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Home | April 2005 Archives


  McDonald's | April 29, 2005

There was a great article in the April 14 Washington Times headlined, "The Big Five-O, McDonald’s, After 50 Years, Sticks With Proven Formula to Satisfy Patrons, Investors".

That article reminded me of my journey to the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago where I served on the floor of the convention as an usher. Because of my activity in the Massachusetts GOP, during the convention I had a chance to watch up close some of the activities of convention keynoter Walter Judd, Vice Presidential nominee Henry Cabot Lodge, and numerous others.

Later, on the eve of election day, 1960, I was one of a small group to greet former Senator Lodge as he arrived home at Beverly Airport in a small plane, at the end of the campaign trail.

Dr. Judd, who became a close friend in later years, told me that Richard Nixon had offered him the 1960 Vice Presidential nomination, an offer which he declined because his face was pokmarked with the remnants of a bout with cancer.

Nixon would have probably been elected in 1960 if he had chosen Judd, who gave the greatest keynote speech ever delivered at a national party convention, bar none.

During that speech, I sat in the very last row of the convention auditorium and saw the place rock with responses from virtually everyone in the hall. I have heard sound recordings of William Jennings Bryan’s orations at Democratic conventions in 1896, 1900, and 1908, and have seen great speeches by others, but none of them ever topped that of Walter Judd.

Parenthetically, as a Harvard senior in 1962, I was awarded the Silver Medal in the annual Boylston Prize oratory competition in recognition of my recitation of Bryan’s "Cross of Gold" speech.

I mention McDonald’s because, on the way home from the convention, where I was the "chaperone" of five young women in their twenties who had driven me to and from Massachusetts to the convention and made me their guest at Chicago’s historic Hotel Blackstone, as well as on visits to such places as Cicero, Illinois (then the gangland capital of the "Land of Lincoln), we stopped at the McDonald’s (the very first McDonald’s) in Des Plaines, Illinois where I had as good a milkshake as I have ever tasted and splurged on ten cent french fries and a fifteen cent burger.


  Robert Welch | April 28, 2005

It was my privilege to spend two hours this afternoon (April 18) with Hillard Welch and his brother, Robert Welch, Jr., two of the children of the founder of the John Birch Society (JBS), Robert Welch, with whom I was privileged to spend an informative evening in the mid-1970’s at the Acton, Massachusetts home of my friend, Scott Stanley, the then-editor of American Opinion and Review of the New, two JBS publications.

Although I never joined the JBS, like many others I have benefited from the wonderful information on American history and Constitutional principles in JBS publications including currently, the New American.

In 1983, following the Soviet assassination of Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald and the other passengers on board KAL 007, I was approached by members of the JBS Council to become chairman of the JBS. I respectfully declined.

Since the Welchs were from Massachusetts, we had many reminiscences to share, including stories of life on Cape Cod (where unbeknownst to any of us) they were neighbors of my late father-in-law, Dr. Walter O. Blanchard on Lake Wequaqet off Shoot Flying Hill Road. We also chatted happily about Marblehead and Rockport in Essex County, where I spent many happy hours in the 1960’s sailing in Marblehead Harbor on the Fourth of July and various other occasions.

The brothers Welch are dedicated patriots possessed of good humor and insight. Their dad was active in Massachusetts politics before gaining notoriety with the JBS. In fact, in 1950 he ran for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts against Laurence Curtis, whom I would later serve in his campaign for the United States Senate when he was a member of Congress from Brookline, Massachusetts.

Chuck Colson was Congressman Curtis’ campaign manager and I, in addition to being his driver as we toured 356 Massachusetts cities and towns, managed three counties (Essex, Bristol, and Suffolk — in two of which we prevailed) in a convention and primary campaign against George Cabot Lodge, the Marxist business professor son of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.

The winner in that 1962 election was Edward Moore Kennedy — otherwise known as "Teddy". I got to watch Teddy up close in that campaign, in which he defeated for the Democratic nomination Edward J. McCormack, Jr., the Massachusetts Attorney General who was the nephew of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack, one of the last of the conservative Democrats. At that time, Teddy Kennedy was one of the dumbest people I ever saw run for public office.

I was on track to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator against Teddy Kennedy in 1970, but the White House wanted the strongest possible candidate they could find against Michael Harrington who won a special election in the 6th Congressional District of Massachusetts (Essex County) in 1969, following the death of veteran GOP Congressman Bill Bates. Harrington defeated State Senator William Saltonstall, the son of U.S. Senator Leverett Saltonstall in that Special Election and Chuck Colson felt strongly that Harrington needed to be strongly opposed. 

At his request, I agreed to take on that task and turned over the Senate nomination to GOP State Chairman Josiah Spaulding. I think I could and would have defeated Teddy had I remained in the U.S. Senate contest, especially in the wake of Teddy’s contemptible conduct leading to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. Had I sought it, the nomination appeared to be mine for the asking. Spaulding, the Yale roommate of future New York Mayor John V. Lindsay, was a reluctant entrant in the race. Though Si and his wife, Helen, were very much on the liberal side, we had a cordial and friendly relationship.


  Ralph de Toledano | April 27, 2005

The April 25 edition of Pat Buchanan’s The American Conservative carries a superb article by my friend, Ralph de Toledano, concerning two men who waged war on Communist subversion in America and whom I had the privilege of knowing personally.

These two were Judge Robert Morris of New Jersey with whom I spent many instructive hours and who was, at one point, Chief Counsel of the Senate Internal Security Committee. Judge Morris related to me great stories from the 1940’s and 1950’s, including the account of how he personally introduced Whittaker Chambers to Richard Nixon and had a big part in persuading Chambers to testify against Alger Hiss.

Roy Cohn, much maligned by his enemies on the Left, was deeply flawed but courageous — a homosexual who was ashamed of his conduct in that regard. Cohn was a top aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy and a powerful attorney during the years of the Reagan Presidency when he and his law partner, Tom Bolan, played a significant part in the selection of Federal judges from New York State. Tom was the National Commander of Catholic War Veterans and a very kind, gentle man.

One memory I have of Roy Cohn was a time in the 1970’s when Rupert Murdoch, for whom Cohn provided legal counsel, had purchased The Boston Herald, one of the top newspapers in New England.

Because I had been Chairman of the Republican Party in Boston and had in 1970 been asked to serve as Chairman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, Roy Cohn suggested that Murdoch should debrief me about Massachusetts politics.

Accompanied by Mr. Cohn, I spent the better part of two hours giving Mr. Murdoch background information on how he might best position his newspaper against the more liberal Boston Globe. (Ironically, as a Harvard freshman in 1958, my off-campus roommate was John I. Taylor, a liberal Republican whose family owned the Boston Globe.)

For all of his faults, Roy Cohn was a fervent and courageous anti-Communist and American patriot. He was a very interesting man indeed.

Ralph de Toledano who wrote this definitive piece on Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn, and Bob Morris in the American Conservative, today in his 90s, is a renaissance man in the best sense of the word. A friend and biographer of Richard Nixon, a leading expert on the cultural Communist Frankfort School, and an aficionado of great American jazz, Mr. de Toledano’s friendship and shared wealth of experiences over a lifetime is something for which I am quite thankful.


  Patriot Act | April 26, 2005

The Patriot Act must be amended. There are three sections in particular which are threats to our liberty and privacy:

  • Section 213, which allows government agents to secretly search through people’s home and businesses and seize their personal property without notice for days, weeks, months or perhaps ever.

  • Section 215, which allows government agents to collect personal data on law-abiding Americans — such as the books they buy or borrow, their personal medical history, or even records of goods they purchase, such as firearms — without strong evidence connecting the person or their records to the commission of a crime or to a foreign terrorist agent.

  • Section 802, which changes the definition of terrorism, allowing even legitimate protestors, such as pro-life activists, to be at-risk of being labeled ‘terrorists’ if violence erupts at the protests.


  Murder, Inc. | April 22, 2005

Today, in behalf of The Conservative Caucus Foundation, I returned our proxy ballot for the E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company election of officers, protesting the inclusion of H.R. Sharp, III, Secretary of the Board of Planned Parenthood of Delaware.

With my proxy, I asked "Why is Planned Parenthood (MURDER, INC.) on your board? Why Not a Pro-life group?"

Other board nominees are typical establishment liberals, some of them connected to the Left-wing environmental movement.

Howard Phillips
Chairman, The Conservative Caucus


  The Mission of The Conservative Caucus | April 21, 2005

The mission of The Conservative Caucus, emblazoned on our stationery, evokes principles and policy purposes completely at variance with those of the Bush Administration: "Restore the Republic by Limiting the Federal Government to its Delegated, Enumerated Constitutional Functions and Returning American Jurisprudence to its Biblical Common Law Foundations".

Sadly, the GOP’s elected and appointed officials conform themselves almost without exception to that which Mr. Bush espouses, including 

  1. an expanded Federal role in education, 

  2. record setting subsidies for pro-abortion and pro-homosexual organizations, 

  3. increased funding for the United Nations, 

  4. the attempted extension of Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban (blocked in Congress), 

  5. Social Security benefits for illegal aliens who have returned to Mexico,

  6. the ongoing reduction of the U.S. Navy (which now stands at 289 ships, compared to 600 under Ronald Reagan), 

  7. amnesty for illegal aliens, 

  8. nominees for the Federal judiciary and the Office of Attorney General who espouse the doctrine that Roe v. Wade is "settled law", 

  9. support for Food and Drug Administration policies approving the abortion "pill", RU-486, which has been used to kill scores of thousands of unborn children, 

  10. overturning Ronald Reagan’s decision to withdraw from UNESCO, 

  11. increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, 

  12. multi-billion dollar support for the Federal Legal Services Corporation and its 25,000 left-wing legal activists, 

  13. murder-abetting assistance to the Communist government in Angola, 

  14. historically high multi-trillion dollar fiscal deficits and trade deficits,

  15. a multi-trillion dollar Medicare entitlement program, 

  16. a $20 million "New Freedom" program to evaluate the mental health of 53 million students in the government schools,

  17. enactment of the McCain-Feingold campaign regulation law which criminalizes free speech, 

  18. support for the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty (UNLOST) which President Reagan rejected, 

  19. endorsement of homosexual "civil unions", 

  20. promotion of FTAA, NAFTA, CAFTA, and the WTO, 

  21. a too broadly drawn Patriot Act with its outrageous "sneak and peek" provisions, 

and many more things, a significant proportion of which would have been blocked by a Republican Congress had a Democrat President proposed them.


  Medicare | April 20, 2005

Thanks to Norm Singleton, Legislative Director for Congressman Ron Paul, I was able to obtain a copy of my testimony before the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives during the First Session of the Eighty-seventh Congress in 1961 when I was a junior at Harvard College, recently reelected as President of the Harvard Student Council.

When I testified against H.R. 4222 (King-Anderson) which became the basis for our current system of Medicare and Medicaid, here is some of what I said:

"(1) Absolutely no one, it seems, knows how high the cost of such a proposal might be, if enacted. Each time our generation gets an estimate of the bill we are to pay, it is strangely increased. The thing that never changes is the sobering fact that we will still have to pay it. In effect, we are being asked to sign a blank check for goods of undetermined quality to be delivered at an uncertain date.

(2) We are now on the brink of a national emergency. This is a time when our national strength is being measured by both military and economic standards. Of course, we favor a strong America in both cases. Therefore, it is hardly logical to burden our economy with another welfare tax when our full potential is needed for national defense.

(3) We believe in the commandment, ‘Honor, thy father and thy mother." We do not believe the problem of our aged relatives should be passed, as the proverbial buck, to the Federal Government.

(4) We are opposed to a national policy which would inevitably promote inflation. Our generation faces serious losses if legislation such as this is enacted. Just a little more inflation will make it just a littler harder to get ahead. It will also immediately affect the savings of our parents and grandparents, the same people this legislation is supposedly designed to help.

(5) The King bill would violate religious freedom for individuals whose consciences lead them to seek nonmedical systems of healing. These people might also be forced to pay taxes to support medical systems which are repugnant to their religious beliefs. We support the principles of religious freedom which are part of our great heritage of freedom.

(6) Dividing Americans into special classifications, according to age, is akin to discrimination on the basis of race or religion. Those over 65 vary as widely as do the individuals in any other group. Their individuality should not be denied by Federal law.

(7) By empowering the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish standards for the admission of hospitals and nursing homes as participants in this scheme, we will have lost our right to free choice of hospital. This also seriously impairs our right to free choice of physician.

(8) If the King bill become law, the Federal government will be placed in direct competition with private voluntary insurance plans. More and more of our aged are joining such plans every day. Yet such private voluntary plans would be driven out of business in many cases. There are no antitrust laws to regulate Government monopoly. This is another blow struck by H.R. 4222 against free enterprise.

(9) If the Government is to be put into the medical business, why not also establish a compulsory national clothing service and maybe even an obligatory Federal food store? Soon all our needs and wants would be subject to Government regulation and whim.

(10) The entire principle of a compulsory health plan is distasteful to us. We want to be able to decide for ourselves whether or not to participate in a health plan—both before and after we are 65.

(11) We do not want to be legislated out of the best health care in the world. The King bill will lower medical standards by eliminating the incentives of competition.

These are by no means all the reasons for opposition to H.R. 4222. However, I hope they reflect our genuine concern for individual freedom and responsibility. At a time when freedom is being challenged throughout the world, why should we retreat at home?"

I believe the principles I enunciated as a college undergraduate forty-four years ago remain valid today.


  Ed Feulner | April 19, 2005

Ralph Z. Hallow reported in the April 12 Washington Times the following comment by Ed Feulner, the President of the Heritage Foundation: "[Mr. Feulner] describes himself as a conservative first and a Republican second, but is a staunch defender of the GOP and is critical of ex-Republican conservatives like columnist Pat Buchanan and former Nixon administration official Howard Phillips. ‘If you’re a conservative and want to get ahead politically, you ought to be a Republican,’ Mr. Feulner said."

When I left the Republican Party in 1974, it was because I had concluded that there were some things more important than getting ahead politically. These include speaking the truth without regard to its career consequences.

During my tenure in the Nixon Administration, I was told that, if I was a "good boy" and toed the Establishment line, I would be named, at age 32, to be Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and that, subsequently, I would be groomed for high elected office, including the Presidency.

When I left the GOP, I did so recognizing that loyalty to a political personality or party ought never take precedence over loyalty to foundational principles and the policy objectives which arise from them.

P.S. Last time I checked, my friend, Pat Buchanan, had returned to the Republican Party.


  Constitutional Restoration | April 15, 2005

On Thursday and Friday, April 7 and April 8, I was privileged to participate as a speaker and council member in a conference focusing on the need to end judiciary tyranny. We were able to give a big boost to the Constitution Restoration Act (CRA).

Speakers at the conference included former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly, TCCF Trustee Dr. Edwin Vieira, Mark Sutherland of Joyce Meyer Ministries, former Congressman Bill Dannemeyer, and numerous other heroes of the movement.

A copy of the Declaration adopted by the conference here follows: Link


  Join Me on a Trip to Panama | April 14, 2005

You are cordially invited to join me and Lt. General Gordon Sumner (USA-Ret.) on a four-day, action-oriented visit to Panama, arriving May 9 and returning May 12, 2005.

Our visit will include (a) an inspection tour of the Canal, (b) a visit to the Red China container ports on the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Canal, (c) meetings with Panamanian officials, business leaders, and media, (d) briefings concerning the impact of al Qaeda, drug dealers, and corruption in Panama, (e) a meeting with U.S. State Department personnel in Panama City, (f) discussion concerning efforts to defend the Canal against terrorism, (g) sightseeing, and (h) dinner at the home of TCC Board member, the renowned Dr. William Campbell Douglass (editor of Real Health), to discuss real estate opportunities and health issues.

Howard Phillips

Full Trip Details


  Salon | April 12, 2005

I told Michelle Goldberg of Salon.com that I am not a theocrat. I do not believe in a governing church establishment, but I am a theonomist, who believes, as did America’s Founding Fathers, in the laws of God as the foundation of American jurisprudence, as transmitted to us via the British Common Law.

Howard Phillips
Chairman, The Conservative Caucus


  Jane Fonda | April 7, 2005

The New York Times (4/5/05) in "The Arts" section devotes considerable space to a new book by Jane Fonda entitled "My Life So Far".

When I was Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), I did my best to cut off Federal funding for Jane Fonda and her then husband, Tom Hayden, who were allowed to pick your taxpaying pocket under the rubric of the so-called Great Society "War on Poverty".

I had first met Jane in 1958 when she was dating a Young Republican friend of mine, Bob Toscano. I met her second husband, Tom Hayden (her first was Roger Vadim) when Hayden was editor of the University of Michigan daily newspaper and I was President of the Harvard Student Council. We debated at a Congress sponsored by the U.S. National Student Association (NSA) in Minneapolis. I was amazed by Hayden’s candid expressions of hatred for his parents and his country.

Shortly after the NSA conclave, I helped found the Young Americans for Freedom at a conference in Sharon, Connecticut in September, 1960. Hayden was then busy drafting the Port Huron statement, which became the coda of Students for a Democratic Society, a far Left group which he helped organize.

Jane’s most recent marriage was to Ted Turner, founder of CNN for which I served during the 1980s as a co-host on its daily "Crossfire" broadcasts. I most recently briefly visited with Mr. Turner on the set of "Gods and Generals", the great epic honoring Stonewall Jackson, of which Mr. Turner was the principal financier.

Friends of mine from Georgia celebrated the fact that Jane Fonda was now characterizing herself, beginning in the mid-1990s, as a professing Christian, but her version of Christianity, nurtured by a friendship with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, was one in which abortion was deemed permissible.

The good news in all this is that the American taxpayer is no longer subsidizing Jane Fonda’s activities.

Howard Phillips
Chairman, The Conservative Caucus


  Terri Schiavo | April 1, 2005

The murder of Terri Schiavo with the complicity of the Federal and state Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches made me ashamed today of my country. All over the world, people look at the United States and its demands that democracy be extended, but, as I have frequently pointed out, democracy is a procedure and what is truly important is justice, virtue, and righteousness.

One of the mistakes being made even by people on our side is the notion that we have three separate but equal branches. In fact, the Legislative is the superior branch, the Executive secondary, and the Judiciary is in third place.

We need more leaders with the courage to not only proclaim their faith, but to act on it. The murder of Terri Schiavo will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of these United States of America.

Howard Phillips
Chairman, The Conservative Caucus


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