Posted on 09/09/2010 4:41:47 PM PDT by Kaslin
They're gathering this weekend in Washington, streaming in from all corners of the country, and self-deprecatingly calling themselves OAFs — Old Americans for Freedom. That is because they're distinguished alumni of Young Americans for Freedom, without whom the last half-century would have been lost to an omnipotent state.
How could any such conglomeration of onetime student activists have been so indispensable?
Consider: In 1960, two months before a razor-thin majority (if that) of American voters handed the presidency to John F. Kennedy, conservative pundit William F. Buckley Jr. summoned some of America's brightest student leaders to his family home in Sharon, Conn. The country, they thought, was losing its way.
Five years before, Buckley had founded National Review, in part because President Dwight D. Eisenhower had wrested control of the Republican Party from its more constitutionalist Robert A. Taft wing. The dull conformity of liberalism seemed to meld Republicans with Democrats, descending over academia as well. The State was the new God.
Buckley intended to ignite a campus revolt. He'd already attracted a coterie of conservative and libertarian scholars to the pages of his magazine. Now he aimed at restive students.
His friend M. Stanton Evans was charged with drafting a statement of principles. The Sharon Statement would last as the late 20th century's single most elegant distillation of conservative principles.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I enjoyed YAF meetings my first few years in college. When they supported the VietNam War, it just dind’t meet my idea of conservative and I lost interest.
A lot of YAFers also became Youth for Goldwater members in ‘64.
Of course, they lost (Johnson was unbeatable, given the circumstances); instead we got the Great Society,
which produced massive welfare and the disintegration
of the inner-city family, among other things;
an indecisive overseas military intervention (a textbook lesson in how to lose a military confrontation);
an indecisive response to the “turn on, drop out” mentality (the exponents of which went on to become present-day faculty at our universities);
and many other ills.
I worked with YAF in California in the late 1960’s. I was in charge of making buttons for the state organization to be sold at the St. Louis YAF convention of 1969 or 70 [can’t be sure which]. I got to meet Al Capp at the convention.
I don't know that YAF "supported" the VietNam War as much as they and we at the Rally called for "No More Koreas. WIN in VietNam!"
With author of Black and Conservative and journalist, George Schuyler at “Victory in the Sky” July 4, 1970 (I’m in the yellow windbreaker)
FReegards!
I helped organize the St. Louis convention, it was summer of ‘69. Inviting Al Capp to be our headline speaker was my suggestion; thankfully Mike Thompson was a very fun, interesting, open-minded guy, some other people in power then wouldn’t have given him consideration.
Oh, Ken, that’s you, isn’t it! I’ve often wondered where you were, how you were doing.
Are you ever in contact with Phil Luce?
g
No, I’m not Ken. I was a low level functionary in the California state organization. Frankly, the only name I can remember was a guy named Steele. That was an interesting convention with conflict between the Trads and the Libertarians.
During the convention I served as the secretary to one of the California state heads; i.e., I carried his brief case and ran errands.
I am a historian writing a book about conservatism in the 1960s. I’d be crazy to ignore the 1969 YAF convention in St Louis. If anyone wants to talk to me about the convention please send me an email at sethoffenbach@gmail.com
I can provide any verification you might need.
Thank you!
I see that you are a newbie here. You should be aware that I, the addressee, was the only one who was notified about your post on this old thread. I would suggest that you collect all the other participants who claimed to participate and repost with their names separated by semi-colons.
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