislation proposed by the Clinton administration and passed by the Congress for the replacement of Saddam Hussein and the pacification of Iraq. Senator Hollings supported this act.

Is it possible that the same view about Iraq has different partisan meaning? Is it possible that Hollings challenged the Bush decision because of what he considers the Jewish architects of the war within and without the present administration?

Most significantly, on any level, the Hollings comments are simply preposterous.

Richard Perle does not have a position in the Bush administration. Paul Wolfowitz does not have authority to make administration policy unilaterally. And Charles Krauthammer is not William Randolph Hearst declaring “You make the war and I’ll make the headlines.”

It should also be noted that a secure Iraq may remove one of Israel’s many Middle East enemies, but it does not assure her security, as any daily reading of newspapers can attest.

Last, the idea that Bush called for the invasion of Iraq in order to obtain the Jewish vote is a calumny that goes well beyond hard-hitting political exchange.

Moreover, even if Bush did receive the Jewish vote, the numbers are certainly not large enough to be decisive. But if Bush does exceedingly well with Jewish voters in 2004, he is still unlikely to get more than 40 percent of that vote, a high water mark approximated by Reagan in 1984.

What Hollings’ view reflects is a reflexively anti-Jewish belief so common among anti-Semites. Paranoia is evident along with attributions about Jewish power and behind the scenes influence.

This Hollings statement is a rather strange way to conclude a 38-year Senate career. He has created a political tsunami that could threaten future elections in South Carolina and possibly the national elections as well. Inez Tenenbaum, the Democratic State Education Superintendent and designated Hollings successor, is already on the defensive.

While anti-Semitism has raised its ugly head in the Middle East and Europe, it has been quiescent in the United States. I’m convinced the Hollings statement is aberrational; nonetheless, it is important to lance the boil of this miasma.

Whatever Hollings’ reputation may have been, it’s time to repudiate his words unequivocally.

Whether he decides to express remorse at some point is irrelevant. He has opened a Pandora’s box of discredited opinion that hasn’t any place in polite society. “It cannot happen here” has happened. Now it’s necessary to make sure it doesn’t happen again.      Ω

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”—Ronald Reagan