Nor is the appeal to Justice Sutherland’s opinion in U.S.nV. Curtiss Wright Export Corporation a sound basis for thendoctrine of executive supremacy. Raoul Berger, after anthree-page scrutiny of the decision in his Executive Privilege,nconsiders that “the mischievous and demonstrablynwrong dicta of Justice Sutherland deserve no furtherncredence,” though he devotes another six pages to itsnpulverization. The late Alexander Bickel similarly held thatnJustice Sutherland’s “grandiose conception never had anynwarrant in the Constitution, is wrong in theory and unworkablenin practice.”nConservatives today may perhaps be excused for allowingntheir commitment to Mr. Reagan and his support fornanti-Communist forces in Central America to get the betternof their constitutional judgment, but their abandonment ofna strong, legitimate congressional role in foreign policy is ofnmore than antiquarian interest. Conservative reversal on thisnissue in fact represents a major redefinition of the terms ofnpublic discourse in American political culture.nHistorian Ceorge H. Nash noted, in the 1950’s andn1960’s, “the growing conservative tendency to rely on thenone branch of government which had proved immune tonradical assault: the Congress.” Conservative political leadersnlike Robert Taft, Richard Nixon, Joseph McCarthy, andnJohn W. Bricker all insisted that Congress had a right and anduty to contribute to, investigate, and oversee presidentialnconduct of foreign policy, and their practice found theoreticalnjustification in the writings of Frank Meyer, WillmoorenKendall, James Burnham, and Russell Kirk, among others.nAside from the constitutional merits of the position, thenreason for the conservative defense of Congress lay, as Nashnsuggests, in the fact that the locally based Congress was innlarge part “immune” to the political influence of the forcesnthat dominated the executive branch. The latter, increasinglyncontrolled by a new managerial elite that used New Dealnliberalism and progressivism as its ideological formula,nsought to implement a globalist foreign policy that wouldncomplete the interdependence and integration of the UnitednStates in a transnational world order in which Americannnational sovereignty and cultural distinctiveness would evaporate.nThe United Nations, large regional security pacts,ninternational financial and legal institutions, and multilateralntreaty regimes on matters ranging from genocide to the lawnof the sea to arms control provided the framework for thisnnew global order, in which a technically skilled andncosmopolitan-minded elite would displace traditional, local,nand national elites.nThe transformation of conservative opinion from supportnfor a congressional role in foreign policy to virtuallynunanimous endorsement of presidential supremacy or evennmonopoly in foreign affairs thus represents more than anpartisan eagerness to defend Mr. Reagan’s White House ornresist Communist power in Central America. The verynability of conservatives to win and hold the presidency forneight years indicates less their successful challenge to thenestablished elite and its domestic and foreign agenda thanntheir assimilation by the elite itself Conservative willingnessnto use the rhetoric and ideas of progressivism in foreignnpolicy—“human rights,” the sponsorship of global democracy,ndefense of an “international economy” — matches thenrecent conservative reliance on the executive branch inninternational relations and helps to reconcile the newnconservative program in foreign affairs to the interests andnideology of the dominant elite. Contemporary conservatismnoffers little serious resistance to further absorption of Americannsovereignty and civilizational integrity into what neoconservativenZbigniew Brzezinski calls the “technetronicnage,” and the number of conservatives who today defendnclassically nationalist policies such as protectionism andnPresent-day conservative anti-Communism increasinglynresembles the ineffectual containment strategy of thenelite of the I9S0’s and 1960’s and is largely predicatednon humanitarian and moral concerns over the lack ofncivil and political liberties in Communist states rathernthan on an understanding of the strategic dangers tonthe national interests of the United States of a worldrevolutionarynideology.nrestrictions on immigration is microscopic.nPresent-day conservative anti-Communism increasinglynresembles the ineffectual containment strategy of the elite ofnthe 1950’s and 1960’s and is largely predicated on humanitariannand moral concerns over the lack of civil and politicalnliberties in Communist states rather than on an understandingnof the strategic dangers to the national interests of thenUnited States of a world-revolutionary ideology. Instead ofncalling openly for the overthrow of the Sandinistas andnother Communist gangs, it gingerly demands “free elections”nand negotiated settlements, and the recent movementnof Mr. Reagan’s foreign policy toward acceptance ofnthe Marxist state in Mozambique, the appointment ofnArmand Hammer’s protege, C. William Verity, as Secretarynof Commerce, and the quest for arms control treaties withnthe Soviets is merely the logical extrapolation of the recentntendency of the American right to accommodate itself tonthe goals of the incumbent elite. Exactly how the right hasnbeen subsumed by its one-time rivals for political and socialndominance is a complicated story, but what is now regardednas “mainstream conservatism” has been so enervated in itsnwillingness to offer resistance to the dominant elite and itsnbasic ideology and policies that the fact of its assimilationncannot be doubted.nThe bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution deserves a bitnmore in the way of celebration than firecrackers, docudramas,nand the banalities from right and left of thenIran-Contra hearings. What came out of the Creat Conventionn200 years ago remains the principal political symbolnof a unique and ancient civilization that managerial globalismnand social engineering are trying to subvert, and it isndoubtful that reliance on the instruments that our technocraticnoptimates have devised can preserve either thenConstitution or the cultural fabric that underiies it. If thennew generation of conservatives is serious about wanting tondefend either their civilizational inheritance or the politicalnand legal mechanisms by which their civilization has beenngoverned, they might begin by resisting the temptations ofnpartisan convenience and the baubles of power and reputationnthat their enemies have dangled before them and try tonreclaim a way of life and a method of ruling and being rulednthat their predecessors once understood.nnnMARCH 1988 / 15n