Nixon vs. The Neoconservatives?

December 11th, 2009 by zen

The two articles have a lot of interesting snippets of information but I am finding the ideological spin to be strange. The neoconservatives moved from the Left to the Right, starting roughly in this period, but they would not be identifiably so until the mid to late 1970’s. Nor are most of the conservative figures like Alexander Haig in the neoconservative group. When Haig was Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, his relationship with the administration’s actual neoconservatives like Jeanne Kirkpatrick was very poor ( they were also poor with the administration’s moderates). The authors, in my view, are also overestimating Kraemer’s influence on Richard Nixon, who entered office with a firm vision of his foreign policy objectives.

Nevertheless, of serious interest to the Nixon scholar.

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Posted in academia, America, conservativism, foreign policy, geopolitics, government, historians, HNN, ideas, intellectuals, national security, neoconservatism, nixon, politics, strategy | 13 comments

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  1. J. Scott:

    December 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    Zen, Looks like an interesting read. President Reagan observed of Al Haig: "It’s amazing how sound he can be on complex international matters but how utterly paranoid with regard to the people he must work with." (The Reagan Diaries, Monday, June 14, 1983, page 88) Haig has always been an odd fit with respect to labels and I would have assessed him a pragmatist before reading this post.

  2. zen:

    December 11th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    hi Scott,

    .
    Paranoia was an occupational hazard of the Nixon White House, which was run by Haldeman on a very cut-throat, zero-defects, basis. The only way to escape the pressure cooker of Haldeman’s regime was to intrigue for Nixon’s personal favor – which we see with Dean, Colson, Kissinger, Haig etc. carving out some elbow room. Even then, Haldeman still kept tabs on everyone, especially Kissinger, either on his own initiative or at Nixon’s express orders. 

  3. J. Scott:

    December 11th, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Based on my readings of the Nixon White House, I would add that Haldeman’s management style fit nicely with the paranoia of his boss. Nixon was a brilliant man, but his paranoia destroyed his presidency. 

  4. democratic core:

    December 11th, 2009 at 4:47 pm

    Is Tom Shachtman related to (son?) Max Shachtman, who was a major Trotskyist, and one of the intellectual founders of neo-conservatism?  Shachtman was very influential with George Meaney, then head of the AFL-CIO, who in turn had a big influence on Scoop Jackson, who was the conduit for bringing neo-conservatism into mainstream politics.

  5. zen:

    December 11th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    Hi DC,
    .

    Great question – to which I do not know the answer.  I do know ( as of a few hours ago) though that Tom Shachtman is the father of Noah Shachtman of WIRED – it would a neat trifecta if you are correct.

    .
    I’m going to have to read this book.  My dim recollection of Steinfels’ The Neoconservatives is that Kraemer was not prominently mentioned. Generally, the people considered to be the intellectual godfathers or source  of neoconservatism are Irving Kristol, Albert Wohlstetter, Norman Podhoretz, Rheinhold Niebhur, Leo Strauss and so on, so I’m interested in how they make the case.

  6. Lexington Green:

    December 11th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    There is a whole chapter on Kraemer in Peter Drucker’s memoir Adventures of a Bystander.

  7. zen:

    December 11th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

    Nice add, Lex. Just ordered Forty Years… from Amazon.

  8. Tom Shachtman:

    December 11th, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    Please take a look at the whole book, THE FORTY YEARS WAR, before coming to conclusions about the influence of Kraemer and just when the neocons, started.  We’ve uncovered a lot about Kraemer that has not been known before, and also about the origin of the neocons.  The group began to form, we contend, in opposition to Nxon’s foreign policies, even before they had a name, disliking what they saw as his cozying up to the USSR and to Red China, and his attempts to get out of the Vietnam War.   They helped stymie Gerald Ford’s tries at continuing Nixonian policies even before they were separately identified as neocons during the Carter years.

  9. zen:

    December 11th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    Hi Tom,
    .
    Welcome!. I ordered it so I will be giving it a close read. Your teaser article at HNN was very intriguing to me – you’re right, his treatment of Kraemer was unusual. Nixon did a lot of expounding/monologuing in the transcripts I’ve read of his conversations, using his aides as sounding boards. There’s not many instances where there’s a back-and-forth that I can think of offhand – except, and we usually get this secondhand, with foreign leaders like DeGaulle whom Nixon had a high regard.
    .
    Your subject seems like quite a character, sort of an eminence grise – I look forward to reading your book!

  10. Joseph Fouche:

    December 11th, 2009 at 11:47 pm

    How would the world have changed if Henry Kissinger had spent the last 50 years preparing tax returns?

  11. The Evil Accountant, Herr Holstein, and Kraemer’s Dilemma « The Committee of Public Safety:

    December 12th, 2009 at 1:11 am

    […] links to two articles on one Fritz Gustave Anton Kraemer, a sort of American Friedrich von Holstein who […]

  12. PurpleSlog:

    December 14th, 2009 at 12:25 am

    "similarly discovered Haig"

    Haig had been an aide to the very politically connected McArthur at least in 1950, so I think he was already somewhat connected.

  13. zen:

    December 14th, 2009 at 5:12 am

    Ooooh, nice catch PS! Envious. 🙂