On Tue, 15 Mar 2005, Brad DeLong wrote:
> Really? When I talked to Moynihan, he ferociously denied that he was then
> or had ever been a "neoconservative."
He had a falling out with them in the 80s. And he was always against the term, which was originally one of abuse. (All of the original neocons denied they were neocons except Kristol. Daniel Bell once famously said "Neoconservatism is just Irving.")
But there is no doubt that he was one of them. He was one of the main contributors to The Public Interest, the magazine Kristol founded in 1965, which was the focus of their anti-bureaucratic state domestic agenda. His own 1965 book, _Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding_ coined one of the original key neoconservative slogans, the "adversary culture."
And more importantly, he was the central pivot of the neoconservative change from a primarily domestic agenda to a primarily international focus in the early 70s. He wrote many archetypally neoconservative foreign policy articles for Commentary, and one of them, which called for the UN to be used as a bully pulpit denouncing totalitarianism in the third world, got him the job as UN Ambassador, where he proceeded to put his blueprint into action.
Moynihan's UN tirades made him the first real public voice of neoconservative foreign policy. The editorial collective of Commentary and Scoop Jackson's aides -- which is pretty much the organizational definition of 1970s neoconservativism -- drafted him for the Senate in New York and ran his successful campaign. And then after their man Scoop lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Carter, they decided to run Moynihan for the Democratic nomination for president in 1980. They seem to have actually thought he could get it from a sitting president. Moynihan's failed campaign for president was the signal for them to give up on Democratic Party and go into the Repugs.
Naturally, being on opposite sides of the aisle after that point, they got into scraps (although ironically it was Moynihan who was neocon pioneer in working for Republican administrations when he served in cabinet and ambassadorial posts under Nixon).
After the cold war ended, Moynihan was increasingly more critical of them on both domestic and foreign policies. But it was all neutered catered luncheon talk because they weren't in power then. It was probably then that you talked to him, no?
Michael