The Birth of Jaffa and the Death of History

There have been a lot of things spoken of Goldwater, from lunatic to nationalist and everything in between. While most historians, on both the right and the left, tend to focus on these well placed propagandist terms, the few points that get perpetually overlooked by any analyst are the significant points of who he was, his own personal platform, how he rose through the ranks, and the historic catastrophe that was birthed from the overwhelming defeat of Nelson Rockefeller at Cow Palace, San Francisco, July 16, 1964.

Goldwater being a young Senator in 1952, when he began rising through the ranks of the Republican party, was no more a member of the new right than you or I. Rising to his position on the coattails of Ike, Barry would soon find himself battling labor bosses, senior senators, and the dominating faction of the Republican Party, meaning Nelson Rockefeller and the Northeastern Republicans (Yankees).

Rockefeller had his own peculiar place in this story. It should be remembered that he was the lesser heir of the Oil Tycoon John D. Rockefeller, heading both the Chase National Bank and Rockefeller Center Incorporated. Not to mention, he was an undying supporter of his brother John D. Rockefeller the third, the same man who was to assert upon his death that someone more evil than himself will grace the world with his presence, a person that would make every King, President, Prime Minister, or any lesser government position indebted and unable to refuse the benevolent philanthropy impressed upon them. America was no different, rising through the ear of our socialist president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and holding some kind of position in every administration that would be elected until his death.

Rockefeller would oversee the second academic assault against the Old Right and the South, since his financier overload, James de Lionel Rothschild would fund the leaders of Abolitionist Societies of the Northeast; Arthur and Lewis Tappan, to which, they turned around and funded people such as Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Brown, Parker, Webster, Clay, Pike, Cushing, and others to spread the filth they did. Though, the latter being a story for another, the ideology of philanthropy and capital being merged into one political philosophy has not been used once, but rather twice against a group whom they fear more than any other – the ones who have the easiest time dethroning them.

Rockefeller would push this philosophy on FDR, who spawned the New Deal, and through Johnson, who would pass the Great Society, which became Nelson’s most atrocious and damaging work.

In the process of impressing this false philanthropic ideology on America, he would usher in the exile of the old right from the Democratic party and see to it that corporatist candidates, such as Wendell Willkie or Thomas Dewey, would help the old guard keep the party from being uprooted by this nomadic group. Needless to say, the only viable candidate between the late 1930’s and 1964 that would have a big enough platform to speak from would be Robert Taft, who would join forces with Hoover, Joe Kennedy, and a few others – one of those few being Goldwater towards the end of Taft’s life.

However, academically, the assault had begun. With the New Deal came the Federal Writer’s Project, headed by socialist Henry Alesberg and head writer John Avery Lomax. Alongside the highly redacted American Guide Series, it would produce nearly 2500 interviews of former slaves. Lomax aimed at creating social and racial division amongst those living in the South which fueled the fires of cultural war between those of the Old South and those of New South. Most of the writers became unknowing participants in a  cultural war  by being a part of the socialist communities supported by Roosevelt and his wife. One of those groups was ultimately home to “civil rights reformist” Martin Luther King, Jr. Unfortunately, the condemnation of this group and their work by the House Un-American Activities Committee would not be enough to halt the fruits of their labor.

This war for the control of the Republican Party would rage until the 1952 Republican National Convention, which came down to Taft or Eisenhower. Taft being the most prominent and likely candidate, would find himself uprooted by Rockefeller and his group of Northeastern Republicans. One Arizona newspaper pointing out that they thwarted his nomination by producing well placed propaganda, which scared the money interest of the party towards their guy, Ike.

With Ike winning the nomination and the election, the 1964 election would become the catalyst for chaos. Goldwater would rise through the ranks with the recommendation of Robert Taft and would argue a more conservative stance when it came both domestic and foreign policy. Unfortunately, with the Bretton-Woods agreement becoming a great failure, at least when it comes to pulling all the delegates into it, the Northeastern Republicans would find a new enemy from a long telegraph that read more like a long tantrum than anything else. It became inevitable for Goldwater to avoid any conflict, mostly because Rockefeller companies had direct interest in this agreement.

Goldwater’s record proved he was strict on spending every dime. His first argument on a Senate Committee denounced foreign aid to France and Ike’s budget proposal as a New Deal dime store. From this point forward, Rockefeller and friends would look to repeat what they had done to Taft in 1952. In fact, they mounted a more lethal attack against Goldwater prior to his nomination, telling media that he was radical, opposite of the Republican Party beliefs, ready to blow up the eastern seaboard, and racist, all of which Goldwater would denounce in his memoirs. Nevertheless, the media ran with it going into Cow Palace, and using it for the duration of the election by making commercials that would spook any viewers, either undecided or moving between the two factions of the Republican party.

Rockefeller’s efforts would fail at Cow Palace, considering he would lose the nomination to Goldwater by an overwhelming majority, proving that America would still align itself with a more conservative tradition found mainly in the Southern United States.

However, there was one little hiccup that would be the South’s and the old rights ultimate enemy. Harry Jaffa was a hand-picked scholar for the Rockefeller Educational Institute by both Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger. Jaffa would rise to fame through words spoken by Goldwater. The importance to this entire showdown in 1964 was the simple fact that Americans are not willing to adopt New Right ideology and abandoned the founders – especially amongst old Southern blood. Rockefeller needed to make sure no candidate who aligned themselves with the Old Right would ever have a platform or be nominated by either party. Rockefeller would see to it that Leo Strauss was hired at the University of Chicago, which was created by John D. Rockefeller, and Jaffa through the school of Claremont – which again was a part of the Rockefeller, Inc.

When did history die and why are Southerners so despised? The answer was Goldwater and the final stand of the Old Right. Rockefeller and his New England Republicans and Democrats saw the Old Right as a perpetual threat and needed them banished. They ultimately accomplished this through well placed media propaganda and the education system. There was more to the Goldwater era than meets the eye, and we all should recognize it as being the entire reason why the South has grown to become public enemy number one: Rockefeller “historians” Harry Jaffa and Leo Strauss.

The views expressed on Abbeville Institute.com are solely those of the authors and may not reflect the views of the Abbeville Institute.

Justin Pederson

Justin Pederson is an independent historian.

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