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“A Shooting Star of Conservatism”: George S. Benson, the National Education Program and the “Radical Right”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2017
Abstract
This article reassesses the so-called “Radical Right,” a political phenomenon that emerged in the early 1960s and was especially associated with a controversial conservative anticommunism. The article argues that the National Education Program (NEP), which was founded in Arkansas in 1943, made an important and unheralded contribution to the Radical Right and the consequential activism it stimulated in pockets of the South and Southwest. The article also, however, argues that the Radical Right ultimately made a less significant contribution to the subsequent resurgence of conservatism than has often been suggested. Conventional wisdom maintains that it aligned religious, economic, and racial concerns under the umbrella of anticommunism and thereby fostered a distinctly modern conservatism; the NEP demonstrates that these concerns were not as disparate or marginal prior to the 1960s as this narrative assumes. The Radical Right's fixation with communist subversion also often diluted efforts to promote conservative principles – the NEP became less focussed on advancing ideological principles during this period. After the mid-1950s, moreover, the declining legitimacy of McCarthyite politics outwith parts of the South and Southwest undermined the NEP's wider efforts, precipitated the organization's terminal decline, and ensured that the Radical Right created problems for the broader conservative movement.
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References
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32 George Benson, “Major Problems Facing America Today,” 1959, JDBP; Benson, “State of the Nation's Thinking”. Benson did conclude that subversives were laying the foundations for military takeover once the United States was severely weakened from within. War We Are In, Part II: Communism Vs. Capitalism (1963), Prelinger Archives, at https://archive.org/details/WarWeAre1962, accessed 8 Aug. 2014.
33 Benson, “President's Council Luncheon Pepperdine College.”
34 Brenner, “Shouting at the Rain,” 148.
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39 Welch to Bales, 3 Nov. 1959, Welch to New Member, Dec. 1959, Perry Mason to Ward Pogg, 15 April 1961, Bales to Ward Pogg, 23 April 1961, all JDBP.
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49 Keith Harnish, “Letters to the Editor,” San Marino Tribune, 2 May 1962, 9.
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53 Roberts, “Thunder on the Right–V.”
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61 “Crisis for Americans,” Pepperdine Alumni Voice, 1961, 14–15, George Pepperdine Family Papers, Series 11, Box 6, File 5, “Pepperdine College, 6/59-10/9/69.”
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64 “NEP Annual Report 1962/1963,” GSBP.
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66 In Houston the CACC worked with the Missouri Synod Lutheran Churches of Greater Houston to devise a Seminar for Christian Victory over Communism, which also featured NEP materials. Villeneuve, 420; Pamphlet, “What Can Students Do?,” n.d. [c.1961], pamphlet, “Seminar for Christian Victory over Communism,” Feb. 1962, both FBI Freedom of Information File: “Fred Schwarz HQ-5,” ELFOIA; “Anti-Communism Group to Meet in Yucaipa,” Redlands Daily Facts, 3 Jan. 1962, 3; “LA,” Beckley Post-Herald, 1 April 1960, 4.
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69 Ray Fleischman to Ganus, 20 Dec. 1960, Ganus to Fleischman, 4 Jan. 1961, Dick Anderson to Ganus, 6 Feb. 1962, all CLGP.
70 Dochuk, 194, 215; McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 62, 98–102.
71 “A ‘Must’ for Every American,” Redlands Daily Facts, 15 Aug. 1961, 5.
72 “K. C. Council to Show Films,” Torrance Herald, 14 Sept. 1961, 11; “Film about Communism to Be Shown Tomorrow,” Torrance Herald, 8 Dec. 1961, 41; “Mothers Club Sponsors Anti-Communism Lecture,” Torrance Herald, 6 May 1962, 10; McGirr, 62, 103. Operation Abolition (1960) was produced by HUAC and detailed “communist-inspired” anti-HUAC protests in San Francisco. “The Investigation,” Time, 17 March 1961.
73 McGirr, esp. 81–95; “Mothers Club Sponsors Anti-Communism Lecture.”
74 “Communism Film Will Be Shown,” LAT, 7 May 1961, A21; “Here Aug. 20–22,” Florence Times, 13 Aug. 1961, 3; “Sun Spots,” Baytown Sun, 11 Oct. 1961, 1; “600 Will Attend Kiwanis Session,” Arkansas Gazette, clipping, 27 Sept. 1964, GSBP; “Now Is the Time …,” LAT, 24 Sept. 1961, WS4; Villeneuve, esp. 133, 191, 203–4.
75 Ira Smith to Glenn Green, 13 Sept. 1960, Benson to Irénée du Pont, 10 Oct. 1960, both IDPP, Accession 1034, Box 3, File 102; “Anti-Communist Films Stir Nationwide Storm,” LAT, 26 Feb. 1961, C1; “Roster of Attendance at Freedom Forum XXII”; “Final Roster of Attendance, Freedom Forum XXIII”; Cook, “Juggernaut.”
76 Cook, “Juggernaut”; Dudley Lynch, “America's Right-Wing Propaganda Center,” Texas Observer, 23 Jan. 1970, 1–6.
77 CACC Newsletter, May 1958, Schwarz Report Archives, at www.schwarzreport.org/archives, accessed 8 Aug. 2014; “Final Roster of Attendance at Freedom Forum IX,” 22 March 1951, GSBP; “LA,” 11 Feb. 1953, JDBP; “Your Grassroots Report,” Jan. 1957; Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing, 62–99; Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society; Villeneuve, esp. 326–35; Hendershot, What's Fair?, 60–61.
78 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 146; Bogle, Lori Lyn, The Pentagon's Battle for the American Mind: The Early Cold War (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2004), 136–37, 143–45Google Scholar; Bell, Daniel, “The Dispossessed,” in Bell, ed., The Radical Right: The New American Right Expanded and Updated (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 5–6Google Scholar.
79 Suall, The American Ultras, 23; Bogle, 149–50.
80 “‘Alert’ Repudiates,” WP; “Preview of Today's TV,” LAT, 14 Dec. 1961, A14; Bell, “Dispossessed,” 3; Green and Swain to Benson, 22 July 1960; “Sarasotans Urged to Be ‘Alert,’” clipping, n.d. [1960], JDBP; “Map Turns Red,” Hattiesburg American, 22 March 1961, 8A; “Red Subversion Seminar Topic,” El Paso Post Herald, 28 March 1961, 6; “Repudiate Communism, ‘Project Alert’ Speaker Urges,” Illinois State Register, clipping, 26 Sept. 1961, “Searcians Speak at Seminar,” Searcy Daily Citizen, clipping, 3 April 1962, both GSBP; “‘Alert’ Repudiates Hang Warren Blast,” Washington Post, 14 Dec. 1961, 12; Chalmers Roberts, “Thunder on the Right IV,” Washington Post, 21 Dec. 1961, 4, Bogle, esp. 150, 156–58; Villeneuve, 415–18, 435.
81 Green and Swain to Benson, 22 July 1960, CLGP; Benson to Queeny, 24 Oct. 1960, MCR, Series 14, Box 17, Folder “Queeny, EM – Correspondence, Harding College”; Murray Illson, “Norman Thomas Hits Birch Group,” NYT, 20 April 1961, 19; “Memorandum Submitted to Department of Defense on Propaganda Activities of Military Personnel,” 2 Aug. 1961, US Senate, 87th Congress, Congressional Record, 107, Part 11, 14433–39; “Thunder on the Far Right”; Suall; Bogle, 133–63.
82 Ganus to Col. Paul Dolan, 13 July 1959, Dolan to Ganus, 15 Feb. 1960, CLGP; Program, Freedom Forum XXII; “200 Get Basic Lessons of Global Fight.”
83 “Sarasotans Urged to Be ‘Alert’”; “Map Turns Red,” Hattiesburg American, 22 March 1961, 8A; “Wardle to Present Anti-Communist Program Thursday,” Redlands Daily Facts, 13 Feb. 1962, 5; Benson et al. to editor, Kansas City Star, 26 Feb. 1962, JDBP; “Legion Program Will Stress American Heritage,” Catholic Weekly, 18 Oct. 1963, clipping, GSBP.
84 McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 85–86; Bogle, 133–63.
85 See, for example, Schoenwald; Brennan, Mary C., Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995)Google Scholar.
86 James Bales to Benson, July 18 1961, JDBP; Bogle, 134; Woods, Randall Bennett, Fulbright: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 37Google Scholar; “Reading of Memorandum Submitted to Department of Defense.”
87 “Reading of Memorandum Submitted to Department of Defense”; Alexander Holmes, “Fulbright Memo Was Written by Aide,” LAT, 14 Aug. 1961, 1; J. William Fulbright Recorded Interview by Pat Holt, 8 July 1964, John F. Kennedy Oral History Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, at http://archive1.jfklibrary.org/JFKOH/Fulbright, J. William/JFKOH-JWUF-01/JFKOH-JWUF-01-TR.pdf accessed 8 Aug. 2014.
88 “Walker Receives Distinguished Award,” Kerrville Mountain Sun, 24 Sept. 1959, 1; “Freedom Forum Facts,” 1959, IDPP, Accession 1034, Box 11, File 155; Dochuk, Bible Belt to Sunbelt, 235; Schoenwald, 100–23.
89 Lichtman, Protestant, 236; Villeneuve, 541–62; Dochuk, 236; Mason, Robert, “Kennedy and the Conservatives,” in Hoberek, Andrew, ed., The Cambridge Companion to John F. Kennedy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 225–39, 227–28Google Scholar.
90 Bell, “The Dispossessed,” 5–6.
91 Suall, The American Ultras, 17.
92 James A. Savage, “Save Our Republic: Battling John Birch in California's Conservative Cradle,” PhD thesis, University of Kentucky, Lexington, 2015; James Clayton, “John Birch ‘Antis’ Point Unwelcome Spotlight,” Washington Post and Times-Herald, 26 March 1961, 2.
93 Bjerre-Poulsen, Niels, Right Face: Organizing the American Conservative Movement 1945–65 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2002) 205–7Google Scholar.
94 George Sokolsky, “These Days,” Boston American, 14 Jan. 1961, 12; Sokolsky, “These Days,” Washington Post and Times-Herald, 14 March 1961, 1; Sokolsky, “These Days,” Times-News, 10 April 1961, 2; Brenner, “Shouting at the Rain,” 220–22; “Gen. Walker Criticized,” San Bernardino County Sun, 14 April 1962, 44.
95 Ganus to Green, 25 July 1961, CLGP; Statement of Strom Thurmond, 26 July 1961, United States Senate, 87th Congress, Congressional Record, 13594–617; Villeneuve, 9–10, 386–92; “Thunder on the Far Right”; Dochuk, 234–37; Crespino, “Strom Thurmond's Sunbelt.”
96 See, for example, “Debate between Harry Bridges and Fred Schwarz before Commonwealth Club,” 22 Oct. 1962; Schwarzreport.org, atv http://schwarzreport.org/videos/fred-schwarz-bridges-debate, accessed 9 Jan. 2011; W. Cleon Skousen, ‘The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society,’ 1963, JDBP.
97 Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, 98; “National Program Letter,” Oct. 1961, HAPP, Box 147, Folder 5; Bales, Memorandum; Benson, “Revolution against Freedom,” 21 April 1964, JDBP.
98 Benson et al. to editor of Kansas City Star, 26 Feb. 1962, “From the People,” Arkansas Gazette, 3 May 1964, clipping, both JDBP; Benson, “Objections from Arkansas,” The Sun, 18 Aug. 1962, 12; Clifton Ganus et al. to Turner Catledge, 1 Oct. 1964, “George S. Benson,” Arkansas Gazette, 18 Oct. 1964, clipping, both GSBP.
99 George Benson, “Address to Freedom Forum XXVI,” April 1965 GSBP; Bales to Benson, 3 May 1965, JDBP.
100 Villeneuve, 390–93; Cabell Phillips, “Right-Wing Officers Worrying Pentagon,” NYT, 18 June 1961, 1; “Dr. Benson Widens His Target Sights,” Arkansas Gazette, 16 Sept. 1961, 4.
101 “Michigan Halts Showings of ‘Distorted’ Films,” WP, 7 April 1961, 19; “Anti-Communist Films Stir Nationwide Storm,” LAT, 26 Feb. 1961, C1.
102 Hoover to [name redacted], 5 July 1961, ELFOIA, “Communist Target – Youth-HQ-5”
103 Villeneuve, 533.
104 Benson to Irénée du Pont, 29 Aug. 1959, IDDP, Accession 1034, Box 3, File 102; “National Education Program Annual Report 1962/1963,” GSBP; “NEP Annual Report 1962/1963”; “LA,” The Courier, 29 Dec. 1977, 4; Group Research, “Special Review”; Benson, “Letter to Editor,” Washington Post, 11 Nov. 1964.
105 Villeneuve, 606–7; Forster and Epstein, 81–86.
106 Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society; Hendershot, What's Fair?, 68; Martin, William, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1996), 76Google Scholar.
107 Carleton, Don E., Red Scare! Right-Wing Hysteria, Fifties Fanaticism, and Their Legacy in Texas (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1985), 304Google Scholar; Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 40–68, passim.
108 Roche, “Cowboy Conservatism,” 82–83; Bell, Jonathan, California Crucible: The Forging of Modern American Liberalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 169–82Google Scholar; McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 119–21; Schuparra, Kurt, Triumph of the Right: The Rise of the California Conservative Movement, 1945–1966 (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), 57–58Google Scholar; James A. Savage, “Save Our Republic: Battling John Birch in California's Conservative Cradle,” PhD thesis, University of Kentucky, Lexington, 2015.
109 “Benson is Out of Race,” Searcy Daily Citizen, 2 May 1962, clipping, GSBP; Woods, Fulbright, 298.
110 Shermer, Sunbelt Capitalism.
111 Woods, Black Struggle.
112 See, for example, Cook, “The Ultras”; Forster and Epstein; Bell, Radical Right.
113 “Gov. Nelson Rockefeller is Out to Stop Senator Barry Goldwater,” Daily Banner, 18 July 1963, 1; “LA,” Malakoff News, 24 July 1964, 2; Cook, “The Ultras”; McGirr, 110–46; Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing, 61–161; Brennan, Turning Right; Brenner, “Shouting at the Rain,” 247–48.
114 Schoenwald, 61–161.