else reassurance. >> professor john lewis gattis book on strategic thinking and leadership for contemporary global challenges. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. during the 1916 presidential election, woodrow wilson ran on the slogans "he kept a set of four" and "america first." next, historians talk about how -- americahinking first thinking impacted the cold war era between 1945 and a d68. topic six -- and 1968. the miller center hosted this 90 minute talk.

>> so, welcome back again. i am delighted you are here. that first session, i think, was extremely stimulating and illuminating and i think this session is a natural follow-up. one of the things we are interested in this session is how did america first really , and in whatvive form did america first revive after pearl harbor when it was a totally devastated, decimated movement? and 1950'sthe 1940's and 1860's when america's cold war internationals and prevailed, there were underlying currents that would eventually

bubble open to more contemporary america first movements. that is what we are interested in discussing today. we have two terrific people on the panel. we had a third terrific person named beverly gage from yale who was supposed to be here, but her plane was fogged in late yesterday afternoon in new haven. she was unable to get any other plane that would get her to charlottesville in time for this panel. you can imagine going from a small new haven airport to our cosmopolitan airport. [laughter] it presents certain difficulties. so, what i'm going to do after the first two presentations is read a few essential paragraphs from her paper to give you a sense of her argument, which i think is a very important and

provocative. first, we will hear from david professore way robert at university of kansas. an incredibleten number of important books. the one arguably his most relevant to this conference is his book about the rise and fall of modern conservatism. david has written very broadly america,ss policy in business government relations, and more particularly on social movements and the relationships of student protests. an interesting, provocative book about the 1960's. one edited book and one monographed about the 1960's.

i am delighted david is here with us today. our second speaker will be -- directorserervie of policy studies. it's not a think tank. it is a think tank nozzle known as some of the others like brookings or kato or american heritage. there's a new think tank in washington that is focused on open society and transparency. as i just said, he is the director of policy studies. he has written two books, one of which is extremely related to what we are discussing today theed "rule and ruin: downfall of moderation and the destruction of the republican party from eisenhower to the tea

party," published in 2013. about "the guardians," kingston brewster,'s circle and the liberal establishment which was published in 2014. he's going to talk to us today about conservatism, america first, in the 1950's. i will turn this over to david. david: my thanks to mel and will hitchcock and the center for inviting me. what i will do is build in some ways on the first panel and use it as foundation and us into the period between the end of world war ii and the beginnings of the cold war. think about the ways in which america first, not so much as a replicant of that america first

committee, but as a notion, a sentiment, a set of feelings, ideas and practical policies plays itself out during this period. a time when it was not clear with the role of the united the world or what role americans should play in a changing dynamic international economy and changing national security profile. whatal is to complicate america first is by honing in less on the kinds of things the panelists are going to hone in on, international security arrangements, united statess role in protecting europe, and instead i will argue what it was central to the belief of america 50's,in the 1940's and and very much in the 21st century, which is what is the role of the u.s. in the international economy? switching role from security to

international economic relationships. i think with donald trump talks particularly about america first, yes, he is invested in with the united states' military obligations and nato, treaty rights and agreements made, the paris accords and others, but i think what resonated with the people was his sense that the united u.s.'-- the role did not affect them. it did not figure most advantageously front of americans is what was at the the of the aftermath of america first movement after world war ii. that will be one of trying to think about. to go back to what our first fennell said -- panel said, the liberal internationalism that

has so dominated all of our lives, that's a factor from roosevelt to obama, was not the norm. it was the default position of the u.s. was not liberal internationalism. it was a more unilateral, perhaps pejoratively isolationist worldview. .s.t was resident to the u ' economic role. i get nervous when i talk about what happened before 1940, but those of you who remember, the 19th century, one of the most animating political issues was the tarriff. in the republican party emerges in many ways as a party of free labor, but also a protectionist, tariff-oriented political party. party'she republican

emphasis on free trade, which we think is normative, was transformative in the period i was talking about. tariffs are usually not fun to talk about and i will avoid too much technical talk, but when people started using the phrase "america first" after the implosion of the american first committee, right after pearl harbor, it is gone and forgotten, but the phrase "america first" does not disappear. throughout world war ii you hear people in town that same phrase. 1943are not saying by let's get out of world war ii, let's stop fighting the nazis or the japanese, but they are portending their fears in the 1940's that the war's end will produce a new economic order oriented more around free trade,

or at least freer trade than the traditional protectionist economic environment that most american manufacturers thought was necessary and useful. that's what i want us to be thinking about, international economic relationships and also much international security relations. the progenitor, the figure most prominent in that movement by the mid 1940's is a man who thought he would be president over and over again, mr. republican, the senator from ohio robert taft, who thought of himself as the ideological heart and practical political leader of the republican party for about 10 years. whether he was or is it is an interesting question we will talk a little bit about here today. what i want to get across is in u and the940's, yo

party a clear split about economic issues. this begins in the 1930's, and i want to go back briefly to remind you of something that wasn't mentioned in the prior panel. in the 1930's, there is a war not about domestic policies, but about how economic production ill move forward during the great depression and immediate aftermath. franklin roosevelt aligns himself with economic internationalists. he aligns himself with economic elites invested in international trade and international investment. we tend to think of roosevelt as being famous for his speech recalls that captains of industry and describes them as being the new robber barons of the 20th century, but he was closely aligned with wall street bankers. there were several bank that supported his campaigns throughout the 1930's. why?

was alignedevelt towards international trade and international investment. republicans were aware of that. some agreement -- agreed with that. dewey was in line with the same approach. it was also aligned from the economic interests. ohiot taft, senator from was not. the allied himself with midwest manufacturing interests. they were extremely trepidations about the idea they would face economic competition from abroad based on lower wages. and closer access to resources. when roosevelt begins to move forward with his economic agenda in the 1930's, sorry about this, passing the 1934 reciprocal trade agreement, the republican party splits over this very specific economic engine of

growth. taft and others opposed it, anti-free-trade. robert half would front of any group that would have him and say over and over again republican party is opposed to free trade. it was that explicit. we do not support free trade. it is not good for the american people. it is not good for american business or the american standard of living, which i guess he meant american wages. the big divide in the republican party from the 1930's to the 1940's was over trade policy. is only think of america first in the 1940's and 1950's, we should think about the divide over nato. should the united states support the general agreement on trade in tariffs? should the u.s. agreed to be the supporter of international investments?

but tariffs, protectionism, was at the core of these policies. when we see trump talk 70 years later about these same issues, he is not denying the roots of the party ironically, but returning to them in some fundamental ways. i think that is something we had not reckoned with much in this time. in the 1940's, taft and eisenhower start over this issue. in 1951, taft hopes he will become the republican nominee for the presidency in 1952. he gives a speech in the senate where he lays out his economic vision for the united states. he says explicitly the united states should maintain a high tariff economy. argues vociferous against the united states getting favorable

terms to capital investments outside united states. he is trying to figure out mechanisms by which money has to be maintained in the united states. when dwight eisenhower decides he will run for the presidencyn and any hitchcock to make sure you screw this up too badly, eisenhower explicitly repudiate the economic messages that taft has laid out. he exquisitely says the united states will have to enable a share economy that will prosperity for countries around the world if we are going to create a secure, stable environment for the united states peoples and the peoples around the world. taft is generated and goes out -- infuriated and goes out to reporters and says he is putting foreigners ahead of americans. he does not use the phrase

america first but it is implicit in that period of time. most republicans are divided over this issue. up, 1947ld war heats senators and numbers of house have to explicitly vote on support for the new internationalism built around the ideal of the united states standing off the soviet union, there is a lot of hedging and the republican party. taft starts to change his position. he recognizes the u.s. will have to play another role. taft is a fierce anti-communist. he believes there will have to be extraterritorial defenses for the u.s. to support our allies. he believes limited foreign investment is necessary. he believes some small enough to foreign aid will be useful. he does not support the marshall plan. he does not support mass investment. over and over he says he cannot

allow reciprocal free trade agreements to come up. -- january, 1953, as eisenhower gets the nomination and will become inaugurated as president, safed li -- taft lists priorities for his agenda that he will pursue. first and foremost is the fight against reciprocal free trade agreement. second is the fight against u.s. foreign investment being given favorable treatment under the tax code. he continues a series of lists. he sees a political economy built around protecting domestic manufacturers in the united states and maintain american standards of living. in order to protect the american people from what he sees is tradeiotic -- unfair advantage as others have over the united states.

a difficultaces situation when it comes to these economic questions. he has to convince both democrats, who have often been ambivalent about trade because of their allegiance to trading in movements, but also present industrial base in the republican party, basically the midwest. and to convince them why we have these advantages -- why to give advantages afford people. this comes to a head around japan. japan is slow to develop in the 1950's out of the situation. by the mid-1950's, they are basically dependent on price gruel, and having a hard time rejoining the international prosperous round. -- realm. eisenhower pulls in senate republican leadership and says we are in a difficult situation

with japan. there is a risk they might fall to the influence of china. it is 1955. 1949 the revolution occurred in china. korea is complex and invited. -- divided. the only way they will allied themselves with us is providing favorable trade terms. we have to sacrifice some economic interests to ensure japan can prosper in this new world being built by us, by our leadership. republican leadership is basically caught in the switches between its anti-communist sentiments and is concerned about defending the american worker and american capital from what they see as unfair advantages. this is probably one of the most important votes that takes place and is decided by republican leadership to support a freer fore or an advantage trade

some of america's nascent allies. from the 1950's onward a series of agreements are made by democrats and republicans all through the 1960's. they are providing favorable trade terms for america's allies in europe and asia in this period. it is not reciprocal free trade. it is advantaged trade for our -- so so they can in the they can have domestic international security. during this time america is in some ways enabled by its own prosperity to avoid hard political questions that such arrangements might cause or ensue for a variety of constituents in the united states. sense5 years there is a where the sacrifices eisenhower told the senate colleagues, republican leadership would

ensue, we have to give away something to gain something is mitigated by america's global economic leadership. by the late 1960's that economic --antage begets dissipate begins to dissipate. there are trading troubles over straightforward issues about currency and the gold standard. starts to rise a set of concerns about foreign investment. and whether or not united states can maintain this new set of arrangements. despite changing economic circumstances by the late 1960's and early 1970's, there is no presidential nominee from a major party however that embraces this new economic complexity in terms of international trade relations. itis so built into the cake is hard for most american politicians to reimagine trade relationships.

there is some exceptions. walter mondale against reagan brings up some complexities of these problems. that as not until 2016 major party candidate says essentially the system we created to handle one set of problems perhaps is not as pertinent as it once was. there are probably not many in this room to think that donald trump has the intellectual capacity to imagine the 75 year transition and trade relationships that ensued. gut he understood the transitional period of time, 75 years were traded manages -- advantages were given freely by the u.s., may be that does not play the same way it did in 1947 to 1955. supporter, but america first is in some ways that the stupidest idea anybody

ever said. [applause] >> i would like the microphone. speech, but away my unlike trump i would have to figure it out myself. myself.it up is this on? i wanted to go to something buckley told me when i asked him about this reputation of america first. very much like you articulated at the beginning of the presentation, it has a reputation of being isolationist, nativist, anti-semitic, racist. buckley went on a great length but his reply to why the

reputation was a saint was -- inct wast west v -- sustaine victor's first. wasnt to tell you about my own personal encounter. i went into the committee papers at the hoover institution 25 years ago. it seems like a long time ago i was not inquisitive it to conservatism. it was the progressive wing of the republican party. i was writing about kingman erewster, president of yal in the 1960's and 1970's. he was it prominent liberal republican. he helped found america first committee at yale in 1940, along with a number of students at the

law school. brewster was chairman of the daily news. which is why the law school organizers wanted him as part of the organization. is thing we tend to forget what was the press coverage of america first like at the time? what was the press coverage of isolationism like? was it focused on the midwest? investor partners opposed getting involved in europe, a surprise. water is wet and runs downhill. why were interested in america's aristocracy, people living with dissent, wealthy people -- people of english dissent, people whose parents fought in world war i, livening opposed to world war i. er saidd -- schlessing they were nothing compared to the divisions created in the

run-up to world war ii in america's participation. tore families apart, and particularly in the eastern coastal areas. places like where the people of yale came from. whether students believe this sort of thing? it was in many ways a student movement. we tend to forget that. at least it's a movement that is still a student movement. brewster recruited participants at the ivy league colleges and universities up and down the coast at this time. the acclamations taking forward, yes, they were listening to why the students were saying it, and it have to do with world war i, but a lot of it came down to the victory of scientific naturalism over more edwardian ways of thinking. these four negative debunking furies that showed up and social scientes.

yale was a hotbed of legal realism. it was characterized as the law is what the judge believes it is. the old ways of thinking are irrelevant. that is what the students believed. the victorian fussiness and elevation of these outdated ideals were that modern were not going to take it. brewster's co-editor described as arld war i subterfuge reported. chestnuts out of the fire. this is where the emphasis was in that period. we tend to forget world war i as a liberal republican movement because the people in the movement did not defend it after the war. obviously they all joined the services and fought in the war as well. i talked to robert douglas stewart junior, the founder of the organization at yale and asked how he felt about the reputation of the first

committee after world war ii. obviously we did not listed on our resumes. if it was as vile as was claimed, there would've been something like frustration with regard to people who have been members of it. there wasn't. in fact, most people at yale like potter stewart, gerald ford, kingman brewster, sargent shriver became ardent internationalists. it was awful for brewster to be an amendment. it meant he understood the movements of the 1960's and this unpatrioticf the students of the 1960's who were shirking their military duty to fight in vietnam and opposed by the patriotic members of the greatest generation that fought, it was a comparison because the students in russian opposed going into world war ii a of the greatest

generation opposed going into world war ii a generation earlier. a gay brewster insight into how student limits behaved, and how to react to them. his best friend at yale was george bundy in the class of 1940, denard interventionalists. he wrote a zero hour summits to the free, a famous book edited ned the lessonsened of munich which led to vietnam. some may have stemmed from their prewar experiences as well. the other thing that people who had been involved in the committee to start the learned was that populism is dangerous. stewarthe things that said that stuck with me was it was a make -- it was a mistake to change the name. it was meant to counter the committee. they chose a parallel name.

emergency committee to defend america first. when you take out the defend part, it changes from a distinction from a means to an end. you want to defend america first, somebody else first. mentioned that the organization escaped delete non-membership constitution. it became a popular organization, and a populous organization and you had all these other organizations coming in. that's why the committee dropped out well before december 1941. act dropped out after the was passed in 1941. a lot of people disassociate themselves with child -- charles bloomberg's remark -- charles lumberg's remark.

i would did unto stanford to talk to him himself. the thing about buckley, he was tentative of some of his positions. it was important for the evolution of american services him the buckley said i made a mistake about segregation. federal government intervention was necessary in the south was not going to involve itself. buckley never repented. he continued to maintain that the united states made a disastrous mistake by entering world war ii. that buckleyessons and some of the other conservatives took with them, from the experience, where gary -- four very different -- were very different. one thing buckley saw was this was a populist movement that could be turned to conservative ends. there was a mass popular market for conservative ideas. that was one of the real lessons he drew.

he also further believed it was andforced by mccarthyism massive resistance against desegregation. one of the greatest moments of his entire life was when he was at the american rally in new york city with john flynn and charles linberg. the people gathered of one accord. this is where populism comes in. i've been reading this book " andd "anti-pluralism populism really has its basic conception that the people are unitary and one and correct. and they are ever fortunate by thwarted byer elites. that isg that happens bad, it must be the fault of the elites. this was the story of world war ii. the american people did not want

to enter into this conflict. the polls showed 80 present opposition to intervention in world war ii unless the united states wasn't attacked before the war. the people had to be manipulated into the war, it was fdr doing most of the manipulation. that fdr had chosen to defend britain before the united states and pearl harbor outpost, therefore, inviting attack. a concern of fdr having advanced knowledge in suppressing the knowledge so that we would be drawn into world war ii against the people. episodehe very first where you see the conservative appetite conspiracy theories about the treachery of the government. the on that, buckley said it was not just roosevelt, it was the establishment or establishments of all kinds.

buckley was one of the first people to popularize establishment as a word. they had deprived the people of a free choice in 1940 by nominating when the wilson -- wendell. he was much more of an interventionist and roosevelt -- than roosevelt. from this buckley, and the other conservatives, there was a hidden majority of americans who would respond to the conservative message if they were given a choice between the tweedledum of the democratic party and the tweedledee of the republican party. not just ad it was republican establishment, not just fdr, it was the liberal establishment at large. he never chose to specifically defined that because it was useful not to define it. he really meant you leads in both parties, elites more

generally. the big metropolitan newspaper, the media, the radio stations, the universities, the big protestant now mission. any kind of organization -- protestant dalmatian, any kind of organization like that. afc is aof the reflection of jew haters and and as buckleys, would see it, comes from that. time magazine kept attacking charles bloomberg during the war itself which provoked the young buckley to write not just a letter for anti-americanism but, to report the times to the fbi in the hope they would do something about it. again, from this came the conviction after the war that the establishment had to be brought down by any means necessary. we're all familiar with

conservative animists against the media. frank siegel has pointed out was in manyyism ways the politics of revenge against the establishment. but, it was not just revenge against the foreign-policy establishment, it was revenge against all the establishment. there was an interesting quote from pat buchanan he said, you know, the great thing about mccarthy was that he did to the american establishment what the new deal democrats had done to the business elite in wall street. he forever destroy the american people's belief in their natural leadership. this, stemmed from battles before leading up to world war two itself. even the talk we have now a days about political correctness went back to this.

any kind of revisionist scholarship was beyond the bounds and not allowed. one man was ostracized from the profession for insisting on provision is him. mr. buckley was the symbol of the establishment, in the course of authority. buckley himself believed in coercive authority. as he sought, the left would not andt that pearl harbor everything leading up to pearl harbor was the foundational error of the entire subsequent post air enterprise. oakley saw the whole world as some sort of a mistake. was heous statement wanted to stand before history and you'll stop. in the didn't believe history that came out therefore, he was not that invested in

vietnam arguments. world, you created this it is your mess, you deal with it. it was a sort of washing of the hands. this was the third leg of the stool that tied libertarian conservatism with other kinds. the other two forms did not have much in common but they could agree on anti-communism as the -asis for fusion is him -0- fusionism. , but were variations again, their love of asia was only skin deep. no one really cared about india, people got bored when it came to it. buckley also would be the first theoint out that anti-communism was, itself, a

compromise with the original revision of robert cap. people went along with taft -- robert taft. people went along with taft. side, far libertarian there was real missed lj for taft idea of prewar america as a nightwatchman state. states would not be intervening in conflict in which it had no interest. there would not be big governments that americans came to accept. buckley i think also drew another lesson from the america first experience, which was that greate saw it, linberg's announcing his anti-semitism publicly.

never made peace with the international order and i don't think a lot of conservatives did either. the last big isolationist movement, however you want to call it, was after world war ii. it was for america in the early 1950's. it was organized around support of the amendment by an indiana to requirech aimed congressional authorization for executive declaration of war or other kinds of intervention. anyways, the suspicion of the executive lingered on through the eisenhower years, on into the next and years in nation's opening to china and persisted to the reagan years. it has never really come to rest. one pointed out that while i solismt him -- while i

disappeared, this is a lake in tendency. it can be drawn upon -- it is a .ate contingency it can be drawn upon. people do not want to be the whole international institutions and many don't trust the organizations that they are feeling they are being hard done by. it has never been eradicated. for this thing, isolationism will continue. [applause] >> beverly gage could not make it, so i asked her if it would be all right if i read selective

portions of the papers she submitted and she said that i should do so. i will not three her whole paper, by any means, but i will read a few key passages that i think convey the essence of it. i think it is an important paper and leaves a lot for us to think about. so, i begin. 1940, white house aide, franklin roosevelt's eight, stephen, dispatched a fresh stack of telegrams to the fbi. mightresident thought you like to look them over, noting the names and addresses of the senders." that was suggested to early fbi director j edgar hoover. five days earlier, reacting to peddler's invasion -- kittler's

invasion of france -- hitler's invasion of france, ominous days were warned about. they called upon americans to act before it was too late. the president's request that those "look over," letters and keep tabs on their senders has often been told as a story of presidential overage, a demand for a naked political favor in an election year from an executive french appointee, duty-bound to stay out of the electoral fray. this speaks to a long and rocky investment in politics. here is hurt key paragraph. hoover -- here is her key

paragraph. it underscores one of the central paradoxes of the fbi's director career. hoover came of age in the heyday of the liberal state. the tiny bureau of investigation became the mighty fbi during the roosevelt years. in effect, if not in every detail, the fbi was just another new deal alphabet agency. at the same time, hoover had little patience for many of the new deals ideological presumptions including the liberal internationalism at the heart of roosevelt's war effort. with the end of the war, the vast bureaucracy built to secure roosevelt's political vision became a vehicle for promoting

hoover's own american first message. in which, the struggle against the communist party and its allies, reign supreme. twist, thecal president himself might have appreciated the domestic created toe service serve roosevelt's ideal of a new deal for the world ultimately became one of the greatest state centered constraints on new deal liberalism, and on roosevelt's postwar domestic legacy. hoover's investigation into roosevelt's anti-interventionist critics far from being an isolated incident of overage, was part of the fbi's response to early requests and it fit a

broader pattern of expanding intelligence and espionage operations. these efforts continued. indeed, they expanded again after pearl harbor. the america first committee officially dissolved in december 1941. the fbi continue to track its activities, warning of members hope that the america first committee can again be a political force. instead, it was the fbi itself that emerged from the war as a formidable and increasingly independent political force with its own interpretation of what america first might mean. "let us be steadfast for america. and and live for america,

eternally be on guard to defend our constitution and our way of life against the very lint -- verlient ideology." by this point, hoover had acquired both the bureaucratic power and the political influence to help make that division a reality. after six years of wartime expansion, hoover found himself in a position to realize his own and to prodagenda, the country into its next great home front battle. [applause] we have a lot of food for thought here.

i have questions but i think the discussion earlier this morning was really good so, let's start off with conversations from the audience -- questions from the audience. >> the great thing about organizing a conference is you can always ask the first question of every panel. panel and terrific you set the stage for a really interesting dissection -- discussion. i want to ask you both, david and jeff a little bit about elites versus the people. geoff a little bit about elite versus people. it is understood that populace is organizing -- is working people. you've shown us that the america first movement and others are

preeminent american elites. robert taft with a harvard and yield agree as the son of a president and buckley, one didn't say more about his elitism. elites ofas pulled their stature and standing, their sophistication, their education level, their understanding -- their cosmopolitanism, dare i say it, to becoming the tribune of populace. say, neither of these two men, would want to spend an afternoon with rubber and elbows -- rubbing elbows. why did they feel they were there to speak for the people that were the great unwashed, the people they probably would not let into their own club. the first thing to ponder is who is an elite and on what terms.

intriguingly did not go to new york city after he graduated from yale law school, but instead, went back to ohio and became a member of the leading firm in ohio that represented manufacturers in his home state. so, he was definitely a member of the elite, but not that elite. i think one of the things that we do at our peril is unified ratherte in our states, than recognize the tremendous battles they go on within elites. rule of thumb is that the new in theused a rift economic elite in the united states. it was not roosevelt, the tribune of the people, versus the economic royalist on the other side. again, i said it in the speech but it is useful to understand a ednd of peace was reach

between big bankers and the democratic party. that had massive repercussions throughout. taft was not aligned with the banking industry in the 1940's and 50's. eisenhower had a much closer relationship with those kind of folks. i'm not saying that is good or bad, they are both the elite have interests. but, have very different interests. the republican party has been wrestling with those contending -- we can put it as simple as terms as main street and wall manufacturers,t going to one very specific because i wrote up look about it and maybe you should all buy it, i wrote a book about general motors and the leader of general motors. he is vastly wealthy and delete in all senses of the word, he supported robert taft throughout. he was anxious about eisenhower, because general motors had done a very particular kind of corporate structuring where,

,ather than exporting products they bought companies all over the world and allowed those germany, or england, or australia, or canada, or pretty much any major country in the world, to manufacture cars for that whole market. they had a very different take than what was good or bad for general motors in terms of international, economic policy. they gambled on a non-investment oriented approach to an export. to theally gets down particular jesus rather than some sort of abstract ideology particulars,- rather than some sort of abstract ideology of elites. chris nichols said the way to understand america, but here you are telling us, there is a

fragment of the elites, a very significant one, that constitutes sort of a poor element of the america first element, or a -- core of the american first movement, or core element of the linkages. if that is true is it helpful to think of america first as a populist movement against the elites when they are actually led by elites? david: the quick version of that, there is a populist strain in american constituencies that are anxious about foreigners. which foreigners and for what reasons goes to different groups. in some ways, the genius of ronald reagan through donald trump, the continuity there, is figuring out how to explicate which ones are dangerous to you and for what reasons.

there are always some foreigners or others that are dangerous to you. does that make you any legal populace? that makes you a politician. geoffrey: there is a great episode where mrs. robert taft they said do you think your husband is a common man. she said, no, of course not. he was first of his class and yell and law school. it would be wrong for common man to represent ohio. other political professionals were like oh my god. and the audience applauded. it is not a question of who you are, this is the same trap that all the liberals fell into. no one is going to move before donald trump, he is this new york billionaire. they have nothing in common with thhim. it is not about who you are with, it is about to you are against arid trump was against the establishment and the

elites. this is always the essence of populism. this is against the east coast, the bankers, the railroads, and is sometimes against the jews, but it is all of these things as not being perceived as us heartland people. it is also the people who are in your way if you are rising up. like taft, like buckley, becomes the tribune of struggling and insecure middle class. this was made clear to buckley who was no one's idea of a man of the people, when he ran for mayor of new york city. he was running on basic pocketbook issues,/the deficit, that sort of thing, and he got a cute response from the outer borough. they said, screw these elites, screw their liberalism, and you can take him there, buckley, knock them down. so it is not that we can judge

it populace from their but it is more a what kind of establishment they are opposing and how do they do it. those were terrific presentations. i want to follow on geoffrey's discussion, one of the things that struck me on the cold war, was that so many conservatives were leading cold war years and therefore leading internationalists involved everywhere. as soon as the cold war was over, they turned against that end of lessee entirely. this was nott -- just the people known as paleo cons, it was also true of people known as neocons. jean kirkpatrick said it was time to become a normal nation.

thedegree to which internationalism was linked to communism only, not to a sense that they had expressed about america's role in the world was very striking. the question i have, especially since you are certainly right that in the mccarthy era, a lot of anti-communism was pointed at home more than overseas. although it was convenient that you had an enemy like that. if you had to gauge the ofcentage of how much conservative global anti-communism was directed at a amestic battle versus strategic -- was directed by strategic perceptions of how much a threat the soviet union posed, how would you break that down? geoffrey: 90% domestic. it is as simple as that.

i can't think of a lot of really sophisticated conservative foreign-policy analysis from the postwar. period.war a lot of this comes down to the struggle within the republican party itself. complicated, we have to uphold our legacy, and yet, we can modulate this is attacked it -- as a active -- tactic. buts easy to say that, doing it in practice was tough. again, this is all about domestic policy and this is where mccarthyism comes in. mccarthy is not that concerned about what goes on overseas. in a lot of ways, they're not worried about serious

penetration of communism, because there wasn't as much. again, what is he talking about even in hiseds -- wheeling speech. we have been betrayed by the elite, the most beautiful people having the beautiful homes given the best jobs in public. -- in government. what is one of the things mccartney likes to use against the people in the republican party, they are one world oneworlders. it is all stall for domestic consumption. limited concern overseas and even buckley wrote candidly to someone asking if it was his patriotic duty to enlist in the army and go to vietnam. he said some other war, not this one.

if you look at the national review between the late 40's and mid-1950's, there is a battle over these issues. the intellectuals are worried about it. we guy comes out and says really need to worry about the soviet union. we really need to reevaluate the role in our world. it is not for domestic consumption, he is not trying to win votes, he is trying to change the policy of conservative elites and there's a whole 20 pages on this debate in conservatism at a very high level of thinking. not justevel, there is domestic consumption, it is about going past the conservatives before 1946. but, that is 350 people worrying about a tough issue. geoffrey: there's another dimension to this with, communism is the voice of evil and is taken in this world there have to oppose the force of

station in behalf of all that is good in question. that is true and they are not insincere about that. national review, to what extent do they come up with a complete white paper. the only when i can think of is preemptively nuking china before they develop a nuclear weapon. that is not a serious policy. >> thanks for the panel. it moved the needle on my understanding of the postwar area and postwar conservativism. this eclipsedea of of the 75 year regime is interesting. grew marching into the america first with a sense of unity, the correctness he talks about -- that buckley talks about. both of those dimensions raise really important flags that i

think we need to be a little more concerned about, it is elites versus little people, but what is the cohesion here and how does it work in terms of race and ethnicity in terms of creating inside or outside are senses of national citizenship? i sort of agree where david was going at the end of his talk, that maybe we need to think about national identity as a place of political traction. but, it immediately raises questions of integration -- immigration and civil rights that are absent from this. to what extent is this an inclusive understanding of the problem? taft is a good case for this because he was a social progressive. for speaking up for african americans in ohio.

but, he did not believe the federal government had a role to play in adjudicating inequality in the united states. -- a level ofe morality, he was impeccable on these issues. on the level of policy, black americans thought he failed them dramatically and he voted against him at a very specific level. -- of the problems with this america first as a conceptual frame, there are pieces that a guy like me thinks there are worth reckoning with, and then there are ugly pieces of it, from my perspective, and a degree to which it can work as a disaggregated set of options is really politically suspect. the degree to which you lump in "we need a fair trade deal with china," versus "i had people of color" gets complicated fast.

sympathetic to your underlying concerns, but at the level of policy, i think there is room for disaggregation and re-conceptualization and policy change. here's were some of the battle is between the republican party and between the parties -- in the parties. civilss voted for the rights act in the voted act in higher percentages than democrats. nominatedepublicans one man, it felt to 4% under goldwater. thatepublican party, at point, allied itself with the forces in the south who wanted to keep segregation. these things are complicated.

america first had a weak presence in the south. yet, postwar, a lot of the isolation sentiments against the foreign aids and international organizations are coming from this out because the fear in the united nations will eclair some segregation to be into legal -- being illegal according to international law. that gives us energy to move from the segregated forces from the south into the republican party following the southern strategy. these are very, located, but again, there were forces within the republican party pushing back against this at the time. some of this goes back to the wendell wilkie taft. although taft himself was not a racist, he was on the side with a racists ended up. [indiscernible] geoffrey: a lot of

internationalists, especially post war, were using this is propaganda. we are trying to win over these african nations and they are showing all of these pictures of segregation in the south. we have to end this, it is ridiculous, we have to not allow this if we are going to be the leader of the free world. this did not have equal traction on the conservative side. >> i think can predate by the 1930's, you see them on liberal internationalists emma a desire .or more -- a desire there is also a sense by the 1940's that liberal internationalists had made the move from the parochialism of the late 19th-century to a different form of humanity. geoffrey: to complicate this further, there is a sense a man -- among the american first committee that the ethics would

be pressed in world war i rebelling against the establishment. forget, people tend to that one of his great uncles was killed in a bar brawl in texas. thatwas always something came out and made him the tribune of ethnic resentment because he had been consistently pursuing this is a boy. -- this as a boy. art againstkley's communism, did he ever give his opinion on why the vietnamese war was not worth reviving. geoffrey: conservatives not feel --y were ever representativ ever represented in the foreign macon -- in the foreign

policymaking. there was a neat little line which the neo-isolationist's are most concerned about the nations around the world in asia being lost to the enemy. then they become very important. who lost china. iny were prepared to make a vietnam and this was part of what drove lbj to stay there. the fears there would be this repetition of who lost china. this hysteria of the late 1940's if he did not stay in the conflict. again, was buckley committed? em, bythe fall of gi national nations -- he said that was the last patriot we could get behind. the rest will be a bunch of rotten apples. there is also a sense, we have talked about this before, the robert taft position comes back into vogue on the left and

extreme right on certain ways in the 1960's. david: [indiscernible] geoffrey: absolutely. there was a feeling that this might not be a war, this might be a civil war. if anything, we made it worse and we should get it out -- get out. pavement vietnam with parking stripes of we need to but don't get involved in the gradual escalation. i don't think buckley felt any responsibility for vietnam policy. i think he felt free to criticize it from any direction he wanted to. >> was there question there? >> thanks. that was great. one thing i thought would be interesting for us to get into a the was to touch on some of things that david was discussing in terms of free trade, advantage trade, and the in thinking about that overtime. being more particular about what industries they are talking

about, and as you think about the concept of america first pertaining to genuine economic projections of what will benefit the u.s. versus a kind of domestic political consumption of economics nostalgia economics , if you think about the contemporary moment, there were few cold minors, but a lot of people identify with the tradition of coal mining. that you getargue an america first organization in different eras. the question is, revolving around what are the projections here? how are they calculating particular industries and particular source of approaches to advantage trade and trade protectionism in tariffs, and one of the longer legacies looking backwards and forwards? are people in this room that know the stuff better than me, but i will bring up one instance that i think is so fascinating. late 60's, early 70's area where kissinger is

trying to think about issues around the world. secretaryulz, labor keeps raising his hand and the same to them, you guys aren't thinking at all about the international economy. he says all of these things over and over again. ardent pro-free trader and wants to see massive economic investment by the americans around the world. but, they are not thinking about it, is my point. i'm stealing from daniel book.t's nubuck -- new elites are all sitting around the table, and they have their eye on the prize and what is conscious about what is happening 10 years later, that that seeslz is there it, the trajectory. but, the bosses don't. their eyes or somewhere else. i thought that was a great --

eyes are somewhere else. trade has become conventionalized. people were not thinking terribly hard about it at juncture point. that struck me in which the ways of liberal internationalists perspective which was forged in this particular time gets on a glide path. a wholerd to disrupt series of agreements and understandings in conventional ways of approaching a problem. schulz saw it. he is a cool guy. >> a question over here. one second, we will get the microphone. i think mine is a follow-up to the prior question, david, when you spoke about focusing america was not the worst idea. journalsink about the

of the economists, one of the more humorous ones, about trump's protectionist view, the guy wouldn't know the difference between david ricardo and ricky ricardo. thisnk there seems to be anti-intellectual trend. and what i get confused about is, you know, the issue about the free-trade comparative as an advantage where we have generally been such a beneficiary of that and now we seem to be living in a world where extremist guys and guys like gary cohen are pretty well schooled walking out the door. i just have a sense of do we really know where we are headed with this administration and i think nafta is a great example of that.

we will lose x amount of jobs for every new jobs, but if we give these guys a special relationship, we won't. do you guys have a sense of where trade is living? i think it is worrisome to me. david: it is hard to disentangle, isn't it. with theo backwards way things work now. any larger country that is with of united states. i tell my students because the reason you are getting a college education, and globalization is really good for you, but your brothers and sisters who chose not to come to college, tough buddies.hem, huh, i don't think we think about the frome in the united states the trends that develop.

the politics of it comes a blunt when someone like trump manages them that it is hard to see the truth and some of his prescriptions because his policies often don't advance the larger agenda. it will be interesting what develops in term of trade reforms over the next three or four years. there is plenty of room for reform. i'm a democrat, and i think we need to have massive policies that help americans figure out how to make their spaces in the new economic world. we have not done very well on that score. that is my policy prescription, i believe in international trade but i leave and every other -- every other aspect of capitalism, it is fierce. but, people lose, and we have to figure out what happens to those people that don't take the best advantage of what is overall a posterity. true thatisn't it

roosevelt's own conception of liberal internationalism provided for both an open international order nurturing world trade and american engagement commercially with the directly, withd, the commitment to a very active estate at home that would in ress the very problems roosevelt and some of his advisers understood were inevitably engendered by an open world order and the idea was to couple these things together. one of the most things -- striking things about justvelt's commitments before he died, both in 1944 and 1945, when he gave his state of the union addresses, to

reaffirm, we are committed to an open world, we are committed to the four freedoms. but that was coupled with numerous paragraphs about how we also need a strong state at home, we need the state to promote housing, to promote business,to support , andve better farm prices these two things were inherently reconciled together. that was the heart of liberal internationalism during its heyday. say, agreements that you the liberal state, it made sense at one point, but by the 1970's, it carried on because of perpetual motion. i would suggest it did not carry on because of perpetual motion. it carried on because liberal internationalism promoted

unprecedented peace among great powers and also led to unprecedented prosperity. maybe some workers were displaced, but the majority of united states and foreigners supported liberal internationalism during the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, partly because it was coupled with strong action by the state at home and complementary. i think, some of the discussion normalizes america first too much. and, sort of trivializes the unique successes of liberal internationalism. one of the things we need to do at a conference like this is an allies, what aspects of liberal internationalism have a failed, if they have failed, and what are the remedies to that.

does america first really provide the remedies to these problems? i think that is a really critical issue. i have talked to long and i know dale wanted -- andrew, the microphone is there. >> thanks for the panel. it was fantastic. i wish bev were here because i iuld ask her a question that would ask for the rest of the panelists as well. ofas taken of her framing the fbi is an alphabet agency, and when you think of what truman, after the war, could not accomplish with a fair deal, and we think of the national security state -- the emerging national security state as part of the fair deal, and we think 40's tos from the 19 the 1952, all of these bodies created to wage the cold war, those of the last of the alphabet agencies. my question to the panel, especially to geoff, is that we

think a lot about america first as liberalism and the ideology of it. but, mel was saying what about the state which people including liberalists and grassroots conservatives have a really ambivalent relationship with, what do they think of the national security state what the eisenhower calls the military industrial complex. geoffrey: in a paper about mccarthyism, it is only hoover that is mentioned. then again, that is consistent with ellen treader -- shredder's concept as well that hoover should be having it called hooverism because he put it into play.

willmore kindle believed the founding fathers did not intend to pass a bill of rights. the first amendment was a big mistake and should be revoked ammediately because a community needs to come verse co-verse it's norms. racism? acting out of i would not say so but he did not want the status quo to be disturbed. idea that ithe must be communist spy find this because who would want to bring such disruption to the american way of life? as far as the relationship to the big state goes as well, the conservatives understood that some degree of government military was necessary to wage the cold war around the globe and detail the globe are -- big

government and some level. then again, even the conservative movement was changing and the republican party changes too. outcry froms big the eastern wing following nixon's pursue of the southern strategy because it brings in people who do not subscribe to our strategy as cattle. -- as a catalyst. all these things cry out for government protection in some form or another and they captured agencies to deal with them, and we should not be letting these people into the republican party. racial issues and other things aside, sheer economic grounds. unheard andt goes the characters of the party changes are magically after that. some way it makes peace of the aspect of the southerners and the aspects they like.

david: conservatism is another a job word that does not have a good definition. 1920's, go back to the conservatives believed in a very muscular state, but a particular kind. prohibition is a wonderful example of the conservative movement, conservative aggressive is him -- conservative progressivism that demanded this. you can follow this with the drug enforcement agency and most obviously and lavishly, defense spending. there libertarian conservatives that say this is a terrible development and huge mistakes? of course. but, they have been the predominant impulse in a conservative movement, which is different than a conservative ideology. so muscular state development is intrinsic to practical

conservativism as it is for liberalism. >i think melvyn: we have time fr two questions melvyn: -- melvyn: i think we have time for two questions. >> this is a question largely for david. one of the things that strikes me, i love your comparison of taft and eisenhower and what they were after. one of the things that strikes me that was embedded in your discussion, and i could be broadened out is that, in fact, they were fighting over two different aspects of strategic logic here. what is about what is the best means to our end and that is obviously free-trade versus protectionism, but perhaps, more importantly, they were fighting orr whether our ends, national security versus a parochial wealth maximization for certain regions, sectors, it seems whatd eisenhower was all about in the

50's was we have to use free-trade or advantage trade to help others and build our larger sphere because that is about the cold war in winning the cold war. that is national security in the end. free-trade is the means. parochial and seemed to be fighting for certain industries believing protectionism was the best policy. why i think this division is important, and you can conceptualize it in a two by two, why i think this is an interesting way to approach this, if we go back in american history, what we see from the elites hamilton is some arguing for protectionism for national security reasons, which, in the 1790's made sense because we were a small power, we had no bargaining power, had to build our industry. and others who argue for free trade, security reasons, and

others who are like trump or steve bannon, who i dislike both individuals, but i think the logic is that we are not like hamilton, we are the mac truck in this economic industry and we are not using our power for our power interests and national userity, therefore, we can our power tactically, using tariffs to bargain for better deals within this global economic confinement -- environment. isolation economically, it is a bargaining in the short term to assert ourselves and do better in the global economy. what i'm trying to get you to ask is whether trump is more in a way a realist bargainer for hedgemity for the u.s.

rather than a parochial taft like person. david: coal miners. >> [indiscernible] david: all in saying is you are providing a very coherent and logical approach and that could be. i do think some of this is bargaining power and in trying to make leverage. i'm all for that, but i do not as logicallymp is coherent as you are hoping he is in so much as he is a politician at this point of his life and he is trying to maintain certain constituencies and those constituencies are folks that -- think about the long-term prosperity. it is hard to say at this point. geoffrey: trump comes out of the

new york real estate world. a exults in the fact that in transaction, someone wins and someone loses. and he, trump, always gets the better of the bargain. the idea that all parties are better off is the idea that the united states maintained after world war ii, it is a foreign way of thinking. he does not think it is in the united states's interest to deal.in this >> it is not protectionism in the 30's, it is trump saying i want a better deal for the u.s. in that. i won a better deal for china -- with china. it is not we are going to retreat completely, that would be quite protectionist deck -- c.otectionisti you,n: he has convinced

that is the way he would want you to think about it. that is excellent. [applause] david: if you want to draw the link back to the -- geoffrey: if you want to draw that conclusion back, there is a belief that the rest of the world cannot be trusted. they're not like us, they will seek to take advantage of us that we we ought not to deal with them if possible or do so very suspiciously and guarding our interest. melvyn: one last question, philip? on thented to follow-up powerful insight about thinking of this as elites versus other elites. and looking at the particular interest with the outland sloan example, you can make an argument, and i do not think this is the way people see the 50's. they are more authoritarian and their opponents. opponents.ir

let me start on the less obvious version. people whothat general, the support the liberal international order, many of them are in the south and midwest. free much, if you are producing raw commodities, you want free trade. producer or cotton a farmer or you are in mining, in the 1940's and 1950's, you want free trade. caught in nets smith, south carolina, he is representing the textile. textile industries are against free trade. 12 clayton is a texas cotton who has created a general fs and trade,tarif but those who want to control free trade me lots and lots of government authority and government preferential treatment and government intervention in order to get all

of those, and that is part of what runs them into eisenhower, who is actually somewhat of a libertarian conservatism, which hitchcock's book points out. then take it to the political side, the twoian most authoritarian things america does in the 1950's art mccarthyist and jim crow, in terms of government intervention to police the everyday social lives of citizens. those are the two most authoritarian trends in the 1950's, and the old guard republicans and the old america firsters are supporters of them both. james run him, i would argue, is actually a very authoritarian interest in many ways. in i been a trustee the 1940's, and he decides he is

more of a communist. he is an authoritarian thinker. your comments strongly, interestingly bring out buckley's ambivalent relationship, and the notion of their desire for color said onformity -- coercive conformity. bigger establishment and i think the conservatism, , to is a powerful insight me, to merge with your comments of the panel. >> i would argue that buckley is seeking the power of the government to coerce conformity. he wants to work on his own destiny, as the saying was, nationalism, and it goes ballistic when eisenhower since his troops to little rock. he is just in his prime. >> [indiscernible]

geoffrey: federal like the guard some of that is true. this is like the states rights in that aspect, the conservatism of the period. if they are wanting to worry about it, maybe the state is your front, it represents the people, and the will of the people, and it is certainly the conservative thought, i am sure they would be the first to deny they would have been a nod to the french and anyway, but as far as any other aspect of the series, again, i think buckley wanted a coerced conformance is him that would come from -- conformitism that would come and theiety itself, media, maybe it is run by jews, but it is certainly not expressing the will of the people, pushing for change and disturbing the way that the american people should be and the way the american people wanted to be, and he thought that the pushback should come

maybe not from mccarthy but more generally from condemnation and ness.rious hoover and mccarthy, they all seek the same end but through somewhat different means. >> i think we can wrap this up. thanks very much. this has been a terrific session. we will reconvene again at 1:00. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> sorry about that. i forgot i was tethered. >> you are. >> you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming of american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter

@cspanhistory for the latest schedule and to keep up with history news. waslysses s. grant president from 1869 to 1877. betookerving two terms, a world tour with his family. american history tv was at the organization of american historians' annual meeting in sacramento, california, where we spoke with ryan semmes about grant's travels. this is about 20 minutes. mes is anan sem associate professor of your you on subject that a lot of people may not know a lot about, the post-presidency of ulysses s. grant. why? p