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tv   Book TV  CSPAN  February 20, 2013 10:00pm-11:00pm EST

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>> i everett allied and i have files that i must have and when i first started talking i got all this stuff out. but that's where it all came from. i do have a pretty good memory, but they also have a lot to follow around various things. >> her story really i must hold itself. i say everybody has a story and i just did the taping. it is clear to me after we've been working together for six weeks or so in 1968 was a pivotal year, not only because she ended one marriage and begin another, but that moment of time in history. i think one of the interesting things about her life is how she
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lived for these extraordinarily significant times and knew people like richard nixon, who she had an absolutely bistro response to a did not like at all, which are interesting. her perspective is a perceptive i don't never think i've seen a madhouse. it's very much a woman's date because she was responding to the way she treated his wife. and i think that is what is valuable, that is what it what it would contribute to the historical record, but also wider story is important because people have a slightly different take on experience. another question? if not, i have more. [inaudible]
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adding imac >> i like to tell stories in a way. and i really wanted a boat to try to understand, you know, -- [inaudible] people had to understand culture and he felt so upset when he would reach people on the hill and they didn't know what he was talking about. he really chilled it into me and everything i said he would say qualified bad. how do you know that? prove that to me?
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he would never stand some vague. i know he's back to david ignatius before he went overseas and that i don't want you just tell me. i want you to tommy the history of that country. and i felt it was interesting because i sent the chapter on islam to three different professors and three different professors sent them back to me with totally different statements. three professors -- no wonder nobody can understand because the three professors writing completely different things, i think it's really interesting to hear people and i think it adds a lot to our lads to know about
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other people and what they have seen. >> what we were working on the book come at one point i said they found they could not muster their party because they were so many moments the tip of a state dinner parties and back then were remarkable hostesses like your dear friend kay graham and polly fritsche lee and pamela harold and, all very good friends of yours. there is a lot of business donatist inter partes. >> that is greatly missed these days because in those days as the senators and their wives, they were upgraded from. he was severe controversial figure. bailey said 12 people people at the table. they always use cotton and had a wonderful shaft. the odd mcnamara and george shultz and general westmoreland
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would all get in great guys. it was better than any university to hear what they thought and you had senators thayer was huge bellicose discussions and nick cave grandstander, i think it was slightly different because she had a huge number of people, but there she makes all the senators and all the businessmen from new york and other people from washington. so people got to know each other, got to talk. there is a wonderful scene one night walking through and everybody was talking to him and bill gates was hovering behind and nobody was speaking to bill gates. bill gates turned to me and said why doesn't anybody talk to me?
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[laughter] and i thought it's because nobody knows what to talk to you about. we show our ignorance the moment we talked to bill gates. i used to watch helms talk to the senator he wanted to talk to. it would have been very difficult to go up on the hill, get an appointment to talk to the senator. it was a big difference in the way people lived. wives became friends and people thought on the hustlers in the daytime and had dinner together at night. >> it was a lot more difficult to demonize your opponent on the hill if you had dinner next to his wife the night before. >> everybody was yelling and i went one night and said we had to go home. he said why do we have go home?
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[inaudible] but it was good and you really learned what they thought and i think washington misses that now. >> exactly. any other questions? thank you for your lovely book. i know all the work you've done with the stories and how much you had connections with that culture. did you enjoy your time in new york when you are there? [inaudible] [inaudible]
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>> i think i was missed. mcnamara was had on chad head of the women's department on iran and now worked with women around the world, but the shoes donate terrific job and did a great deal at that time with the ayatollah rollback. part of it was we were not vaccine. i went to school at tehran university. i went to the university for two years and i could see the women were beginning to wear headscarves. but i don't think we realized what was going on with the ayatollah. it was very clever because he changed his story. the western press did not pick
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this. things he was going to do with all the rest it and i miss him as he went into exile in paris and became more sound by the western branch. he changed his tune and became very pro-women and throw all the other things as a good guy. i do think it was nice. in fact, i read the oral history the other day and you are saying atascadero, the sheriff had for a big man -- forbidden them to see muslim ayatollah and they. they didn't try enough to go against that.
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but we all mail it would have another political party. it's spent a lot of time sitting next to him because of protocol -- [inaudible] but he would not allow another political party. he thought he could modernize iran and of course he couldn't. so you could see the clash coming. there is no doubt about it you could see it coming. he couldn't have survived it, but he couldn't see that. >> there is a huge divide between the house and have not said that contributed to the attention is slow because you didn't see poor people he didn't
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ask about. >> i traveled around the country a great deal and we didn't see it. he said it had been given the presidents here. when they get in the presence of the president are afraid to tell him these things. i asked whenever cabinet members hear what happened with the shock, why didn't you tell him? they say we all sit outside the room and we'd agreed to tell in at the moment we get in the room no one would tell them. you probably know that. her husband was a minister there. >> would probably should wind it up, but you totally wonder story about how lbj had a tuesday luncheon group of people he knew would tell him the chariot, that weren't afraid to tell him things he didn't want to hear because that's all the case that people in authority.
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>> supper was part of that group and he was very fond of president johnson. he was sad for him. in fact, mml has come out that bob mcnamara found it and had forgotten about it. he had a memo written to say what would have been of his failure in vietnam. he stayed behind and handed it to president johnson and president johnson radek, but he did not show it to odd mcnamara and mcnamara caller from texas and testified.
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he was screaming on the phone. i could hear of any other room. why didn't i see this memo? and they concluded it had been up to president johnson and deep six so he didn't see it. he said it would've made a great deal of difference to me if i'd seen it. >> the memo concluded the united states position in the world would not be adversely or permanently affected if the quote, unquote last the work and that is a very important point. other things were not quite right, but some of it was quite refreshing. it was written before they could know what was going on. we can take one more question. [inaudible] [laughter]
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>> i'm very bad. i always have an opinion. my children will tell you that. if you remember, i hope you'll send the frame back to the pentagon, but if your number after osama bin laden capture, he came out of the white house and gave a long spiel. you remember that? you are probably better at the press conference with john brennan. he is seen in every part of the agency and he knows it well. but i'm hoping that he won't be. my opinion is i hope so satiny drones back to the pentagon and i hope the agency will go back through intelligence. and this is the dick believe so completely. he used to say you can fly over
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and see how many points you have, but it cannot tell what's in the liter spring, within the in the leader's mind, what they are thinking and unique human intelligence for that. i just think they should go back to human intelligence. that's what they need. >> well, thank you also much for coming. [applause] >> at lockheed is the principal
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naval strategy of the northern states, the principal naval strategy of the southern state is commerce raiding. one gun on a pivot right there between the maps and if you're going after merchant ships, one is all you need. if you caught a merchant ship, the idea was come alongside and put a price crew on board. take it to a port where price court judge can adjudicate it adjudicate it, sell it at an auction and you got to keep all the money. but of course because it depends entirely on the boat is coming to shipowner paid the man, the ship itself, supplied the food, hires officers. he expects a return on its money in the crew expected prize money. without from a port or they could be condemned and sold, you can't make a profit and therefore confederate privateer and died out almost immediately, lasted about three months, slightly longer and maritime
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entrepreneurs found that they could make more money blockade running. >> the book "if not us, who?" as a biography is "national review," rusher. the author david frisk spoke about his book at the heritage foundation in washington d.c. [applause] >> well, thank you, john. good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. there were two bills at "national review" and the conservative movement, to bill
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buckley, a brilliant shooting star who lit up the sky and bill rusher, but never wavering northstar by which conservatives learned to chart their political quarters. many have written about william f. buckley junior that irresistible renaissance man, but no one had told david frisk has given us an in-depth portrait of the other bill of williama rusher romanticized her contributions played a pivotal role in the lash of the national draft goldwater committee and that was critical because if there had been no goldwater, they would no presidential candidate barry goldwater in 1964 and a third had no candidate goldwater in 1964, there would have been no
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president elect ronald reagan in 1980. it is goldwater who approved reagan's famous time for choosing television address, which made reagan a political star overnight and led to his running for governor of california and eventually president of these united states. david recounts how bill dick short of the goldwater committee when money ran short conspiracists act. skillfully guided young americans for freedom in his early chaotic days and for some order and also plan on this dresser-rand national review, expanded the conservative movement through the tv program, the advocates, his newspaper column and his lectures in champion ronald reagan were neither conservatives were somewhat skeptical about the
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actor turned politician. bill rusher loved politics, traveling to distant lands and national review's effervescent editor, bill buckley of whom he once said, quote, the most exasperating people in the world are so often the most beloved and he is no exception. david frisk has captured all of this and more in this splendid overdue biography of the other bill, bill dick. dr. frisk is an award-winning reporter who received his phd from claremont and will be teaching this fall of those lucky students at the alexander hamilton center in new york. these pajama men, please join me in giving a warm heritage welcomes to dr. david frisk. [applause]
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>> well, thank you, that is both me and more importantly william rusher. can anyone here a right? i suspect there is a very wide range in this room of familiarity and relative unfamiliarity with bill rusher who is the publisher is "national review" for 31 years, i'll muster the beginning and cannot set aside to have had a half-century long career in american politics present pain of a privileged ringside or for mercy. he never ran for public office, never held public office, never
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really found it anything on itself as a number of conservative leaders did and became identified, never controlled his own institution. he has to say put it in my introduction, "if not us, who?" that was published last april, he was at the edge of the limelight. a lot of people knew very well who he was. a lot of people know a lot less about him. as people became aware of william rusher, there was a general agreement among the whole fractures spectrum of american conservatism. we've seen how fractious it can be just after this unfortunate election. there was a wide agreement, libertarians, traditionalists come imperious, pragmatist, bill rusher really knew what he was
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doing. one of his great achievements was to give movements from the 60s up until the 1990s by which time he has semiretired. more confidence than he otherwise would've had that there was a conservative movement and that it really was moving, if the perp to flee. we've seen in recent years have a lot of doubts about whether the conservative movement still exist anymore. some people doubt whether it deserves to exist and whether it's destroyed itself. people all along have said things like that. one of the things rusher stood for most prominently in enduringly was to believe we
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conservatives all had to pull together and be together and keep being together. the most obvious it comes to mind and he would put it more articulately and memorably does not let the memory be at the good, not miss the forest for the trees. these are not the most innovating works cited messages, but it's important to have a few people at or near the top of the conservative movement's leadership who believe in and preach these things and who asked their fellow activists and conservative intellectuals to remain focused on the need to win a majority of the american people and to govern.
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national radio throughout its existence and more so in his early years, the 50s and 60s very much need to bill buckley, managing editor, priscilla buckley and every other major person mayor acknowledged that they very much needed a man just like bill rusher to serve as a political eyes and errors, as a political counselor at the event between national review type people. as rusher tended to put it to me, the practical politicians. he didn't just mean people and
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are aspiring to public office, but people like his good friend, the master mind of the goldwater campaign, white two is a politician and rusher was somewhat of a politician. in other words, part titian or of actual politics. russia place tremendous value on these people and he was always trying, you know, with some success to get the more philosophical conservatives, classic example is buckley himself to appreciate that sort of career and not sort of after. i'm sure what you'll find in the book is a good deal of back and forth between publisher rasher, also in-house political accounts are rusher had the full privileges by the way of
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speaking out on any issue, officially and unofficially, officially in the meetings they held which could be long and interesting. he had full privileges speaking out on any editorial issue, anything above the national review's political condition, tom, what's most important permissive patent editorial role, although he didn't have an official one and they listen to them. at times they got tired of listening to him. but remember if you read about pressure or if you want to for related question, remember this is another world to logically. and remain so until rusher retired at the end of 1988. his successor publisher said when he came in right afterwards was still operating in the 1950s with carbon paper and
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secretaries who were treated as secretaries. i guess that's a polite term for fest and it's not horton point. the more important point is carbon paper. he would not have been keen on social media himself were he still alive and active today, but he would have appreciated it. to get back to a point, important ones, and this is an era when people communicated on paper. they spend sufficient evidence, sufficient interest in the rusher papers among scholars who are interested in the development of the conservative movement, who more often than not are liberals in the rusher papers they remove several years ago from a satellite location in
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suburban maryland to the building on the other side of the hill. that's how much interest is then in the rusher papers, although mine is the only book and as far as i know will be the only book about him. said these people communicated in paper and that's a lot of what my book is based on, plus interviews with dozens of people and significant interviews with mr. buckley. they were very candid with each other. and their differing judgments, about what positions national review should take, whether should focus on, dr. edwards flew to the importance of the goldwater campaign for the future of the conservative movement. i don't think this time than perhaps any need to stress that this idea any further than authority has been. rusher was not the québec.
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he probably persuaded goldwater to remain open to the possibility of a candidacy when he didn't want to. he kept the campaign going when the head of his old friend and associate was ready to give up for a variety of reasons, including financial reasons. one of the great lessons of rusher's career is he didn't believe in giving up on her. there is always another bus coming along in 10 or 15 minutes. the sun would come up the next morning. there is always something to do. one of the people who knew rasher while as a young conservative activists in the 60s, then being in his late
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30s or 40s said it seemed to have asked interactions within and young americans for freedom and so on that rusher had an extra 10 hours a day. semenov said he seemed to be the most organized man in the movement. now, it was a little easier for rusher to pay that energetic and focused role, always on all the time, always giving it his best, always looking good, always speaking well, always dressing well and always if not always right, always persuasive, always somebody wanted to listen to. it is easier to develop that reputation perhaps if you don't have a family. he never married, never had
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children. somebody suggested very early in my research that rusher was very to the movement. i think there's a good deal of truth to that. there's only a limited number of people who have that kind of life in played quite that kind of role. rusher did it. he was a graduate of harvard law school, graduated in 1948, worked at a major corporate law firm, and molded major firm, but he was really bored a corporate law practice. he describes it in his first book published in 1968 and it's not really an autobiography, but there's an autobiographical question that's very interesting. they're all based client on transatlantic dairies and quiet conversations in these boardrooms of our law firm and
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he wanted our action than not. he loved politics so much that he really had in some way, shape or form had to do a full time. sue walks away from his wall street law firm in early 1956, comes to washington, lives a few blocks south of here somewhere near the russell building where the dirksen building enjoins an important anti-communist investigator named robert morris robert morris' importance in the investigations of the 1950s was apparently so significant that whittaker chambers said to buckley in a letter from that time of morris really accomplished most of what joe mccarthy is credited with in terms of useful constructive anti-communist uncredited on the
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right. rusher was found more suicide subcommittee. he was the lawyer on that committee. mccarthy was still alive. he knew mccarthy and believed that he had been very freely railroaded by the liberal establishment, very much along the lines with stan evans later argued in his 2007, blacklisted by history. rusher in other words was a part, before he came to "national review," was part of a cadre of very hard and professional anti-communist. and that was what really got him into the conservative movement. that caused him to transition from generic republicanism, which included what i described
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to say just win baby attitude and there's something to be said for that. to an attitude of being willing to lose even a presidential election if it was a constructive sort of loss that one could take pride in all-out goldwater 64, that had planted seeds for the future. rusher did not initially think that we 1948, 1952, it was just win, baby. their similarities they are to the 2012 campaign on our side and the other side. rusher sees that. and 52 he knows eisenhower is that going to be a great champion of conservative causes, probably also new knew
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eisenhauer cannot be that aggressive in anti-communist, but he wanted to win. well, to keep this reasonably concise, but to finish that thought because it is important, rusher believed that modern republican under dwight eisenhower was president for eight years just wasn't ideological enough, wasn't anti-communist enough at home or abroad. rusher believes there is a communist that within the united states. more and more documentation of that was come out in the last 20 years after the opening of the ex-soviet archives. buckley also, a couple years younger than rusher, all adieu now probably he wrote.media which came out in 1951 after he graduated from yale. he has to bas and rusher shared
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that. he was a graduate of princeton prewar and during the war. buckley says gail is insufficiently respectful of religion despite its religious heritage and most elite academia in america. they don't present the free enterprise side of economics. or to keynesian. they are quasi-socialist. rusher agreed with all of that. but i think the greater affinity with buckley can be seen in buckley and his brother-in-law, brent purcell's 1964 book in which they save mccarthy has been a little too rough. he's made errors of judgment, but that causes really important and is being treated unfairly. that's exactly where rusher is a
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1954, 55, 56. and here's her for he turns from the generic republican republicanism too hard movement conservatives them. there is a bit of a conservative movement before national review in 1955, but it was a little -- it was disorganized. the polite term might be entrepreneurial, individualistic whittaker chambers cited as the people popping out by kravitz. you never knew where they were coming from, where they were going. you might see this again now and then. rusher is thrilled to hear there is going to be a conservative weekly magazine. at the time its weekly. so when he hears about "national review" in the works in 1955 he becomes a charter subscriber
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before it comes out. he spends a year and a half on the subcommittee that remains in touch with buckley in a circle. he joins the magazine in the mid-1957. he wasn't interested in the business side of the magazine, which assists technical and real responsibility, keeping it afloat, frame or subscribers, more advertising, that kind of stuff. they needed someone like that and he was pretty good at that. although there is evidence for at least a tiny kind click did it because he was so into the political side. but as i said, he comes into national review with the kind of wit from editor buckley that he will have full free speech
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rights, rights of agitation and address the within deliberations of the magazine immensely good part of the book, although i wouldn't say it's a majority, but it's a good part of the book and it's interesting. rusher advising buckley and other senior editors, james byrne and frank meyer and so on how it should deal with the john birch society issue how should deal of a sleeping young americans for freedom, an important conservative organization. dr. edwards was the first editor of the new guard, their newspaper or one of the early editors in the early 60s. he started very young as non-rusher for that long. rusher would advise the national review people and buckley who is the owner and therefore the man
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manner what was going on among conservatives, with the problems were in conservative politics, the opportunities, challenges, would have to be supported. buckley is very interested in maine caning, developing and then maintaining a high reputation for "national review." a reputation as a thoughtful magazine. at one point he raised his colleagues insist no, no, it was an editorial in 1960. he says to readers, but he would've said equally equally to his colleagues, our job is not too many politics. if you think i'm right in occasionally to mediate. that is to offer -- to play
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something of a broker's role among conflicting conservatives, whatever they are conflicted about. buckley sees the need for that. he's ideally suited to helping to guide national review in that role. there were two factions at "national review." i don't mean to overstate that. i don't mean to overstate the conflict. there is a tremendous amount of respect they all have for each other, but their fundamental agreement was on national review's importance. they had very important duties, but they disagreed about the right approach and the right talent in the right focus for the magazine. the two factions. it's a perfectly good word if you get the idea of backstabbing
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and or underhanded approach is that it gearheads. it wasn't like that as far as i can tell, that there were real arguments, some of which were committed to paper between a sort of buckley, priscilla buckley was the managing editor of the buckley's older sister passed away a year ago unfortunately, the den mother of the early conservative movement and the national review as an incubator for young conservatives. the two buckley's and james are numb, and ex-trotskyist guwahati had an explanation before he joined buckley the founding national review, the three of them really believed in the
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importance of national review's intellectual reputation. they also believe dennis berman put it very early on that this was a magazine that should be on the desk of policymakers, actor don max, senators, really important people whether they were conservatives are not. they believed in something of an elite strategy. it wasn't so much to make conservatives and powerful as to make it acceptable and to get non-conservatives the more important a better to listen to the conservative viewpoint, whether it be on foreign policy and anti-communist than, economic conservatives in my limited government, constitutional as some are we
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today is called social conservative, more liquid than traditional conservatives them. the issues are a little different and less clear back then, but there's always been social conservatives them. pressure had an important ally, a man named frank meyer. meyer remains sufficiently respected and known a man is an older generation of conservatives that if there is a frank meyer society here in washington, which i'm going to be a group of conservative leaders to keep his memory alive. they are going to meet on monday night and i will be speaking to them. meyer has been described by rusher is the international engine of the conservative movement. he too was an ex-communist as birnbaum was. but meyer with a conservative backed based -- activist, a passionate conservative
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activist. rusher even told me that meyer had once been a militant communist. a militant republican. quote, they are not all that far apart except in what they believe. would rusher meant by that is yet a tremendous attraction to and respect for her, frankly for political obsession. myers into actually it says. he and the house literally full of books. it's hard to imagine, hard to describe some of the books absolutely everywhere. also extremely political. as david keene, the chairman of american conservative union put it to me, you go, this admire, take a bus from the midwest in his case and you come back and perhaps two weeks later get busted out of bed but if overy
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aimed at 2:00 in the morning. frank meyer would say why haven't you done this? at the university of wisconsin, why haven't you done this? why haven't you done the other thing? that particular style of leadership are mentoring probably wouldn't be too welcome among conservatives today and i'm sure there were people then who thought it was a bit much even if they tremendously admired meyer. there were people like that that kind who thought the cause is so important they could at least have no qualms about calling up someone at 2:00 in the morning. he was nocturnal anyway. rusher loved this. he didn't have that irregular schedule himself. as i suggested he was more organized than that, but he loved that spirit and he and meyer were allies in believing national review should be as political as possible.
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let me say a word and then i'll take your questions about rushers last two decades at national review in the 1970s and 80s. the intense discussions, arguments that the national review that i have alluded to were primarily, not totally, but primarily in the 60s as they were feeling their way in the conservative movement was still gelling. in the 1970s, rushers focuses on -- is initially on the possibility of actually replacing the republican party with a new conservative party. i found a letter in which he said to a friend, about 1975.
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my problem with the republican party isn't that it's not conservative enough. it is that it isn't big enough. again, he wanted to land and the republicans after watergate in the mid-70s weren't terrible or shave. i won't recite the details, but a lot of them felt they were back where they were in the 1930s. not only a minority party, but a small minority party. rusher wants to take this opportunity to start a new conservative party. not rigidly conservative, but consciously conservative. one in which the liberal wing of the republican party would not be present and therefore would not have the veto power he thought he had. he believed the key to this was one, not necessarily the most important thing, but an
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important gangbuster moderate economic conservatives in a little bit and be a little more populist. recognize the needs, the position of the little guy. he always had some of that in him, but also to vote on social conservative, populist issues and not only southerners, but what then were known as conservative democrats, people who later became reagan democrats. rusher was one of the first to note the size and importance of that voting bloc. he was one of the first and one of the most effective advocates of bringing aid to the republican party and he advised reagan to duvets. he knew both reagan and the first president bush pretty well he'd known reagan since the mid-60s. he advised both reagan and vice president bush some years later to do this.
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he was successful or not, although i don't think breaking really needed to be. i'm not sure break-in really needed to be told that, mr. it's encouraging to hear it on someone he respected as much as he respected rusher. rusher also wanted reagan to be head of the conservative party. to make a long story short, he refuses prudently. most political scientists will tell you if a third party is going to be back on a national level, it cannot start small. it's got to start big, probably with a superstar like reagan. so once reagan refused in 75 to join this third-party project, rusher got going and wrote a book about it. it is probably curtains for that particular idea. but rusher has succeeded in
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getting conservatives to think our about the need to expand the republican party and for the republican party to be more coherent. not so pure that it was willing to forfeit elections. i think rusher was passed that phase of his political development or perspectives by then. so he recognized that if reagan was going to head it, it was probably not going to get to fire, but he stuck with it. the full details are in the book, chapter 13. but he came in the late 70s that it was really possible for a guy like reagan to win the nomination and once reagan did, ever since reagan won in 1980 and had an rushers you a totally successful presidency, rusher
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remained to the end of his days in absolute republican party loyalists. rightly or wrongly. that's another interesting lesson. a man who at one time had been a third-party advocate comes back to more conventional political view, although he was a strong conservative. in closing, tumors about rushers significance as a symbol among conservatives. he was a very elegant man. he was not particularly tall. he was athletic, things that oakley was, but he was wonderfully articulate. here we spoken perfectly formed sentences, both in public and private conversation. he was always very well dressed. he looked fine wine and opera. he knew all the great hotels of the world. so this is a little unusual for a semi-populist conservative and for a guy as ideological as he
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was. perhaps leading conservatives today could use a few more people like that. in other words, was hired for a manhattan liberal, and he nisan, to say they are hicks in the cinema. you couldn't say that about buckley and you couldn't say it about rusher come as a rusher reinforce the sense that national review is pretty smart, sophisticated people, fun to have around if you can send a viewpoint now and then. another example is that conservatives. younger conservatives tended to admire that and bring them along in that kind of style and pain. also as dr. edwards referred to, rusher was a major, major conservative debater for a while. most prominently on a show called the advocates, he was a conservative advocate, a debate show.
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he did extremely well and a lot of people would watch and say, well, we can do that, too. we can be as good as he is. i have not really attempt to go much into his mentoring role with young conservatives, but he loved to advise them. he liked hearing about what they were doing. if they were doing something. it's important to do things. rusher didn't like people who sat around and talked but didn't have a lot of patience for sitting and talking. so generations of senior conservatives will tell you that they knew rusher either personally or by reputation, that he gave great advice, that he had time for them. rusher always remained very proud of that. he retired to san francisco. he loved the climate. he likes the sophistication of
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san francisco. he had fallen in love with it in the 50s and said he lived there for the last 20 years of his life. i leave you with this quote which also gives the sense of rusher's attitude. and perhaps my last interview with him, he said to me, san francisco has a dreadful reputation among conservatives and new yorkers are always raising the subject with me. mostly new yorkers. he said i'm not the least bit interested what the majority of people in san francisco think. i like the food. i like the weather. i like ambience. if they want to live there too, the liberals, good luck. i'll be here for your questions so far as we have time for them.
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[applause] >> if eulogists rooster hand. we do have a gentleman with the microphone. if you please give your name and ask your question. hopefully it's a question that statement. yes, please, first question down here. >> you mentioned how rusher took a more populist tone and turn. >> can you speak of a better? >> rusher took in more populist tone at a certain point. do you see that as a potential lesson to be applied today? >> well, i am not comfortable
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trying to say what rusher would say today, but it is clear that he always believed from the 1970s uncertainly, always believed and never lost his believe that populist and social conservatism and those voters for absolutely essential to conservative success, that there were issues have not been dealt with, had not really been dealt with are the official republican party is sufficiently respected. so he wanted those photos, just as he wanted southern votes in the early 60s and advocated that. but he also believed social conservatives than many populist issues had to be expressed in a
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responsible and puff away. a good example you can find in a footnote in one of the late chapters is a column he wrote about abortion and 81 called something like the problem and strength of right to life. he sees a balance there. basically what he says i am one of you. i agree with you on this issue, but we must realize how smug and defensive we sometimes appear to others who don't share our viewpoint. so we have to be moderate in our presentation of it. i am confident in saying rusher would absolutely disagree with those who now say in the wake of romney's loss, that we should judge us in social conservatives on -- cos

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