Liberal historian Rick Perlstein, author of Before the Storm, the story of the rise of Barry Goldwater (first chapter: “The Manionites”), once told me that my father was the first public figure to oppose US involvement in South Viet Nam — in 1954, when we started sending in CIA types right after the French left.
Dad had published Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative (when no other publisher would take it) in 1960. In 1964, he followed up with his own The Conservative American, a history of pre-Goldwater conservatism, beginning with his days as a supporter of the anti-war Woodrow Wilson’s reelection in 1916.
A major chapter in the book is entitled, “Wars We Did Not Want.”It appears that we keep getting them, whether we want them or not.
9:23 am on April 2, 2011
