Vol. 16.7, September 1982

THE Libertarian Forum

Murray N. Rothbard, Editor

A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Volume XVI Number 7 September, 1982

BLOCKBUSTER AT BILLINGS

On Sunday, August 8, in Billings, Montana, only a few miles from where the imbecile General Custer got mowed down at the Little Big Horn, the National Committee of the Libertarian Party held one of the most dramatic and significant meetings in its history. Eric O’Keefe, ex-radical turned Craniac National Director, was ousted from his long-held post by National Chair Alicia Clark. Alicia’s right to fire O’Keefe was upheld by the NatCom by a vote of 17-11, after which it was approved by 20-7 Alicia’s naming of former Texas LP Chair Honey Lanham as interim Director for a six-month period.

1. The Chairman’s Right to Fire vs. Bureaucratic Usurpation

LP Bylaws and long-standing custom have granted the National Chair the absolute right to fire the National Director, who is a full-time employee of the NatCom. Furthermore, the Chairman has the sole right to name a new Director, subject to the approval or rejection of NatCom. The reason for this elementary managerial practice is obvious: the Chair works in close day-to-day contact with the Director, and the two must be able to work well together. Therefore, even if the Chair’s firing of the Director was simply personal chemistry, it should have been upheld without question or complaint.

On Sunday morning, before the meeting, Alicia Clark asked O’Keefe for his resignation. Any gentleman, concerned about alleviating trouble for the Party, would have resigned without question. But not only did O’Keefe refuse to resign, he stubbornly refused to accept the Chair’s right to fire him. In the tense opening hours of the Sunday meeting, O’Keefe persisted in claiming that Alicia had no right to fire him, and maintaining that he was and would continue to be the National Director, and would resume his duties in Washington promptly. Things were getting hairy. Would O’Keefe have to be ejected from headquarters for trespass?

Suffused with bureaucratic megalomania, furthermore, O’Keefe made stump speeches, virtually adopting an “I am the Party” attitude, and maintaining his own indespensability to Party success. By taking this absurd and arrogant line, O’Keefe unwittingly helped demonstrate to one and all the necessity for his ouster. What we were all seeing in action was the behavior of a runaway, power-hungry National Director, whose dismissal clearly came none too soon

Taking up O’Keefe’s preposterous assertion of his immunity from discharge by the Chair was the stunned, shocked, and apoplectic Crane Machine, led by “Mr. Robert’s Rules” himself, Jim Johnston. In a claim even more idiotic than usual, Johnson asserted that the Chair did not even have a legal right to rule on his point of order. (It is said that every year the Illinois LP auctions off, at high rates, Jimmie’s dog-eared copy of his previous year’s Robert’s Rules). Johnston even had the discourtesy to block unanimous consent to allow the NatCom to hear the arguments of the Chair’s parliamentarian, I. Dean Ahmad. Alicia of course ruled against Johnston’s point, and the motion went to the full NatCom. It needed a two-thirds majority to overrule the Chair, but the Chair won out on her right to fire O’Keefe by the comfortable majority of 17 to 11.

2. The Craniacs Go Wild

The chair submitted the name of Honey Lanham as Interim Director. The Craniacs then began to pepper Alicia with questions about Honey Lanham’s background, including many insulting ones. It was particularly fascinating to see the self-styled Best and Brightest, the supposedly tough cool young political professionals and would-be Haldemans, lose their cool and give way to insult, rancor, and ranting hysteria. Thus, when told that Honey Lanham had been an able Texas chair and asked what Honey’s occupation is, Madame DeFarge Leslie Key burst out, with sneering contempt in her voice: “She sells cosmetics.” Never was elitism more odiously displayed at an LP meeting. When Andrea Rich badgered Alicia with the question: “How does Honey Lanham make her money?”, a NatCom member, a person conceded by everyone to be one of the finest and kindest gentlemen in the Libertarian Party, was moved to burst out, in a rare display of anger, “That’s none of your business, Mrs. Rich!”

When one NatCom member asked about Lanham’s managerial experience, former chairman Dave Bergland incisively pointed out that the three previous directors, including O’Keefe, had had virtually no managerial experience before being hired.

The Lanham appointment was finally confirmed by a vote of 20 to 7, with one abstention (Craniac DeLisio, the only one left to really believe the Johnston nonsense and to go even further to claim that the firing was still illegal, even though now confirmed by the NatCom). The seven opponents were the hard-core Craniacs: Herbert, Hocker, Johnston, Key, Palm, Andrea Rich and Howie Rich. The Craniacs had lost the votes of three members who had earlier voted against the ruling of the chair: Richman, Hodge (Fla.), and Hemming (Minn.).

Meanwhile, O’Keefe’s threat of insisting that he was still the National Director was hanging in the air. After the NatCom had decisively upheld Alicia Clark’s actions, Emil Franzi (Az.) asked O’Keefe the crucial zinger. “Well, Eric, do you still think that you’re the National Director?” For the first time, O’Keefe’s arrogance faltered “Well, I’m not sure.” The threat was over, and a bit later, O’Keefe declared that he was advised by “my parliamentarian” that he was no longer National Director. It was a minor but interesting note to discover that Eric had brought his own “parliamentarian” in tow. Who it was never got brought out, but one likes to think that it was the irrepressible Jimmy Johnston, “Mr. Roberts” himself, silenced at long last.

During the course of the proceedings and particularly after the Lanham vote, the Craniacs kept delaying matters with ranting “points of personal privilege,” which turned into lengthy harangues. Although they had not criticized the Monroe, Hanson, and Franzi committee reports of the day before, the Craniacs let loose against them in many revealing broadsides. Thus, Madame Defarge hurled irrelevant and inchoate insults left and right, denouncing Matt Monroe, head of the Finance Committee, claiming that he had not raised any money; Franzi, head of the Membership Committee, for not adding members; and even M.L. Hanson, head of the Minority Outreach Committee, for sending out questionnaires later than Defarge would have liked. The point, however, as brought out the day before, was that Monroe’s fund-raising efforts were stymied by O’Keefe and national headquarters, and Franzi’s were handcuffed by an egregious computer problem which headquarters had done nothing about. (As Franzi inimitably put it, “we can’t add members if there is no way of knowing who the members are.”)

The attack on Monroe was particularly asinine, since Monroe is widely respected throughout the Party for his famous and successful Texas Pledge program for Party fundraising. For a pipsqueak like Key to try to heap mud on Monroe was not only deplorable; it could only be counterproductive for whatever credibility she might have had left in the Party.

But the most revealing ranting of the day was emitted by Howie Rich, possibly the top Craniac straw boss on NatCom. In her explanation of why she fired O’Keefe, Alicia had mentioned that Eric had repeatedly failed to carry out NatCom and her own directives to: expand much-needed internal education, help build state parties, and assist in fund-raising. All these three vital areas of activity were grievously and consistently neglected by O’Keefe, despite Alicia Clark’s repeated urgings. What he had done instead was to devote virtually all Headquarters’ resources to campaigning, particularly to assisting the Craniac ventures of Howie Rich’s Campaign of ’82 and especially the Randolph race for governor of Alaska. In the course of his phillipic, Howie Rich thundered that all these other matters were “peripheral,” that only campaigns really counted. Evidently, ideas, principles, state parties and even financial stability could go hang. There spoke the naked, sinister voice of the Crane Machine.

After the vote and the ineffectual ranting were over, the Craniacs all walked out of the meeting, never (with the exception of Hocker and Palm) to return. This childish action capped one of the most inglorious days in Craniac history. I can see Crane’s reaction now: “Why am I keeping these turkeys on the payroll?”

3. The Shockeroo

The shock and stupefaction of the Craniacs on August 8 showed what fools these Best and Brightest really are. The ouster had been building up for months, as Alicia tried repeatedly and in vain to get O’Keefe to expend resources her (and NatCom’s) way. Instead, O’Keefe had his own agenda, the Craniac agenda for the Party. And yet, despite their knowledge that Alicia could fire Eric at any time, the Crane Machine walked into Billings heedless and unconcerned, so heedless indeed, that no less than four Craniac members failed to show up at what looked to be just another boring meeting (Burch, Randolph, Lindsay, Guida.) It was General Custer once again, marching with heedless arrogance onto the Little Big Horn.

Obviously, the Craniacs were stupidly overconfident because they grossly underestimated the competence, strength, and determination of Alicia Clark. All of us in the Mason and Guida camps greatly underestimated Alicia last year. The difference is that we, in the Mason camp, learned differently very quickly, while the Craniacs still haven’t learned, and probably never will. As one perceptive wag put it, “The Craniacs are learning-disabled. They suffer from a closed information loop.” And they still are, as revealed by a top Craniac coming up to Bill Evers (Ca.) after the Lanham vote, and saying bitterly, “You, Bill, are solely responsible for this.” Why are they incapable of understanding that Alicia makes her own decisions?

The most ironic note of all is that, on Friday August 6, after the Craniacs had departed for Billings, the Headquarters staff was sitting around Washington, D.C. talking about the upcoming meeting. What was likely to happen? Well, they concluded, four Crane Machine people are not going to show up at Billings. What might the opposition do if they have the votes? Fire Eric. So the staff was neither shocked nor surprised, while the top Haldemanian politicos blundered their way into disaster. Why, indeed are they on the payroll, Eddie?

This of course was not the main reason that O’Keefe was ousted, as we will detail below. But the top Craniacs should have been at least as alert as their subordinate staff.

4. Why She Did It

To those who had eyes to see, the gathering storm should have been evident at the superficially boring proceedings on the previous day, Saturday August 7. For the buildup of anti-O’Keefe evidence became overwhelming. It was these damaging revelations that sparked the final decision of Alicia on Saturday night to ask for O’Keefe’s resignation for the following morning.

Perhaps the most damaging disclosure was the Finance Committee report by the highly respected Matt Monroe, a report which the bored Craniacs hardly attempted to challenge. Monroe reported that under O’Keefe tutelage, the heavy NatCom debt, instead of being paid off, had increased since the beginning of the present NatCom term in September 1981. Even more irresponsible in view of the LP’s shaky financial shape was the change in the nature of the debt. For some of the long-term debt had been paid off, but only by seriously increasing the short-term debt to various vendors in Washington, D.C. Monroe wrote ominously that “this debt should be rolled back as much as possible if we are to function among vendors in Washington, D.C.” He continued by warning: “Our effectiveness in the future will depend, not only on the amount of money and candidates we can raise but also on our credibility with local merchants who provide us with their merchandise and allow us to use credit. At this time there are few of those, if any, left in the Washington, D.C. area who are willing to extend us credit.”

And yet, despite the seriousness of the financial situation, Monroe reported that, “My impression is that the financial and fund raising activities are low priority items at this time in the minds of the people who manage the National office.” In trying to launch a monthly pledge program for the national party, Monroe found in despair that “I have requested help from Eric O’Keefe and have not received it.” As a result, Monroe reported that he would instead have to do all the work in Houston with local Houston volunteers, since O’Keefe and headquarters would not cooperate. Monroe also noted that he had requested assistance from the previous Finance Chair [Leslie Graves Key], but had received no “promises or advice in matters of fund raising.”

The most poignant and damaging theme to O’Keefe in the Monroe report was: “My belief is that the National Office should have people who are able to and capable of working with volunteers.”

The clear implication, of course, is that O’Keefe and his crew were not capable of doing so. Working with volunteers, including—as Monroe made clear in his oral statement— Monroe himself, is of course the warp and woof of political activity. But the paid bureaucratic staff, in typical arrogance aping their mentor Crane, were not equipped to do so. But if the pros are not capable of working with volunteers, they might as well shut up shop. Or be fired.

The Monroe revelation stunned Alicia, as did Bill Evers’ motion requesting that the headquarters staff devote ten hours a week to developing internal education in the Party. What dismayed Alicia Clark is that a NatCom member should have to plead that ten hours a week be devoted to a task which headquarters should be doing far more of, automatically and voluntarily. Another nail had been hammered into the O’Keefe coffin.

If O’Keefe & Co. were incapable of working with volunteers, they were apparently even less able to work with many state parties. Bitter letters were read into the record on Saturday by the state central committee of the Louisiana LP and by the chairman of the New Mexico LP denouncing O’Keefe, headquarters and its practices. Hie Louisiana Party wrote of national’s “arm-twisting recruitment [of candidates] process,” and declared that “at this point we don’t know if we are victims of an overzealous staff, poor management, an amateur con game, or a combination of all three.” Christa Bolden, New Mexico LP chair, wrote bitterly of “the ineptitude, incompetence and lack of trustworthiness demonstrated by the individuals purportedly in charge of National Headquarters.” O’Keefe’s failure to pay petitioners in New Mexico as promised, led to Ms. Bolden’s conclusion: “It is up to the people running the National Party to support state organizations where possible, and part of this support may require a realistic evaluation of what can be done. It is counterproductive to make promises which can’t be fulfilled. I don’t think Jimmy Carter understood that concept, and the only solution was to replace him.” Precisely.

Another dramatic Saturday moment revealing the temperament and character of Eric O’Keefe came when Bill Evers questioned him on his headquarters report, and asked him how many and which people might have tried to persuade him to adopt the strategy outlined in the infamous secret Hocker memorandum which had been published in the June 1982 issue of the Libertarian Vanguard (a frankly Crane Machine memo attacking the Clarks, obscenely denouncing the Machine’s enemies, and calling for a name Presidential candidate the Machine can control). O’Keefe lost his cool, evaded answering the question, and bellowed that he would not answer an “unsigned article published in a disreputable rag.” Evers mildly commented that Hocker, sitting in the room, would not deny writing the memo (Hocker smilingly said nothing.) Evers could have added that not many years ago, turncoat O’Keefe had sat on the editorial board of this selfsame “disreputable rag.” Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear?

Another important Saturday moment was the Region V report of Emil Franzi. In a slap at the Rich-Crane-O’Keefe emphasis on numbers of candidates, regardless of quality, Franzi wrote: “The Arizona Party has asked me to comment on the constant push by certain NatCom members for more and more candidates. After having been burned in the past by turkeys and embarrassments, Arizona has decided that the idea is to have as many good candidates as possible, not just a lot of names of warm bodies on a ballot. This fixation with ‘body-counts’ is as fallacious as Westmoreland’s. The thought that somewhere there is a magic number of votes for LP stiffs that will somehow cause Dan Rather to suddenly pay attention to us is as realistic as ‘the light at the end of the tunnel.’ It’s time the LP really thought out what it wants candidates for, instead of having them for the sake of it.”

But the most damaging revelation from the point of view of libertarian principle was the June 15 memo from O’Keefe to Howie Rich on “Campaign Issue Selection,” setting forth O’Keefe’s strategy for the campaign. In the first place, this odiously sellout memo was sent to Rich over the head of Sheldon Richman, chairman of the outreach committee and supposedly Rich’s boss, to the justifiable complaint of Richman. In addition, O’Keefe’s Craniac strategy is horrendous, and represents another giant step downward in the degeneration of Craneism into blatant and total opportunism. Proposals by LP candidates, declared O’Keefe, must be confined to “proposals which voters can believe could be implemented in the near term. Like the Clark campaign’s proposals, they should be essentially first year proposals. . . Congressional candidates have only two short year terms, so voters shouldn’t be expected to support a candidate who wants to start work on a proposal that would take five years to pass. Of course the proposals should be radical, but they should be proposals which could at least conceivably be passed next year.”

O’Keefe’s strategic concept is breathtaking in its iniquity. One year proposals, indeed! Take this advice, and our candidates, far from calling for dismantling the State, would have to confine themselves to something like attacking Reagan for his $100 billion tax increase. So why not become Jack Kemp Republicans already, and be done with it? Do we really need sellout artists wrapping themselves in the noble name Libertarian peddling Republocrat hogwash? As one prominent LP leader wrote, in justifiable outrage at this infamous memo, it “was the usual collection of gradualist Craniac bilge we have come to expect from Eric and his cohorts.”

There were other revealing passages in O’Keefe’s memo to Rich. One: “No particular civil liberties issue seems nationally prominent right now.” So much for civil liberties. Oh really, Eric? And what about the massive assault on abortion rights looming in Congress? And what of federal drug enforcement? And grandson of S.1.? And the unleashing of the FBI and CIA, etc. And the Post Office Bill? But I suppose none of that could be handled realistically, pragmatically, in one year’s time

Not content with these ideological crimes, O’Keefe capped it all by denouncing Project Liberty, a superb program launched this year by Dave Nolan, LP founder. Project Liberty is dedicated to raising the banner of abolition of the income tax and repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment to that end. Project Liberty is trying to get LP candidates to pledge themselves to making abolition of the income tax a major campaign issue. Madame Defarge had already denounced Project Liberty viciously in the Craniac smear sheet UpChuck [Update], Here, O’Keefe, while grudgingly admitting that taxation is a key issue to most voters, added that “we need a workable first-year proposal for next year’s budget.” Well, sure Eric, I guess chances are not very realistic for abolishing the income tax in 1983, so we have to drop that one.

O’Keefe, in his repellent memo, urges that all LP candidates attack the Republicans and Democrats and explain why we need a Libertarian Party. Well, I’ll bite, why do we need a Libertarian Party if we all must confine ourselves to “realistic” proposals that have a good chance of passing next year—a task for which the Republocrats are far better equipped than we? Eric then takes up a couple of common LP answers which he brusquely dismisses as “inadequate” because “very few people can identify with them.” One was that “I realized that the Libertarian Party was the only party which recognized my right to lead my life as I see fit. . .”. Another brusquely dismissed notion was that the LP “stands for complete individual liberty on all issues. . .” So what is O’Keefe’s substitute for these excellent compact statements? “I can’t tell the difference between Republicans and Democrats. . . We need some fresh ideas and a real change.” Go ahead say it, Eric: we need a new beginning. And we got one, but with Ronnie Reagan.

For this monstrosity alone, Eric O’Keefe should have been sacked, and sacked hard, and Rich and his cohorts along with him.

Alicia Clark came into the chairmanship race determined to bring unity to the Libertarian Party, and to rise above seemingly petty and useless factional disputes. When she came into office, she was open to all NatCom members and factions, and distributed committee posts and functions with an even hand. But she found that O’Keefe & Co. would not cooperate. It was their way or nothing. She saw O’Keefe and the Headquarters Staff keep to their own agenda, and so, after a long train of abuses, she finally acted, and acted with decision and dispatch. Just as we learned about Alicia, Alicia seems to have learned about the nature of the Crane Machine.

As one top Clark adviser of 1981 put it recently, with his usual wit and flair: “A year ago I believed in unity and balance in the Party, and an end to all the petty bickering and faction fighting. I’m a slow learner but I’ve learned, and now I make Rothbard look like a moderate on the Crane Question.”

5. What Next?

So what’s next? Well of one thing we can be certain: every NatCom member, including the blind, the lame, and the halt, is going to show up at the next meeting on December 3-5, at Orlando, Florida. No one is going to miss the action.

I would remind our readers that so far our Military Maven has been stunningly prophetic, and hasn’t missed a shot. As early as our May 1982 issue, we reported that the Military Maven told us after the Houston NatCom meeting in late March: “Murray, it’s France in 1940 and they’re the French. They’re punchy, they don’t know what’s going to hit them next.” Indeed.

The Maven’s comment after Billings harked back to the Okinawa analogy which he had coined after the November 1981 NatCom meeting at Bethesda. Then he had forecast that “they’ve peaked and are going into a decline. It’s Okinawa in World War II and they’re the Japs. They have all the bunkers, but we’ve secured the landing strip and we’ve planted the flag. We can expect a lot of banzai charges, but I hope they have plenty of saki and rice stored up, because they ain’t getting any more supplies. All the freighters off shore are ours.” The Military Maven’s comment after Billings: “We launched a flame thrower into their bunker.” Or, to use an alternate military model: “Tora! Tora! Tora!” In fact, O’Keefe and his headquarters crew—the major Craniac foco in the LP—have now been cleaned out.

We can expect some banzai charges from the full Cranian membership on NatCom from now on, but the scene of the action is bound to shift in the coming year. For bereft of national office and national headquarters, dominant in only a handful of state parties, the Crane Machine has only one shot left: as forecast by the secret Hocker memo—they must attempt to storm the Presidential convention in New York and nominate a “name” candidate whom Crane and his Machine can control. That is their only hope, and their plan must be stopped. The Crane Machine must not pass at New York. If we defeat whatever patsy the Machine puts up, we may confidently expect that Crane and his minions will wither away, and allow the Party to grow and flourish once again as the true Party of Principle.

6. Late Flash!

On Wednesday, August 11, three days after Billings, Alicia Clark and Honey Lanham held an unprecedented press conference call with representatives from three libertarian publications: frontlines, Update, and the Lib. Forum. During the Q. and A., several interesting items emerged:

(1) When asked whether she intends to run for re-election as National Chair, Alicia Clark replied: “I wish I could say that I won’t run again, but I can’t.” This of course opens the door for Alicia to run again, and to complete the work she has launched.

(2) Alicia reported that in the few short days since Billings, a considerable amount of money has poured into National Headquarters as a vote of confidence in the new regime.

((3) Honey Lanham stated that the office staff had resigned (Craniacs all), that replacements had been hired, and that the principled and intelligent Kathleen Jacob, head of SLS who had been working part-time at the Headquarters, will now edit (or at least “work on”) LP News. This shows that Ms. Lanham can install a new regime with efficiency and dispatch, and also shows that she can tell quality and competence when she sees it.

(4) Ms. Lanham stated that she will definitely apply for the post of permanent National Director when the interim term runs out in six months.

THE DEATH OF REAGANOMICS

Reaganomics is stone cold dead. President Reagan has managed to precipitate the worst recession/depression since World War II, and one which shows no signs of disappearing. Interest rates remain super high, to such an extent that any possible recovery from the depression will be fitful and weak. Big Spender Reagan is presiding over the biggest budget and by far the biggest deficit in American history. The estimate for the looming deficit keeps leaping upward; only a few weeks ago it was $99 billion; now it is $140 billion.

In an idiotic attempt to cure the depression, High Tax Reagan has replaced his piddling “tax cut” that was really an increase in 1981-82, with the most massive tax increase in American history. What school of economic thought counsels tax increases in depression? Answer: this has been the unique contribution of Reaganomics. Let us note with horror what the Reagan-inspired Senate tax package does:

It raises taxes on the backs of the sick, drastically cutting income-deductible medical expenses by raising the threshold from 3% to 7% of gross income.

It imposes withholding taxes on dividends and interest, which will cripple small investors, greatly reduce thrift and investment, and put the boots to the ailing savings and loan industry.

It sharply raises taxes on business by gutting the depreciation exemptions made only last year, and by eliminating one-half the deductions for business expenses for meals when not traveling: thus also clobbering the restaurant industry.

It heavily taxes high-income retirement plans, only a year after investors were suckered into these plans by government and Establishment propaganda.

It greatly raises taxes on the backs of the unlucky, by restricting tax deductions for uninsured casualty losses to over 10% of one’s income.

It taxes pensions and utility dividends.

It drastically curtails the “safe-harbor leasing” provision of last year’s tax reform which enabled firms making losses to sell their tax credits to firms making profits. Thus, businesses will be further clobbered.

It further penalizes smokers by doubling the federal tax on cigarettes, thus adding increased taxation to the hazards of social obloquy and lung cancer already suffered by smokers.

In the midst of a drastic recession and looming bankruptcy for many airlines, it drastically increases federal taxes on passenger tickets, air freight, and aviation and jet fuel. That’s really smart, Ronnie!

It injures everyone who uses a phone by tripling the federal tax on phone service.

In case one wants to get away from the disaster of Reaganomics by going fishing, it levies a stiff excise tax on small recreational boats, including rowboats, designed for fishing.

And so High Tax Reagan has struck a body blow at: the sick, the unlucky, telephone users, smokers, pensioners, recreational fishermen, airline users, and interest and dividend receivers. That means all of us. For this monstrosity alone, Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party deserve a smashing defeat at the polls in 1982 and 1984, for that is the only way in which the average citizen can express his indignation at what is going on.

Big budget; enormous deficits; the biggest tax increase in our history; but that is not all. For inflation, which had abated for the last several months in the wake of the grinding depression, has now spurted upwards again. The Administration’s kept economists have tried their best to pooh-pooh this, but the fact remains that in the last two months, May and June, the Consumer Price Index increase has skyrocketed back up to an annual rate of 12%—just about precisely the rate when the Reaganites took over in Washington.

If this reinflation persists, everything will click into place, for interest rates will then start rising inexorably once more, and the great bear market in gold and silver should start turning around in force. And that will be the finish, the Bye Bye Lulu for Reaganomics, for the Republican Party, and for Ronnie himself. No group will have deserved it more.

Continuing with this scenario, the most likely conclusion will be the triumphal march of Teddy Kennedy into Camelot Reborn in November 1984. If it looks like a Teddy victory, then the summer of 1984 should see a massive anticipatory inflation. Will Reagan drive the last nail into his own coffin by imposing price-wage controls, “temporarily” of course? It will be fascinating to see.

Meanwhile, the departure of free-market economists from the Reagan Administration has now become a veritable mass exodus. It began with the highly principled Martin Anderson. Since then, the honor roll of those who (at least presumptively) deserted the fleshpots of Power on behalf of some sort of principle include: John McLaughry (White House), Paul Craig Roberts (Asst. Sec. Treasury), Norman Ture (Undersec. Treasury), Jerry Jordan (Council of Economic Advisors), Murray Weidenbaum (Council of Economic Advisors), and, the most libertarian of them all, Steve Hanke (staff of Council of Economic Advisors). Although a lawyer not an economist, we can add to the list of presumptively principled defectors Doug Bandow (White House), now publisher of Inquiry magazine.

This exodus is too massive and too concentrated to be fobbed off with the usual political bilge of “personal reasons.” But in that case what are we to say of moral status of alleged libertarians or free-market people who are still in place, say Bill Niskanen (Council of Economic Advisors) or Dana Rohrabacher (ex-LeFevrian troubador in the White House)? And what, even further, are we to say of the moral status of alleged libertarians who in a sense have leaped in to fill the gap, and to provide the decaying hulk of the Reagan Administration with at least some sort of libertarian or free-market cover: Pete Ferrara (White House), Lance Lamberton (White House), and David Henderson (staff of Council of Economic Advisors)?

The cases of Lamberton and Henderson are particularly fascinating (fascinating, that is, in the sense of watching the progress of malignant cells). At the very beginning of the Reagan Administration, your editor, in the Lib. Forum and elsewhere, began a crusade to alert the public and the libertarian movement about the anti-libertarian, anti-free market nature of the Reagan policies. Two of the most ardent libertarian defenders of Reagan from these and similar criticisms by Sheldon Richman and others were none other than Comrades Lamberton and Henderson, then private, if not exactly cushily employed, citizens. Both of them are now ensconced in the White House itself. Could this rise to fame and fortune have been a reward for work well done? It would be charming to think so.

Joseph R. Peden, Associate Editor
Daniel M. Rosenthal, Publisher
Dyanne M. Petersen, Associate Publisher
Carmen Accashian, Circulation Manager

SMEAR: THE STORY OF UPDATE— PART II

by Derrick “Ed” Welles

6. Unfulfilled Promises-II

Update for January ’82 “examined” Reason magazine, published by CPP member Bob Poole. It was the latest in a series of attacks on Poole and Reason, criticizing Reason for certain “anti-libertarian heresies” and ‘a pragmatic, as opposed to principled,’ approach to issues. In yet another instance of posing members of their faction as impartial observers. . . Update cited Ed Crane—that pillar of principled libertarian activism—as saying, “‘We all owe Reason a debt of gratitude. . . (W)hile I don’t think Reason can really be called a libertarian magazine, it serves a useful purpose. It’s a good magazine for conservatives because it makes them more aware of the free market, and that’s valuable. Instead of complaining that Reason isn’t libertarian anymore, we should just accept that, and judge it on it’s own terms.’” Crane, while supposedly coming “to Reason’s defense,” continues the smear on that magazine by “accepting” that Reason “isn’t libertarian anymore.” How odd that Crane and Update’s mentors at the Libertarian Review Foundation, who masterminded and managed the 1980 Clark low-tax liberal sellout, should now (now that they’re on the way out, and that principled forces are reasserting themselves) pose as bulwarks of principle, and criticize others for lacking principles!

This article pretended to begin a “two-part examination” of Reason and Inquiry, and concluded by promising that in a “future issue, Update will examine the new, combined Inquiry and Libertarian Review and its contribution to the libertarian movement.” This was in January 1982. As of June, no “second part” had been published. One suspects that, just as the “Name That Author” contest was the only one in a supposed “series,” and served as a potshot at Rothbard, this purported survey of movement magazines was intended to be a potshot at Reason, competitor of Update’s sister publication Inquiry. Update faulted Reason for its conservative orientation, but one wonders whether Update would be equally eager to treat Inquiry as harshly. (Certainly Update did not do that with pre-merger Inquiry’s own heresies, closet libertarianism, and liberal orientation.) Since no article on the new or the old Inquiry has come out, one thinks not.

7. A Phantom Author and a Blind Review

Update continued its unblemished record of illogic and distortion in its February ’82 issue. Two articles in question were each guilty on one of these counts.

An editorial, “Clark TV Spots Off Target,” was critical of the CFP’s television commercials. [Surprise! The people who ran CFP will now critique the people in charge of CFP.] The editorial said “we can sympathize with the reasoning of those running the Clark media effort” [we can sympathize with ourselves], but the ads “assumed a broad public acceptance” of Clark’s legitimacy as a candidate. Later it stated: “The temptation to which the Clark staff [i.e., we] succumbed. . . was the hope that the network news would start reporting on his daily speeches and news releases.”

Update does not disclose the identity of the editorial writer. Knowing who edits and publishes Update, we could figure that someone associated with the CFP/Crane camp wrote it. But Update does not publicly acknowledge that its publishers ran CFP; thus we note their inability to admit openly any errors in the way they ran Clark’s campaign. More ludicrous is their self-congratulation for “surprisingly professional” TV ads that “were ideologically sound.”

The second February article in question is Leslie Key’s hatchet job on the Society for Individual Liberty’s “Principles of Liberty” (POL) study course. Although an extensive analysis of the many flaws in Key’s review is up to SIL and out of place here, certain aspects of the review do fit the Updating tradition of biased reporting and illogic.

SIL’s course is not the only one being promoted by libertarian organizations for study by libertarian groups. SIL has had a lengthy and in-depth study course out for a year. Yet only SIL’s program gets “reviewed” and given prominent mention by Update. SIL’s co-director, Dave Walter, sits on the LNC and was John Mason’s campaign manager for the East. Could this, plus a possible forthcoming Cato home study program, have anything to do with Update’s attack on POL?

Regardless of the truth of these speculations, journalistic and logical mistakes render Key’s “review” invalid. Key assails POL for not giving individuals a “thorough understanding of libertarian principles and the ability to apply these principles to issues.” She offers several quotations that are supposed to give us the idea that certain SIL issue papers are unlibertarian or irrelevant to libertarianism. . . but she fails to name their titles or otherwise cite the sources of these quotes, making it difficult for anyone attempting to establish the truth of her claims, to examine them for himself. (“We present all the facts in a given situation so that our readers may make up their own minds,” said Update just a month earlier.)

One quote by Key that was found (in William Burt’s “Transportation and Regulation”: “Transportation is highly vulnerable to envy,” upon scrutiny of what follows is seen as quite sensible. Transportation is in fact viewed by many as a “basic” and very important industry, one upon which a host of other industries and market activities depend, and which therefore some people might wish to control for their own alleged benefit, and might resent seeing others in control. Taken out of context, as Leslie Key did, the statement looks strange; in context, though, it is perfectly comprehensible.

In another place, Key positively misrepresents the views expressed in an issue paper: “Yet another paper openly advocates development of such ‘defensive technologies’ as ‘assassination of enemy leaders and sabotage’ as the proper ‘libertarian’ course for the U.S. government to pursue. Giving our government license to act as a saboteur and murderer shows no understanding of the nature of the state. . .”

In fact it is Key who shows no understanding of what she reads. The paper in question is Jarret Wollstein’s “U.S. Foreign Policy: The Libertarian Alternative.” While Key is eager to censure Wollstein for advocating the government’s use of sabotage and assassination, the paper does not say that these policies should be adopted by the U.S. (or any) government. (In another paper—“Military Defense Without a State”— Wollstein even discusses sabotage and assassination specifically as voluntary alternatives to government defense.) Key simply reads this into the essay and then lambasts the paper for the flaw that she made up.

Other “quotations” that, according to Key, “confuse” libertarian political philosophy with unrelated moral, psychological, and philosophical doctrine” seem—even if true—reasonable enough to libertarian eyes. Key appears to think that the statement “sexism is morally wrong and irrational” is objectional be in a libertarian study course. Why? Are libertarians to content themselves with living in a “free” society full of sexists? How can a free society even come about if large groups of people think that others are subhuman? How can such people be expected to respect the rights of others they consider inferior?

Furthermore, on the one hand Key criticizes SIL’s foreign-policy papers for taking a “thoroughly pragmatic” point of view. On the other hand, she criticizes other SIL papers for “irrelevant Randian dogma.” Now, if one can’t be pragmatic or dogmatic with respect to issues, what is there left? But perhaps Key chastizes SIL for promoting Randian dogma or irrelevant dogma, not dogma as such. This opens the door for saying that it’s OK to promote Leslie’s own “relevant” dogma instead? Or maybe one should be dogmatic (not pragmatic) on foreign policy, and pragmatic (not dogmatic) on domestic and social issues. How are any of these better than what Key criticizes about SIL? O Leslie, tell us the solution to this quandry, for You are the Key to the Truth!

In March, as the April 15 tax deadline approached, Update asserted that “until 1982 (when the LP National Headquarters joined in the promotion of Tax Protest Day), no coordinated effort has been made to organize libertarians across the country for this purpose.” This was a direct slap in the face of SIL, which has indeed been promoting and staging April 15 tax protests across the country for ten years. But maybe that doesn’t count in the Updated Version of History, since the Craniacs don’t control SIL and do control LP National.

8. Updating Galore

Later in that issue, Update ridiculed an LP State Chairs meeting by beginning its report stating that the meeting had been attended by only four of the 50 chairs. Since the State Chairs Caucus represents an alternative to the LNC, where Craniac forces are strong, it’s not surprising that Update gave such prominance to the number in attendance. Given Update’s bias, one hardly wonders whether Update would report similar adverse facts about pet Craniac organs.

Update also quoted Buck Crouch, meeting organizer, as saying that the Caucus is important because “‘national people wish to control what happens in the states.’” Update then made a point to remark that Crouch “declined to give any examples of this to Update,” as if to imply either that Crouch had no case or didn’t know what he was talking about—either way discrediting a potential competitor to Craniac-controlled LP National. If Update really were interested in reporting all relevant information in order to allow readers to reach their own decisions, they could have cited numerous examples of “national people” controlling “what happens in the states,” including Hocker’s August LNC move to authorize the LP National Director to spend up to $10,000 a month on his favorite state LP ballot drives; or Key’s November proposals to establish LP national goals (which necessarily have to be implemented by state LPs). Impartial reporting leading to truthful conclusions is not, however, Update’s strong suit.

The April issue moaned and griped about “proceduralism” and “bureaucracy” building in the LP, as a result of events at the March NatCom meeting. Of course, according to Update, the “most positive and progress-oriented reports” were by Craniacs Howie Rich and Eric O’Keefe.

Update didn’t seem concerned about “proceduralism” during any previous NatCom meetings, which they controlled. The March meeting was the first in which the Crane faction lost substantial numbers of votes, and their grip on NatCom and the national LP structure began to loosen. Then, and only then, did Update begin to notice signs of “proceduralism” creeping up on the LP. Update had been silent when LNC member Jim Johnston (who voted 100% Craniac) held up the November meeting with his interpretations of Robert’s Rules of Order: and when procedural technicalities prevented Bill Evers for hours from questioning Howie Rich on his lack of performance with the LCC.

Furthermore, the acme of proceduralism came at the Denver 1981 meeting of the old NatCom, at which the Crane Machine used an enormous amount of parliamentary proceduralism to try to block Bill Evers from introducing his resolution condemning the attempt by Crane and Herbert during the Clark Campaign to use the FCC to highjack TV time from the networks. And the leader of this Craniac obstructionism was Leslie Key herself!

Update referred negatively to “other LNC members” who “attempted, with some degree of success, to create more procedural requirements for other people to follow.” Update’s writers have no compunction in the June issue, though, in taking up the same “proceduralism” they criticize in others. They assail Advertising/Publications Review Committee members David Bergland and Bob Poole, charging that Bergland and Poole were not following an LNC resolution mandating review of materials authorized for use in LP educational programs (i.e., SIL’s Principles of Liberty). This they did after chastizing other NatCom members for also complaining that established rules had not been followed! Apparently, in Update’s eyes the issue is not whether one is a “proceduralist” and tries to make or enforce “requirements for other people to follow”: the issue is whether the requirements followed are what Update’s writers want, who is making the requirements and who is to follow them. It’s not what is being said or done, but who is saying or doing it that matters to Update. If it’s Them who are enforcing the requirements, then these are onerous and bad; if it’s Us who are enforcing the requirements upon Them, then these are OK and They are being remiss in their duties if They don’t follow the rules.

Look for Part III in the next issue of Lib. Forum.