BOOK REVIEWS: ‘A Gift of Freedom’ Tells Story of John M. Olin Foundation: Major Source of Conservative Intellectual Funding; ‘High Stakes’ Exposes World of Greyhound Racing and Opponents in Alleged Animal Rights Groups
Reviewed By David M. KinchenHuntington News Network Book Critic
Hinton, WV (HNN) – News flash: The John M. Olin Foundation, based in New York City, has closed its doors, as of November 2005. Many would ask what the heck is the John M. Olin Foundation. For those who don’t know about this important source of funding for the conservative “counterintelligentsia,” in the words of Nixon cabinet official and later president of the foundation William E. Simon, I recommend “A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America” by John J. Miller (Encounter Books, $25.95, 248 pages, illustrated, indexed).
Just about everybody has heard about liberal foundations and think tanks like the Ford Foundation and the Brookings Institution, but little is written – of a positive nature, at least – about conservative foundations. The mainstream media usually tags them as “right-wing”, while never characterizing the liberal ones like Ford, Rockefeller and Brookings and the MacArthur Foundation or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as “left-wing.”
The John M. Olin Foundation is arguably the most influential conservative foundation, having provided funding for such influential writers as Allan Bloom, whose “Closing of the American Mind” sold more than 1 million copies – an astounding number for any book, fiction or nonfiction – beginning in the late 1980s. The Olin Foundation, which began its major funding efforts in the wake of the leftist takeovers – sometimes literally – of prestigious universities like Cornell and Columbia -- also funded influential and groundbreaking legal economic programs at major universities around the nation, supplied money for conservative campus publications like the Dartmouth Review and helped publications like the American Spectator survive and become influential in the burgeoning conservative and neoconservative movements.
Miller writes about neoconservatives in a far more inclusive manner than Patrick J. Buchanan, who more often than not equates neoconservatives with formerly liberal Jews who have hijacked his beloved Republican Party – as if there were a religious test for becoming a Republican. National Review writer Miller notes that former Democrat William Bennett, an Irish Catholic from Boston, is as much a neoconservative as Irving Kristol, a New York Jew; both benefited from the Olin people in financial and intellectual support. This position is in keeping with the big tent conservative philosophy of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.
Simon’s catchy word “counterintelligentsia,” which appeared in his ghost-written book “A Time for Truth,” summed up the foundation under his governance. Olin President Simon (1927-2000) was a New Jersey-born Catholic who got along well with neoconservatives of whatever religion, unlike his fellow Catholic Buchanan, who hates them all. Among the many non-Jewish neocons cited by Miller are Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Dinesh D’Souza, as well as Michael Joyce, executive director during the growth period of the 1970s and 1980s. Joyce left Olin in 1985 to head up the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, another conservative group founded by industrialist Harry Bradley (Allen-Bradley).
John M. Olin (1892-1982) was a son of the founder of the Olin munitions (Winchester Repeating Arms, Olin ammunition) and chemical company. Miller tells how John M. Olin, in the manner of rich men since time began, started his foundation in 1953. The foundation didn’t become influential as a source of conservative support until the militant takeover of Cornell, Olin’s alma mater.
Under Simon and Joyce, and later executive director John Piereson, the John M. Olin Foundation – Miller uses the full title throughout to distinguish itself from a foundation started by Franklin Olin, John’s father -- funded conservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research and the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace.
Beneficiaries included such scholars as Francis Fukuyama (“The End of History and the Last Man”), Samuel P. Huntington (“The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”), Irving Kristol’s son William Kristol, Heather Mac Donald and Thomas Sowell (“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” recently reviewed on this site), as well as people like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, who both got their start at conservative college publications funded by Olin’s Collegiate Network.
Miller devotes considerable space to Huntington, a Democrat who served in the Carter Administration. The John M. Olin Foundation was surprisingly flexible about its support for diverse opinion leaders, such as Sam Huntington, who almost immediately began “demolishing” Fukuyama’s “End of History” concept, Miller writes. He notes that Huntington received far more financial support from the Olin people than did Fukuyama. The Olin Foundation also funded to the tune of $50,000 a Brookings Institution study – at the request of Brookings – that led to a seminal work on school choice, vouchers and charter schools, “Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools” (Brookings, 1990).
Olin and Simon never intended the John M. Olin Foundation to last forever. Olin especially feared that it would morph into another Ford or Rockefeller foundation should it last many years past his death, Miller writes. Olin was especially worried that left-wing opponents of free enterprise would somehow seize the assets of the foundation and alter it beyond recognition. Many conservatives have regretted this sunset provision.
Given complete access to the archives of the John M. Olin Foundation – as well as receiving funding from the foundation (he says there was no editorial control over what he wrote), Miller provides a surprisingly readable history of both the foundation and the resurgent conservative intellectual movement in the U.S., which led to the election of Ronald W. Reagan in 1980 and continues to this day with the high visibility of conservatives and neocons in the George W. Bush administration. Bush 43 even has a back of jacket squib, taken from a letter of congratulation he wrote to the foundation earlier this year:"Today, our Nation is stronger because we have advanced the ideals of private enterprise, freedom, and the rule of law. By supporting policies that strengthen our democracy, the John M. Olin Foundation has helped uphold the vital institutions and values that make America great. I appreciate all those at the Olin Foundation who give their time, energy, and talents to deepen our understanding of public policy, free government, and the judiciary."
Publisher’s web site: www.encounterbooks.com
John M. Olin Foundation web site: www.jmof.org
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I gave up trying to characterize Ron Hevener’s “High Stakes” (Pennywood
Press, 600 pages, $12.95) after only 100 or so pages into the book. It’s a
documentary about the clash of civilizations between greyhound breeders and
racers and animal rights groups – or “so-called animal rights groups,” as
Hevener would have it.
Set in Pennsylvania and West Virginia – which has dog tracks at Cross Lanes and Wheeling – “High Stakes is a thriller, a murder mystery and a romance novel all in one, capped off by information at the back of the book about greyhound adoption programs after the end of racing careers and other information.
Frankly, this is a somewhat jumbled book, difficult to read because of time shifts and a huge mob of characters. A list of the characters would have helped, along with better editing. I suspect there was little or no editing as is usually perceived in the publishing business.
Prominent among the characters are “handsome” Mark Whittier, who finds a lost greyhound on the mountain, a find which leads him to find and fall in love with dog breeder Felicia McCrory. Call it Harlequin on a leash! But you’ll love it if you’re into greyhound racing and dogs.
“High Stakes” is available from Amazon.com, Dogwise.com, Pennywood Press (1338 Mountain Road, Manheim, PA 17545 phone: 717-664-5089) or from the author's website (www.ronhevener.com).