12 I CHRONICLESnVIEWSnMODERN CONSERVATISM AND THEnBURDEN OF JOE McCARTHY by Thomas C. ReevesnMany political experts have attempted to explain thenrise of the right in recent years. At the close of WorldnWar II there was no unified, articulate conservative movementnin the United States. Forty years later, Ronald Reagannwas serving his second term in the White House, scores ofnconservative organizations were wealthy and growing, conservativenpublications flourished, and the GOP was makingna serious bid to become the nation’s most popular politicalnparty. By the mid-1980’s, the Democratic coalition forgednby Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression was clearlyndefunct. The left seemed increasingly out of touch withnpublic opinion.nThere is no simple explanation for the swift emergence ofnthe right. In the most useful examination of the phenomenon.nThe Conservative Intellectual Movement in AmericanSince J 945, George H. Nash distinguished three componentsnof the intellectual right: the “classical liberals” orn”libertarians” like Hayek and Mises; the “new conservatives”nlike Weaver, Kirk, and Nisbet; and the militantnanti-Gommunists who founded National Review. Thesencategories are not necessarily exclusive; some conservativesncould claim to belong to all three. But they are helpful waysnto point to the diversity of the right in recent years.nMany of the militant anti-Communists were ex-radicalsnnnand former Communists. Some were content to rail aboutnCommunist aggression overseas after the war. Most, however,nalso claimed that Communists, fellow travelers, andnliberal dupes in government were responsible for Sovietnvictories. Two of their favorite words were “appeasement”nand “treason.” Among the most prominent anti-nGommunists were James Burnham, Frank Meyer, WhittakernChambers, William F. Buckley Jr., L. Brent Bozell,nWilliam A. Rusher, Willmoore Kendall, John Chamberlain,nand William S. Schlamm. All of these men supportednthe postwar journals of the right: Plain Talk, The Freeman,nAmerican Mercury, and Human Events. They also backedn29-year-old William F. Buckley Jr. when he began publishingnNational Review in November 1955. This magazine, anweekly until 1958 and thereafter a biweekly, quickly becamenthe principal forum for conservative intellectuals.nNash argues that “National Review was far more indispensablento the right than any single liberal journal was to thenleft. … If Natioiral Review (or something like it) had notnbeen founded, there would probably have been no cohesivenintellectual force on the right in the 1960’s and 1970’s.”nMilitant anti-Gommunists dominated the masthead andnthe pages of National Review from the start. Almost all ofnthem had supported the rampages of Senator Joe McCarthy,nand National Review continued to back him after hisncensure by the Senate. Nash concluded that “if McCarthyismnhelped shape the conservative intellectual movement,nit also left that movement weakened and defensive; thenghost of McCarthy has remained a burden upon it.”nBy this, Nash meant that because McCarthy was censurednand generally discredited, his supporters lost face. “Innthe turmoil of the Senator’s downfall, the ‘backlash’ set thenconservative cause back to the pre-McCarthy period.” In anninterview at the time, Buckley conceded that the entirenMcCarthy controversy had injured conservatism “a goodndeal.”nThere is some truth in this; McCarthy’s censure innDecember 1954 was, in William Rusher’s words, “a bonecrushingndefeat” for the militantiy anti-Communist conservatives.nAnd the left would use every occasion for manynyears to link all conservatives with the controversial Sena-nThomas C. Reeves is author of The Life and Times of JoenMcCarthy and professor of history at the University ofnWisconsin—Parkside.n