1. Feulner, Edwin J., “A Conservative Manifesto: Bush Can Do for Right What Reagan Couldn't.” Washington Post, 4 December 1988, L1.Google Scholar

2. “Conservative and Loving It.” Washington Post, 4 October 1983, C1.

3. Blumenthal, Sidney, “Heritage Led by a True Believer,” Washington Post, 24 September 1985, A10.Google Scholar

4. Blumentahl, Sidney, The Rise of the Counter-establishment (New York, 1986), 37.Google Scholar

5. The attempt to fuse divergent, if not incompatible, ideas which characterizes much of American conservatism, was clearly reflected in the foundation and its work. As a symbolic gesture, Heritage appointed both the leading American spokesman for traditionalist conservatism, Russell Kirk, and the leading spokesman of nineteenth-century laissezfaire liberalism, F. A. Hayek, to its staff as Distinguished Scholars. Ironically, both Kirk and Hayek have been outspoken about the ideological incompatibility of their respective positions. See Russell Kirk, “Libertarians: The Chirping Secretaries,” in Carey, George W., ed., Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative/Libertarian debate (Lanham, Md., 1984)Google Scholar, and Hayek's, F. A. postscript, “Why I Am Not a Conservative,” in The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago, 1960), 397–411.Google Scholar

6. Many of the New Right leaders who, like Ronald Reagan, had been galvanized in the Goldwater campaign in 1964, had retained a strong bitterness against moderate Republicans, who they claimed had first betrayed the Arizona senator, and then used his stunning defeat in the election as evidence that no ideological conservative had a chance of winning a national election.

7. Viguerie, Richard, “Ends and Means,” in Whitaker, Robert W., ed., The New Right Papers (New York, 1982), 26–35.Google Scholar

8. Ibid.

9. Landers, Robert K., “Think Tanks: The New Partisans?” Editorial Research Reports 1:23 (20 June 1986): 457.Google Scholar

10. “Think Tanks, Anti-Statism, and the Liberal Regime: The Brookings Institution, The American Enterprise Institute, The Institute for Policy Studies, and the Heritage Foundation” (unpublished), 2.

11. The primary doctrine of libertarian philosophy is a fundamentalist belief in individual rights and private property. Taxation and other forms of government interference with these rights are seen as restrictions of individual freedom and institutionalized theft of private property. The ultimate dream of the libertarians is the dissolution of the state, as power is decentralized and public functions are privatized. Since the early 1970s, the Libertarian party has established itself as a separate movement in American politics, often nominating third-party candidates for public office. However, libertarianism's opposition to government intervention in the economy is widely embraced by American conservatives, while libertarian objections to censorship and moral compulsion, as well as to interventionist foreign policy, usually are passed over in silence. Today a number of strictly libertarian think tanks exist, among them the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation. For an elaborate account of libertarianism, see Newman, Stephen L., Liberalism at Wit's End: The Libertarian Revolt Against the Modern State (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984).Google Scholar

12. The institute was dedicated to solving technical problems by applying scientific principles. Its first major project was a study of the causes of boiler explosions in steamboats. See Sinclair, Bruce, Philadelphia's Philosopher Mechanics: A History of the Franklin Institute 1824–1865 (Baltimore, 1975).Google Scholar

13. See Schofield, Robert E., The Lunar Society of Birmingham: A Social History of Provincial Science and Industry in Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1963).Google Scholar

14. Apart from the study of boiler explosions on steamships and railroads, a serious problem that annually caused hundreds of fatalities, it made investigations of weights and measures, the quality of various types of building stone, and overland telegraphic communication.

15. See Haber, Samuel, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era (Chicago, 1964)Google Scholar, and Hays, Samuel P., Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).Google Scholar

16. Critchiow, Donald T., The Brookings Institution, 1916–1952: Expertise and the Public Interest in a Democratic Society (DeKalb, Ill., 1985), 17–18.Google Scholar

17. Landers, “Think Tanks: The New Partisans?”

18. Saunders, Charles B., The Brookings Institution: A Fifty-Year History (Washington, D.C., 1966), 57.Google Scholar

19. Critchiow, The Brookings Institution, 145.

20. For an account of the business community's change in attitude toward politics, see Vogel, David, Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America (New York, 1989), 220–27.Google Scholar

21. Exhibit no. 164, Hearings before the Select Committee on Presidential Campaigan Activities of the United States Senate, 93d Congress, Watergate and Related Activities, Book 10 (Washington, D.C., 1973), 4114ff.

22. Ibid., 4118

23. Ibid., 4119.

24. Ibid., 4117.

25. Ibid.

26. Blumentaly, Sidney, “The Ideology Makers,” The Boston Globe Magazine, 8 August 1982, 40.Google Scholar

27. For an introduction to the various theories concerning the relationship between business and the state, see Himmelstein, Jerome L., To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism (Berkeley, 1990), 152–64.Google Scholar

28. Organized by the lawyer Ralph Nader, who had become feared and admired after his strong criticisms of the automobile industry in his book Unsafe at Any Speed (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

29. Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes, 101ff.

30. Saloma, John S. III, Ominous Politics: The New Conservative Labyrinth (New York, 1984), 68.Google Scholar

31. Vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes, 206ff.

32. Landers, “Think Tanks,” 462–63.

33. Easterbrook, Gregg, “Ideas Move Nations,” Atlantic Monthly, January 1986, 66.Google Scholar

34. Thus the Institute for Policy Studies, which used to be for the Left what the Heritage Foundation became for the Right, was forced in 1988 to sell its buildings in Washington in order to provide money for further studies. (Interview, author with Member of the Staff, Institute of Policy Studies, 29 March 1988.)

35. Heatherly, Charles L., ed., “Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration” (Washington D.C., 1981), iv.Google Scholar

36. Melvin Laird was at this time head of the House Republican Conference.

37. An unofficial organization within the House of Representatives, having its own research and clerical staff.

38. Feulner, Edwin J. Jr, Conservatives Stalk the House: The Republican Study Committee 1970–1982 (Ottawa, Ill., 1983), 7.Google Scholar Feulner took a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Edinburgh in 1981, and the cited book was his dissertation.

39. For an account of the impact of research staffs on the legislative process in America, see Malbin, Michael, Unelected Representatives: Congressional Staff and the Future of Representative Government (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

40. Apart from starting or playing a critical role in organizations such as^the Heritage Foundation, Republican Study Committee, Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, and the Senate Steerinig Committee, Weyrich was a major force in getting “televangelists” such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson actively involved in right-wing politics. For an insider account of Paul Weyrich's organizing efforts, see Viguerie, Richard, The New Right: We're Ready to Lead (Falls Church, Va., 1981).Google Scholar

41. According to Feulner, 10 percent of the foundation's work was devoted to such issues, compared to 25 percent earlier. “Reagan's Think Tank,” Dun's Review (April 1981): 112.

42. When Heritage started its public policy periodical, Policy Review, in 1977, Daniel P. Moynihan was among its first contributors. The others mentioned have all contributed to later issues.

43. Dun's Review (April 1981): 112.

44. Ibid.

45. Later issued as a 1,100-page paperback: Heatherly, ed.

46. “The Heritage Report: Getting the Government Right with Reagan,” Washington Post, 16 November 1980, A6.

47. Mandate for Leadership, 935.

48. Ibid.

49. Named after former Attorney General Edward Levi. The guidelines were imposed on FBI investigations in 1976 as a consequence of the bureau's violation of civil liberties in its surveillance of radical groups.

50. Mandate for Leadership, 941.

51. Blumentahl, Sidney, “Keeping an Eye on Smiley's People,” The New Republic, 20 December 1980, 12–13.Google Scholar

52. Kondracke, Morton, “The Heritage Model,” The New Republic, 20 December 1980, 13.Google Scholar

53. Mandate for Leadership, 688–91.

54. The Heritage Foundation 1986 Annual Report.

55. “Reagan's Think Tank,” Dun's Review (April 1981): 110.

56. See Longman, Philip, “Reagan's Disappearing Bureaucrats,” New York Times Magazine, 14 February 1988, 42.Google Scholar

57. Interview, Gayner, Jeffrey B., Counselor for International Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, 28 March 1988.Google Scholar

58. Briefs of 5,000 to 10,000 words on specific issues, aimed at legislators, congressional staff, journalists, and the like.

59. Blumenthal, The Rise of the Counter-establishment, 48.

60. Ibid., 45.

61. A democratic fund-raising group with the same name was set up by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who came under severe criticism when his administration approved a construction project for, and dropped an antitrust case against, two firms that had donated money to the club.

62. “Meese Helps Group to Raise Funds,” Washington Post, 20 January 1982, A2.

63. Ibid.

64. Blumenthal, The Rise of the Counter-establishment, 48. After his resignation from the Reagan administration, Meese joined the Heritage Foundation as Distinguised Fellow.

65. “Building a Heritage in the War of Ideas,” Washington Post 3 October 1983, B9.

66. The Heritage Foundation 1986 Annual Report, 27.

67. Kondracke, “The Heritage Model,” 12.

68. Annual Report, 27.

69. “Public Policy Think Tanks,” Christian Science Monitor, 25 September 1984, 21, and Easterbrook, “Ideas Move Nations,” 73.

70. Landers, “Think Tanks,” 469.

71. The Brookings Institution, Annual Report 1987, 22–23.

72. By 1980, the Heritage Foundation annually received donations ranging from two to twenty dollars from 120,000 people by direct mail. Kondracke, “The Heritage Model,” 12.

73. Interview with author, 28 March 1988.

74. Annual Report 1986, 26–27.

75. Reagan's Think Tank, 112.

76. For its part, the Heritage Foundation sponsored symposiums and published studies, advocating the establishment of a “free trade area” between Taiwan and the United States. “Taiwan: A Big Contributor to Think Tanks,” Los Angeles Times, 5 September 1988, sec. 1, 23.

77. “Heritage 10 Exceeds Goals: President Reagan Speaks at Gala,” Heritage Today (May/June 1986): 1–7.

78. As an example, Heritage can hardly be given credit for the B-l bomber, just because it was mentioned in Mandate for Leadership that the aging B-52 would have to be replaced by a new strategic bomber.

79. “Quest for Lasting Power,” Washington Post, 25 September 1985, A14.

80. For an analysis of the realignment question, see Himmelstein, To the Right, 165–97.

81. For an evaluation of conservative achievements in the Reagan era by a leading spokesman of the New Right, see Weyrich, Paul M., “The Reagan Revolution That Wasn't,” Policy Review (Summer 1987): 50–53.Google Scholar

82. It was not until 1987 that the New Right's frustrations over the lack of permanent conservative political gains under Reagan broke out in the open. Richard Viguerie and Howard Phillips were among the leading figures in the movement who now openly accused the president of having betrayed the conservative cause. Viguerie bitterly remarked that “to oppose Ronald Reagan can be dangerous, but to help him can be fatal” (Viguerie, Richard, “What Reagan Revolution?” Washington Post, 21 August 1988, C2).Google Scholar The leader of the Conservative Caucus, Phillips went even further and denounced the president as “a useful idiot for Kremlin propaganda” when the INF-treaty was signed in December that year.

83. Longman, “Reagan's Disappearing Bureaucrats.”

84. Weyrich, “The Reagan Revolution that Wasn't.”