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Chapter 8 Building Consensus The republican right and Foreign Policy, 1960–1980 Sandra Scanlon D uring the early stages of the campaigns for the 1968 republican presidential nomination, the conservative movement spearheaded by Barry goldwater was reported to have “collapsed, leaving a bad taste in many mouths.” according to one analyst, the “delay and bickering” among conservative activists were simply aiding the efforts of moderate and liberal republicans such as george romney to capture the nomination.1 goldwater’s focus on winning the Senate seat that he had left to pursue the presidency in 1964 certainly diverted his attention from promoting a national conservative electoral strategy. while ronald reagan moved tentatively to fulfill goldwater’s role as a unifying figurehead for the diverse conservative movement, he did not possess sufficient political leverage to secure this goal in 1968. as such, while the lament in early 1968 for conservative activism may have been overstated, it reflected the weaknesses associated with public divisions among conservatives. Scholarly explanations for the 1960s and 1970s republican resurgence conventionally emphasize the role of conservatives in mobilizing grassroots activists and in popularizing antistatist ideas. These accounts usually neglect, however, the seriousness of the divisions that existed not only between goldwater republicans and moderate or liberal republicans, but also among conservatives themselves. Such divisions were especially serious between the republican right—office-holding republican politicians who were on the party’s right—and movement conservatives, whose political engagement took place outside party politics, within extra-party organizations and publications. Divisions were most visible when republicans were in power—when party loyalty dictated republican support for the administration’s agenda, but when the governing demands of pragmatism were most likely to disappoint principle-focused movement conservatives. Despite the importance of antistatism to modern american conservatism, divisions were sharpest in the realm of foreign policy. Such divisions, furthermore, represented a significant obstacle to conservative success in achieving influence within the republican Party. 143 This chapter analyzes, first, the ideological and political significance of conservative divisions. Second, it argues that these divisions prevented the achievement of sustained influence during the “new majority” project of the nixon years. Third, it explores how, after nixon, the republican right and movement conservatives secured agreement on foreign policy in a way that successfully promoted their concerns both within the party and among the wider electorate. ronald reagan played an important role in leading conservatives toward such an agreement, but the disappointments in foreign policy during the Carter years created fertile ground for conservative progress. in this sense, conservative advance relied on liberal setbacks. The search for consensus on the right was long-standing, and during the 1970s was born chiefly from practical political considerations learned from the debilitating effects of division during the nixon administration. The republican right’s embrace of the new right was, as such, a means of achieving the key goal of purging the party of its moderate albatross. But the effort to build consensus on the right also encompassed the endeavor to promote a unified foreign policy, one that embraced the republican right’s traditional commitment to fighting the Cold war and opposing détente, but which also responded to popular anxieties about the United States’ position in the world. The conservative foreign policy consensus that was formed included the ideas of politicians and intellectuals preoccupied with the ideology of the early Cold war and also the emphasis on morality and american values promoted by the new right. in many respects nothing more than a tenuous alliance of related viewpoints, the republican right’s ability to harness a foreign policy consensus did much to extend its political leverage in the creation of a republican majority. The nixon years represent a period of intense division among conservatives, but they are certainly not unique in this regard. The isolationist wing of the conservative movement was discredited by the intensification of the Cold war and by the appeal to nationalist conservatives of Dwight D. eisenhower’s embrace of both fiscal responsibility and internationalism. But the unifying power of anticommunism during the post-1945 period can be contested. Division existed over the degree to which the Cold war environment warranted the growth of the national security state and the american embrace of world leadership through such programs as the Marshall Plan and institutions like the United nations. Veering between anti-interventionism and support for heightening Cold war activism, the republican right failed to formulate a consistent and unified position on foreign policy. in part, this...

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