Robert A. Heinlein, In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2

by William H. Patterson, Jr.

  Goldwater had already lost the active support of former President Eisenhower when the subject of the president’s younger brother, Milton S. Eisenhower, running for the presidency this year was broached to him. “One Eisenhower a generation is enough,” he had said. And that was that. Ginny was an experienced field worker—but this was entirely outside her experience. She asked Robert for help.

  18

  GOLD FOR GOLDWATER

  Up to this point, Heinlein had been content to applaud from the sidelines.

  I had intended to take no real part in this campaign other than donation of money, while Ginny devoted practically full time to it. But I find myself in the situation of the old fire horse downgraded to pulling a milk wagon—a school bell rings … and milk gets scattered all over the street! Last week I found myself, for the first time in a quarter of a century, presiding at a political rally—co-opted without warning at the last minute. I must admit that I rather enjoyed it. And I find myself pulled in on many other political chores and devoting perhaps half as much time to it as Ginny does.1

  The Goldwater situation was eerily similar in outline to Upton Sinclair’s EPIC movement—a grassroots campaign not entirely accepted by the local party regulars—but on the Republican side this time. As with EPIC in the 1930s, Heinlein believed it was the right thing to do in the current circumstances. Since his disillusionment over Roosevelt’s involvement in Pearl Harbor, he no longer regarded party affiliation as important: “I usually voted a split ticket. There wasn’t enough difference between the two parties to matter, usually…”2

  I really do not think my own political opinion moved very far either to the right or to the left between now and thirty years ago. I have grown far more experienced, far more knowledgeable, and my opinions have sharpened thereby. But I was an individualist and a democratic constitutionalist then and I am now. I thought Jefferson had just about the right ideas then—and I do now.…

  From my point of view what has happened is not that I have moved to the right; it seems to me that both parties have moved steadily to the left—until the [moderate] Republicans … occupied a position somewhat left of center whereas the Democratic Party had moved to the far left.3

  “Left” does not mean the same thing as “liberal,” though leftists have a vested interest in maintaining and promoting the confusion. Before the twentieth century, in fact, there was no “left” and “right” in American politics. Those terms of European politics could not apply in the United States because monarchism (the “right”) was not a possible position on the U.S. political spectrum. There was a time when Europeans almost could not conduct a political dialogue with Americans, because they did not share the same vocabulary of political ideas.

  Liberalism was a political philosophy that had a minor role in European politics, gradually displaced in favor of various strains of Marxist thought after the psychological shock of the failure of the European liberal/democratic revolutions in 1848. The progressive theories of class-collaborationist liberals like Henri de Saint-Simon4 fell out of favor in Europe (though they were and remained well entrenched in America), thanks to the bizarre utopian accounting system of Charles Fourier,5 and Babeuf’s6 “you must liquidate the ruling class” ideas from the French Revolution framed the basis of Karl Marx’s thinking after he fled the failed revolutions in Germany to haunt the British Museum researching and writing Das Kapital. The Soviet Union’s October Revolution, seventy years later, played in the cultural psychology of the twentieth century the same role that the American Revolution played for the political psychology of Western civilization in the nineteenth century.

  Heinlein’s training and experience in party politics took place at a time when “traditional” American radical liberals—Upton Sinclair and his EPIC group in California—were in an almost unrecognized struggle with the more left-leaning New Deal for the soul of America’s liberalism. The conflict might ultimately have gone either way—Roosevelt often seemed to have sentiments rather than ideology—but the New Deal programs were often created and guided by hard-core leftists such as Rexford Tugwell.7 By the time the division in the Democratic Party was actually noticed as anything more than the usual and traditional disagreements between the moderate and the radical wings of the party, it was too late.

  Heinlein was—and always remained—a traditional American liberal, Jeffersonian—not left and not right. This explains, for example, why he could marry and live with an announced conservative: Ginny’s core values were traditional American liberal, as well, and it is to them that he responded. As leftists took over the Democratic Party, a certain number of traditional American liberals migrated into the moderate wing of the Republican Party, and as the Republican Party itself moved to the left (a very traditional migration, as all political parties in the United States traditionally drew their evolution from the radical wing of the Democratic Party8), they migrated into the “conservative” wing of the party, which is where Ginny’s position was—and Goldwater’s. Although the association of religious fundamentalists with the Republican Party is very traditional in American politics—Abolition was an issue promoted and sustained in America’s churches, after all, and the Republican Party was founded to be the party of Abolition—the rise of the “religious right” is a much more recent phenomenon.

  In the years before “libertarianism” became associated with another radical-liberal political movement, itself ultimately fallen down the NeoCon rabbit hole, Heinlein defined his position using a then-standard terminology: “liberal” means “for freedom, above all.”

  We [he and Ginny] are libertarians—i.e., we believe in freedom and individualism to the utter maximum attainable at all times and under all circumstances. To some people “libertarian” spells “socialist,” “anarchist,” “crackpot” or “black reactionary”9—to us it simply means personal freedom in any and every possible way at all times—with meticulous respect for the other person’s equal freedom. (And that, incidentally, is the only sort of “equality” I believe in; all other definitions of “equality” turn out to be fake—in my opinion.)

  Freedom—This is how I feel about things—and all the too-serious critics who have tried to analyze my stories would find a continuing inner consistency if they spotted that one point. (But for Goddsake don’t tell anybody! Let em guess. I try to write clearly; if I fail to make my point to the reader, I won’t engage in long-winded apologia …10)

  This is why they favored Goldwater. This is the quality he and Ginny had seen in his Conscience of a Conservative book (and why they dedicated so much of their own fund-raising to buying and distributing this and the other campaign literature and books Goldwater had authored). The concluding paragraph of the first chapter of The Conscience of a Conservative narrows to focus on this single, overriding issue:

  The delicate balance that ideally exists between freedom and order has long since tipped against freedom practically everywhere on earth. In some countries, freedom is altogether down and order holds absolute sway. In our country the trend is less far advanced, but it is well along and gathering momentum every day. Thus, for the American Conservative, there is no difficulty in identifying the day’s overriding political challenge: it is to preserve and extend freedom. As he surveys the various attitudes and institutions and laws that currently prevail in America, many questions will occur to him, but the Conservative’s first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?

  To an even greater extent than Upton Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign in 1934, this was a “campaign of books,” and Goldwater seemed to favor freedom in all its forms more than any other candidate. “For me,” Heinlein wrote,

  being free is much more important than being well-fed—and I speak as one who has been miserably poor and painfully in debt and very hungry far from home, friends, or acquaintances, and no one to turn to—I still vote for freedom, and will wangle the maximum of it for myself no matter how strongly the majority may be against me—breaking any laws I can g
et away with breaking in order to achieve the highest personal degree of freedom I can arrange.11

  Certainly Goldwater’s voting record helped Heinlein to support him. It showed he had his heart in the right place—he had voted for the New Deal when it counted and very visibly had put his pocketbook on the line when he ordered his family’s department store to begin hiring Negroes. When he was a city councilman in Phoenix, Arizona, Goldwater had also spearheaded the movement to desegregate Sky Harbor airport. “The key to racial intolerance,” he had said, “lies not in laws alone but in the hearts of men.”12

  Heinlein had met the man outside the political context and years before the current campaign, while Goldwater was on a hunting trip in Colorado. “I like Goldwater as a person, too—but met him long after I had decided [in 1959] that he would make a good President.”13 Heinlein had no doubt that Barry M. Goldwater was the real deal. In fact, Goldwater’s biggest political liability as a candidate came directly from the fact that he was the real deal: He said what he thought about an issue the moment the subject came up, colorfully and vividly, without weighing what might be the politically expedient thing to say. His political opponents said that Goldwater “shoots from the hip”—and he did occasionally come out with the kind of thing that might be floated in a think tank but was political death for a national candidate (using low-yield nuclear weapons to exfoliate the jungles in Vietnam, for instance). This mattered less to Heinlein than that the opinions were sound and he always zinged his target.14

  This somewhat countered Heinlein’s natural suspicions of a man who won’t drink coffee. In a Republican field that included Richard Nixon (who had declined to run this year), Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Governor Scranton, and Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater stood out. Heinlein wrote to his brother Larry:

  I don’t know whether Goldwater can be elected or not—or whether he can change things if elected. But I would like to see the United States make a radical change away from its present course. I’m sick of bailing out Kremlin murderers with wheat sold to them on credit and at tax-subsidized prices, I’m sick of giving F-86’s and Sherman tanks and money to communists, I’m sick of undeclared wars rigged out not to be won—I’m sick of conscripting American boys to die in such wars—I’m sick of having American service men rotting in communist prisons for eleven long years and of presidents (including that slimy faker Eisenhower!) who smilingly ignore the fact and do nothing, I’m sick of confiscatory taxes for the benefit of socialist countries and of inflation that makes saving a mockery, I’m sick of signing treaties with scoundrels who boast of their own dishonesty and who have never been known to keep a treaty, I’m sick of laws that make loafing more attractive than honest work.

  But most of all I am sick of going abroad and finding that any citizen of any two-bit, county-sized country in the world doesn’t hesitate to insult the United States loudly and publicly while demanding still more “aid” and of course “with no strings attached” from the pockets of you and me. I don’t give a hoot whether the United States is “loved” and I care nothing for “World Opinion” as represented by the yaps of “uncommitted nations” made up of illiterate savages—but I would like to see the United States respected once again (or even feared!) … [sic] and I think and hope that the Senator from Arizona is the sort of tough hombre who can bring it about.

  I hope—

  But it’s a forlorn hope at best! I’m much afraid that this country has gone too far down the road of bread and circuses to change its domestic course (who ‘shoots Santa Claus’?) and is too far committed to peace-at-any-price to reverse its foreign policy.15

  Although Heinlein (mildly) preferred Lyndon Johnson over Alan Cranston among the Democrats, this year he went to work for the Colorado Goldwater campaign.

  Heinlein’s political experience had been gained in a Democratic Party that had recently tripled its size and was wide open, young, and vigorous. Moreover, his basic training was in an impoverished organization, not at first supported by the party establishment. Beating the bushes for money and exposure was second nature to him. His sudden emergence into the staid, long-established Republican organization in El Paseo County was not so much a fresh breeze as a hurricane. “His activities were a revelation,” Ginny later remarked, giving as one example, “Instead of simply charging the price for a book, he set up a goldfish bowl, and asked for contributions, getting more out of each customer.”16

  He was effective, no doubt, but his style was an affront to the party hierarchy.

  On June 20, he was invited to a strategy and planning meeting at the home of the county chairman, Robert M. Laura, Esq. Laura casually suggested something that got Heinlein’s hackles up: He was going to retain a portion of the monies raised locally to fund the local office—not unreasonable in itself, but their fund-raising literature promised explicitly that anything they collected would be sent directly to the national campaign headquarters.

  Just like Sinclair’s EPICs in 1934, Goldwater Republicans in 1964 were viewed with suspicion by traditional Republicans, and many of the usual party fund-raising doors often remained closed to the candidate: The national campaign needed every cent it could raise. What Laura proposed was foul betrayal of the party hierarchy—a local organization usurping the goals of the party. But, Robert was the new man in this particular group, and no one else objected. He kept his misgivings to himself.

  Instead, he turned to their immediate problem with the state organization, writing directly to Governor Love. The Scranton groundswell of support had never materialized, he pointed out: All Love could do now was to divide the party, on the eve of the nominating convention.

  Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 had come to a vote just before the nominating conventions, and Goldwater had voted against it. Heinlein understood Goldwater was not voting against civil rights: He was voting against federal enforcement of civil rights.17 In Senator Goldwater’s opinion, it was a matter for each state to do, individually, for itself, and, even more importantly, it was, at heart, a matter of the attitude of individuals, which could not be legislated by state or federal government.

  Goldwater’s opinion was Constitutionally “correct.” The U.S. Constitution had not specifically delegated this kind of power to Congress or the Executive, and it did reserve to the states any powers not specifically delegated. Lyndon Johnson, following the Kennedy brothers’ lead, used federal forces for the pragmatic reason that some states—George Wallace’s Alabama, for example—would not cede the rights of U.S. citizens unless coerced.

  “States rights” is a conservative issue in American politics, going all the way back to the Federalist Papers. Goldwater was where he belonged, after all—and perhaps also where he could do the most good on net. Heinlein’s notions on this issue probably remained more typical of a Democrat: How realistic could it really be to pretend that the United States was still a federation of sovereign states? And in any case, enforcement of a citizen’s civil rights under the Constitution most assuredly was the business of the federal government. But it was an honorable disagreement over tactics, not over basic goals, and it meant that racism would become an issue in the campaign.

  The Republican National Convention nominated Barry Goldwater on July 15, 1964. His acceptance speech articulated a position that was to become iconic: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” But it was another campaign liability: The extremism charge had been raised earlier in the campaign by fellow Republican Nelson Rockefeller, who was standing up for the reactionaries in the party—but it allowed Lyndon Johnson, as activist a president as existed in American politics since Lincoln (and “the phoniest individual that ever came around,” according to Goldwater, since Johnson had been lukewarm to civil rights prior to this), to position himself as a moderate and Goldwater as a lunatic extremist. Over a dirty-tricks television ad of a girl picking daisies over a countdown to an atomic
bomb that goes off in the background, Johnson supporters turned Goldwater’s campaign slogan—“In your heart you know he’s right”—against him: “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”

  Ginny stepped up her work for the campaign. Heinlein stepped up his work, too, but he was still conflicted—and at another meeting at Bob Laura’s house on August 1, he finally had more than he could take. Laura was temporizing over an offer of help Ginny had taken by telephone from a woman who identified herself as a Negro. He would take the matter up with his State Central Committee contact, Laura said, but his own reaction was: “Oh, they are free to go ahead and form their own committee.”18 Heinlein lost his temper for the first time in many years. He told Laura,

  They offered to stick their necks out; we should have shown instant gratitude and warmest welcome.… I can’t see anything in this behavior but Jim-Crowism.… you were suggesting a Jim-Crow section in the Goldwater organization.

  Mr. Goldwater would not like that. His record proves it.

  Negroes are citizens, Bob.… It is particularly offensive, this year and this campaign, to suggest that Negro Goldwater supporters form their own committee.…

  He then ticked down a list of Laura’s administrative foul-ups, concluding:

  —these faults can easily lose the county … [sic] and with it the state … [sic] and, conceivably, if the race is close, the Presidency itself.

  .… So I’ll try to refrain hereafter from offering you advice. But I think it’s time for you either to behave like a manager, or resign.19

  Laura apologized for his part in the altercation.

  Ginny went into field work full time, and Heinlein agreed to handle an expansion of the county office now that the nominating convention was over and the campaign was ramping up in earnest. As Laura temporized on the Jim-Crow question, he gave Heinlein a personal criticism, not the first time he had heard it: “I know you don’t believe that anyone could consider you a ‘yes’ man. I wonder, however, if you can conceive of another’s opinion, differing though it may be, possessing any merit.”20