Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus.(Review)

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus By Rick Perlstein Hill and Wang, 671 pages, $30

"America would remember the sixties as a decade of the Left," writes Rick Perlstein, in his fascinating and revisionist account of how the 1964 presidential campaign marked a new course of American political life. Really it was the "decade when the polarization began."

The polarization concerned the role of government. In his 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Baines Johnson articulated the postwar liberal consensus: "Government is not an enemy of the people. It is the people." Goldwater championed individual rights and liberties, and called the government "a Leviathan, a vast national authority out of touch with the people, and out of control." LBJ won the election by a huge margin, but over the long run, according to Perlstein, Goldwater's vision has triumphed.

Among the book's major contributions is tracing the origin of the Goldwater movement to Clarence Manion, former dean of the Notre Dame Law School. Manion, a man of the anti-Roosevelt Old Right, was displeased to see Eisenhower carrying on the New Deal rather than repudiating it. This inspired much work, including his effort to draft Barry Goldwater for president.

The man and the movement needed a manifesto, and it was Manion who set out to create one. He decided on William Buckley's brother-in-law, Brent Bozell, as ghostwriter, and in six weeks, Bozell finished Conscience of a Conservative. Rather than deal with a left-wing New York publisher, Manion contracted directly with a printer. The book debuted at number 14 on the New York Times bestseller list, and by November 1960, had sold 500,000 copies.

"I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient for I mean to reduce its size," the book proclaimed. "I do not undertake to promote welfare for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them."

Yet Goldwater also proposed to expand the state. His book urged the U.S. government to summon the will and the means to take the initiative against the Russians. Later, in the sort of rhetoric that would lead to his defeat, he was to advocate atom-bombing North Vietnam--a far cry from the limited government theory that had set his movement in motion.