Before the Storm

by Rick Perlstein

  29 For Phelps Dodge 1915-16, see Jonathan D. Rosenblum, Copper Crucible: How the Arizona Miners’ Strike of 1983 Recast Labor-Management Relations in America, 2nd ed. (Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 1998), 20-30.

  29 For Kitchel’s immersion in labor battles, see Kitchel to Richardson (“Sometimes in the hectic turmoil ...”), DK, Box 4, Convention Congratulations; for Kitchel’s fraught relationship with Frankfurter, see Kitchel to Eastman, August 22, 1964, DK, Box 4. For Phelps Dodge v. NLRB 313 U.S. 177 (1941), I rely on Rosenblum, Copper Crucible, 30-33, and author interview with Jonathan Rosenblum.

  29 Dallas Morning News’s 1941 coinage in the 1980 Annual Report, National Right to Work Committee Papers, Box 5, HI.

  30 For origins and run of the “Voice of Free Enterprise” column, see DK, Box 5. The quotes are from AR, February 26, 1956.

  30 My biographical source for Walter Reuther is Nelson Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995). For the sit-down revolution, see 75-103, 133. For Reuther’s crusade to control the rank and file to produce bargaining leverage, see 132-53.

  31 For cost of living adjustment, see ibid., 277-80; guaranteed annual wage, 284-86.

  31 For the trickling down of Reuther’s “Treaty of Detroit,” see 286. For the reaction of smaller manufacturers, see the transcript of the “Manion Forum” for June 26, 1955, CM, Box 98; and Herb Kohler, “Are Unions Above the Law?,” pamphlet of address at Executives’ Club of Chicago, December 9, 1955 (n.p.; New York Public Library pamphlet collections). Kohler’s speech, from which the “strict seniority” quote is drawn, is the clearest single expression of the moral vision of the Manion cadre. See also Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 259-69.

  32 For BMG’s questioning, see transcripts in Bureau of National Affairs, McClellan Committee Hearings, January 26, 1957; March 13, 1957; and March 21, 1957 (from which the quote is drawn); and July 18, 1957.

  33 White House invitation: Time, April 22, 1960. Office description: Newsweek, April 11, 1961; Edwards, Goldwater, xvii; unidentified clipping, August 18, 1975, SHBGS.

  33 For traditional reticence over Keynesian solutions, see David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 79-82 and 357-60; for Eisenhower’s openness, see Robert M. Collins, The Business Response to Keynes, 1929-1964 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 152-70. The FY 1958 budget fracas is covered in Time, April 22, 1957; May 13, 1957; May 20, 1957; and April 22, 1964; and USNWR, April 19, 1957.

  33 BMG’s speech on the FY 1958 budget is in Congressional Record, April 8, 1957, 5258-65.

  33 Time ran another profile: April 5, 1957. The Knight headline is in Time, May 20, 1957.

  34 Throughout the spring, stories had appeared: Kennedy, Enemy Within, 254. The Chamber of Commerce speech is in Time, May 13, 1957.

  34 Even as he did, Newsweek: Kennedy, Enemy Within, 256. “Here is a man, a socialist”: unidentified clip, August 18, 1957, SHBGS. See also “Goldwater’s Racket,” TNR, September 23, 1957.

  34 The story of Kohler Company and the Kohler strikes is in Walter Uphoff, Kohler on Strike: Thirty Years of Conflict (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Sylvester Petro, The Kohler Strike: Union Violence and Administrative Law (Chicago: Regnery, 1961); Kennedy, Enemy Within, 254-84; Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 347-48, 526 n. 3; and Kohler, “Are Unions Above the Law?”

  35 For Lyman Conger, see Kennedy, Enemy Within, 262-63.

  36 “This union dictate has been and is being defied”: Kohler, “Are Unions Above the Law?”

  36 For the Hoffa testimony, consult “Goldwater’s Racket,” TNR, September 23, 1957; Kennedy, Enemy Within, 81-83; and Bureau of National Affairs, McClellan Committee Hearings, 268.

  36 BMG’s Meet the Press appearance is described in “Goldwater’s Racket,” TNR.

  37 For McClellan Committee investigation and Republican counterinvestigation into Kohler, see Kennedy, Enemy Within, 261-368; and Salinger, With Kennedy, 28-29. The dry-cleaning story is in David Halberstam, The Reckoning (New York: Morrow, 1986), 335.

  37 “I would rather have Hoffa”: “Goldwater’s Racket,” TNR. The committee’s tensions and the January 8, 1958, session are on 268-70.

  38 BMG’s Detroit Masonic Temple speech is covered in Time, February 3, 1958; Edwards, Goldwater, 76; and Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther, 237.

  38 The UAW’s convention agenda is described in “The 1958 Bargaining Programs for the Automobile Workers,” Monthly Labor Review, February 1958, 270-74. Reuther’s speech is quoted in Jerry Chiappetta, INS news wire no. TSA3, AHF, Box 4.

  38 On the preponderance of Sheboyganites in Washington, see Uphoff, Kohler on Strike, 171. For a general description of the Kohler hearings, see News briefs, Monthly Labor Review, March 1958. The Arabs and Jews comparison is in Kennedy, Enemy Within, 262. Reuther’s quote on BMG is noted in SEP, June 7, 1958. BMG’s riposte is in Edwards, Goldwater, 77.

  38 BMG’s questioning of Reuther is transcribed in Frank Cormier, Reuther (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), 349-52.

  39 My account of BMG’s 1958 campaign relies on the detailed chapter “The Newspaper as a Giant Public Relations Firm,” by Frank Jonas and R. John Eyre, in Jonas, ed., Political Dynamiting (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970), 143-81; and Stephen Shadegg, How to Win an Election (New York: Taplinger, 1963). Both record considerably more chicanery than there is space to recount here. See also “There Weren’t Two Sides to the Story in Phoenix,” TNR, December 1, 1958, by an anonymous AR staffer; and Raymond Moley, “The Test in Arizona,” Newsweek, March 24, 1958. The exchange between BMG and Shadegg is in Edwards, Goldwater, 87. Arizona’s population boom is characterized in “The New Millionaires of Phoenix,” SEP, September 30, 1961. Shadegg’s billboard purchases: Edwards, Goldwater, 92. One is pictured in the plates of Goldberg, Barry Goldwater.

  39 Cell group theory and practice is described in Shadegg, How to Win an Election, 106-21. (Mao quote is on 106.)

  39 Surveying techniques are described in Shadegg, 51.

  40 Shadegg explains his brainstorm for the 1958 campaign strategy in Shadegg, What Happened, 19.

  40 Shadegg details how the AFL-CIO organizer was exploited beginning on page 71 in How to Win an Election.

  40 All the quotes from the AR and Phoenix Gazette, and the photographs, are reproduced in Jonas and Eyre, “Newspaper as a Giant Public Relations Firm.”

  41 The commercial with BMG breaking through the paper is in Jonas and Eyre, 160-61.

  41 For Hoffa and Reuther’s feud, see Shadegg, What Happened, 16. The story of COPE’s supposed $450,000 budget is in Jonas and Eyre, “Newspaper as a Giant Public Relations Firm,” 162-64. For Hunt and Welch’s contributions, see Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 126. The case for the borderline illegality of obtaining Green’s mug shot is in Jonas and Eyre, “Newspaper as a Giant Public Relations Firm,” 156-58.

  41 For the 1958 elections nationally, refer to Andrew Busch, Horse in Midstream: U.S. Midterm Elections and Their Consequences, 1894-1998 (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1999).

  42 A September Time article: “Personality Contest,” Time, September 29, 1958. The Saturday Evening Post, which was outgrowing: Paul Healy, “The Glittering Mr. Goldwater,” SEP, June 7, 1958.

  3. WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE WORLD

  43 For Wedemeyer, see finding aid, Albert C. Wedemeyer Papers, HI; Michele Flynn Stenehjem, An American First (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1976), 104-5; Clarence Manion, The Conservative American: His Fight for National Independence and Constitutional Government (New York: Devon-Adair, 1964); the newspaper The Tidings, February 5, 1960, in HR, Box 78/1; Justus D. Doenecke, Not to the Swift: The Old Isolationists in the Cold War Era (Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Press, 1979), 172; and 1. C. B. Dear, ed., The Oxford Companion to World War II (New York: Oxford Univ
ersity Press, 1995), 1267-68.

  44 When a columnist for the Hearst: “Faubus—Third Party Head?,” San Francisco Examiner, April 22, 1959. He arranged to meet Dorn: Manion to Dorn, April 11, 1959, CM, Box 69/4. He circulated a thirteen-page report: Honorable James Johnson, “Orval Faubus Can Be Elected President,” CM, Box 69/4.

  44 “This is the first step”: Manion to various, April 28, 1959, CM, Box 69/4.

  44 Tentatively-three weeks after: Manion to Wood, April 20, 1959; Wood to Manion, both CM, Box 4, 1959. And when one of Manion’s friends: Pritchard to Manion, undated, CM, Box 69/5.

  44 To follow the 1959 congressional debate over labor law reform, see WSJ, January 14, 21, 27, 28, 29; March 9, 10, 11, 12, and 26; April 22, 23, 24, 27, 29, and 30; May 14, 18, 20, and 21; June 2 and 4; July 4, 17, 22, 24, 27, and 30; August 6, 7, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 31; and September 1, 2, 3, and 11. See also legislative history in AHF, Box W2/6. He called the bill “a flea bite”: Lee Edwards, Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1995), 99.

  45 Manion brought in Frank Cullen Brophy: Brophy to BMG, May 11, 1959, CM, Box 69/4. For the Campaign for the 48 States, see GRR, July 30, 1964. For Brophy’s relationship to BMG, see Peter Iverson, Barry Goldwater: Native Arizonan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 203: For BMG playing Indian, see ibid., 162-67; for Brophy, see Marks to Burch, May 21, 1964, FCW, Box 8/Eric Marks.

  45 One Monday in May: Brophy to BMG, May 11, 1959, CM, Box 69/4.

  45 The audience was May 15: Meeting notes, “Strictly Confidential,” May 15, 1959, CM, Box 69/4; and Manion to Bruce, July 1, 1959, CM, Box 69/5.

  46 For BMG’s mileage the first half of the year, see Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 136. For speeches from this period, see address to Utah State Jaycees convention, May 14, 1960, in George B. Russell, J. Bracken Lee: The Taxpayer’s Champion (New York: Robert Spellers and Sons, 1961), 195-98; and to the Western States Republican Conference, “Wanted: A More Conservative GOP,” HE, February 18, 1960.

  46 For background on the rise of the Southern Republican Party see Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stimson, Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), which demonstrates that 1958 was the tipping point at which more people began associating civil rights with the Democrats than with the Republicans; John Kessel, The Goldwater Coalition: Republican Strategies in 1964 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), 234; Alexander Lamis, The Two-Party South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 20-43; and Bernard Cosman, Five States for Goldwater: Continuity and Change in Southern Presidential Voting Patterns (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1966). See also “Nixon’s Strategy,” WSJ, April 27, 1959, in which Nixon denies the accusation that he is a civil rights radical.

  46 On the one-party legacy of Reconstruction, see Michael W. Miles, The Odyssey of the American Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 268-69.

  46 On “post office parties”: Kessell, Goldwater Coalition, 39; and author interviews with Richard Viguerie and Jack Craddock. For Mississippi GOP chair, see Cleveland Call and Post, July 18, 1964. For the “all rank” joke, see James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 538.

  46 For an illustration of the party’s new upwardly mobile constituency, see ads taken by the Southern Company, for example in WSJ, July 22, 1959, “In Dynamic Dixie ... Pleasant Living Is in the Pattern of Progress!” For “Cotton Ed” Smith, see David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 341. For Hubert Humphrey, see Michael W. Miles, Odyssey of the American Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 272.

  47 For Republicans moralizing on civil rights, see Carmines and Stimpson, Issue Evolution, 62. Some of those gains were lost: “Despite Its Setback by Little Rock Troops, A Dixie Two-Party System Seems Likely,” WSJ, September 1959. For Operation Dixie, see Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 115.

  47 For Spartanburg and Kohler, see “Spartanburg, S. C., to Vote on Blue Law Repeal; Effect on Business Growth Debated,” WSJ, September 1959.

  48 For Shorey, see University of South Carolina Library, Modem Political Collections, Gregory D. Shorey Papers, Finding Aid. For Milliken, see www.milliken.com; correspondence in HR, Box 51/13; and WFBJ, Box 8. For shutting down unionizing plant, see Textile Workers Union of America v. Darlington Manufacturing Co., 380 U.S. 263.

  48 Greenville speech: J. Hunter Stokes, “Goldwater Calls GOP to Battle,” Greenville News, May 17, 1959; Dorn to Manion, May 20, 1959, CM, Box 69/4; and F. Clifton White with William Gill, Suite 3505: The Story of the Draft Goldwater Movement (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1967), 20.

  48 Coded letter: Stratton to Manion, May 17, 1959, or May 18, 1959 (date typed over), CM, Box 69/4.

  49 “The subject of this personal”: Clarence Manion to various, “CONFIDENTIAL,” May 29, 1959, CM, Box 69/4.

  50 “A listless interlude, quickly forgotten”: Arthur Schlesinger Jr., “The New Mood in Politics,” Esquire, January 1960.

  50 Like sentiments: John K. Jessup et al., The National Purpose (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1960), essays originally appearing in Life; William Atwood, “How America Feels as We Enter the Soaring Sixties,” Look, January 5, 1960; “America—1960: A Symposium,” TNR, February 15, 1960; and Adlai Stevenson, “Putting First Things First—A Democratic View,” Foreign Affairs, January 1960. See also David Farber, ed., The Sixties: From Memory to History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 16-17. JFK kickoff: John A. Andrew III, The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (New Brunswick: N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 3.

  50 “Do you remember that in classical times”: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 68. Nixon’s response: Thomas C. Reeves, A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy (New York: Free Press, 1991), 198.

  50 The YMCA-YWCA conference is noted in Doug Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 6.

  51 Manion’s recruitment frustrations: letters from Easley and Pulliam, June 1, 1959; Sharp, Snowden, Broder, and Owsley, June 3, 1959; and Comer, June 5, 1959, CM, Box 69/4. Typical comments include “It seems to me too much of a longshot”; “I believe the Democratic Party will remain the conservative party in the state of North Carolina for years to come”; and “It would seem that Nixon ought to be the man with his background and experience.” BMG associate Clarence Buddington Kelland called the effort “silly,” promising he would tell Barry to steer clear of it. Their acceptances came with caveats such as “I have no illusions that outside of a miracle we could ever get him nominated.”

  51 “We hope to publish”: Manion to Bruce, July 1, 1959, CM, Box 69/7.

  51 The origins of the booklet idea are documented in Brophy to Bozell, Brophy to BMG, and Manion to Roger Milliken, all persuant to a phone call between Brophy and Manion that morning, June 18, 1959, all in CM, Box 69/7. Manion’s agreement with BMG is in Manion to Brophy, July 28, 1959, CM, Box 70/1, on July 24, 1959, conference with BMG in Washington, and, especially, “Proposed Program for Conservative Action,” CM, Box 69/5. “I doubt there’s much money”: Buckley to Manion, October 2, 1959, CM, Box 70/1.

  51 On J. Bracken Lee, see George B. Russell, J. Bracken Lee: The Taxpayer’s Champion (New York: Robert Spellers and Sons, 1961). For Kohler’s acceptance, see Manion to various, June 29, 1959, CM, Box 69/5. For other acceptances see “PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL,” July 31, 1959, CM, Box 70/1. “Dear Clarence”: Weaver to Manion, July 6, 1959.

  52 On Bozell’s absence, see Manion to Brophy, July 6, 1959; Manion to Russell with enclosure, July 13, 1959, CM, Box
70/1. Announcement that book would appear in sixty days: Manion to Schwepp, July 16, 1959, CM, Box 70/1.

  52 On consternation over Khrushchev visit, see Manion to Fasken, August 14, 1959, CM, Box 70/1; and Hub Russell resignation letter to Commonwealth Club of California, October 14, 1959, CM, Box 69/5. National Committee of Mourning: August 30, 1959, “Manion Forum” broadcast, FL, MF258. Committee against Summit Entanglements: Manion secretary to Buckley, August 12, 1959, WFBJ, Box 9; and Brophy to Manion, September 4, 1959. Buckley rally: Buckley to Burnham, September 22, 1959, WFBJ, Box 8/Interoffice Memos; and John B. Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (New York: Touchstone, 1990), 175. For Allen-Bradley ad, see WSJ, September 1959.

  52 For Publishers Printing Company deal, see Manion to Brophy, September 1, 1959, Manion to Buckley, October 23, 1959, and Publishers Printing to Manion, November 3, 1959, all in CM, Box 70/1; Manion to Milliken, January 20, 1960, and Manion to Kimmel, March 22, 1960, CM, Box 70/2. Independent American Forum and New Party Rally: Manion to Phelps, September 21, 1959, and Manion to Dorn, October 22, 1959, CM, Box 69/5, and packet in CM, Box 70/2. Negotiations with Courtney: Heinsohn to Manion, November 6, 1959, CM, Box 70/2. For Hollings, see Manion to Griffith and Manion to Hanson, September 21, 1959, CM, Box 70/1; and Dorn to Manion plus attachment, October 15, 1959, CM, Box 70/2. For Wedemeyer, Manion to Bozell, July 2, 1959, Box 69/7. “Keep after Bozell!”: Manion to Russell, November 16, 1959, CM, Box 70/2.

  53 By then Brent Bozell: Edwards, Goldwater, 114. The advantage NAR’s entrance offered is noted in Manion to Haley, January 6, 1960, CM, Box 70/2. For NAR’s approach to party activists, see Manion to Brophy, October 23, 1959, CM, Box 70/2; Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Atheneum, 1961), 79-80; and Nicol C. Rae, The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans: From 1952 to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 41.