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We generally associate the 1960s with free-love, communes, drug abuse and left-wing politics. But that is not how it started out. Groups like Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) were pushing for a new American Agenda that included less government, more real freedom and economic sanity. Conservatives understood that the Government was encroaching upon their lives, and they were determined to do something about it. The something that they determined to do was get a conservative in the White House. That conservative was none other than the independent, tough, cowboy, store magnate from Arizona, Barry Goldwater.
Rick Perlstein's book, "Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus", is a blow by blow description of early 1960s politics. How Barry Goldwater was thrust to the forefront of the Conservative movement and how he was almost unwillingly dragged into the presidential race by his devoted admirers. Mr. Perlstein, by no means writes from an ideological perspective. He tosses barbs with an acerbic wit at all the politicians of the day. Stinging everyone from Clarence Manion to Clif White, to the great men, Goldwater, Kennedy and Johnson.
With over 500 pages of perceptive narrative, we are thrust into the midst of the politics of the day. A reader would have to read all the newspapers from 1958 to 1964 to get the same information, and then he would be missing some of the verve and passion Mr. Perlstein injects into his book.
Fascinating accounts of personalities from Walter Cronkite to Dwight Eisenhower bring this history to vivid life. Mr. Perlstein does not hesitate to assume an understanding of the motivations of the political animals that are the subject of this book. By and large he is quite fair to them all, attributing to Johnson a desire to heal the nation and to Goldwater a desire to live up to the high standards of his Conservative principles.
As the 1964 presidential campaign gets in full swing, we are treated to the back-room machinations of both sides. The professionals within the Johnson administration, including Bill Moyer, perform cut-throat maneuvers to destroy Goldwater. Meanwhile, the naive Goldwater team ignores their best political operatives, preferring to flame-out in a blaze of glory rather than cave into traditional politics.
Barry Goldwater's conservative determination to stay above the fray simply leaps off the pages. Even so, we find him incapable of fully articulating the conservative message. His problem is that he assumes that everyone thinks the way he does. When he decries welfare because it creates dependence, no one understands. American society had been too long conditioned to the notion that the Government can handle every social ill. Johnson managed to make Goldwater look like a war-monger, even as Johnson, himself, was preparing a full scale war in Viet Nam (not the first time a Democrat promised to keep us out of a war even while planning to delve deeply into one).
In the end, we see Goldwater go down to a crushing defeat. The pundits all predicted the death of the conservative movement. Yet, readers understand that it was only the beginning. Perlstein foreshadows this by emphasizing the rise of a new conservative spokesman, a great communicator who will someday make a majority of Americans share his conservative vision of what America could be. That man was Ronald Reagan.
"Before the Storm" is the definitive history of the 1964 presidential campaign. It's narrative and analysis is concise, intelligent and gripping. This is a must read for every conservative wanting to understand the roots of his political beliefs.
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