[Bret L]

((Actually, he isn't quite forgotten, is he? Bret.))


The Forgotten Conservative
by Nesta Bevan on September 22, 2009


"A once prominent name has been erased from the history of the American Right after World War II. Readers of National Review in the late 1950s and early ‘60s would have found it difficult to miss the contributions of Revilo P. Oliver, among the most frequent book reviewers for the magazine. Oliver, who taught at the University of Illinois and read 11 languages, including Sanskrit, was a classical philologist of great distinction, and his articles for the magazine displayed his remarkable erudition.

Oliver was a close friend of the founder and editor of National
Review, William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley went sailing with him and
described him in Cruising Speed as “without exception the single most
erudite man” he had ever met. But their friendship faced a difficulty
that could not be overcome. Oliver joined the John Birch Society at
its inception in 1958 and served on its National Council. After an
initial period of wariness, Buckley repudiated the Birch Society, in
particular the claim by its founder Robert Welch that President
Eisenhower was an agent of the Communist conspiracy.

Oliver after this falling out made American Opinion, a monthly journal
sponsored by Welch, his principal outlet for political writing. He
continued to review books, on an even more extensive scale than he had
done for Buckley. His articles there included learned discussions of
Oswald Spengler and Eric Voegelin. He wrote a special issue of the
magazine, An Introduction to the Contemporary History of Latin
America, which made clear that he had the history of every nation of
that region at his command. He also bore primary responsibility for
the annual Scoreboard issue, which estimated the extent of Communist
influence for each nation in the world. Often, these estimates struck
skeptics as absurdly high; the United States, for example, regularly
scored over 60 percent!

Oliver was thus a presence, if a controversial one, among American
conservatives. But one would never know this if one consults most
standard accounts of the period. George Nash, the author of the best
known survey, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since
1945, makes no mention of Oliver, and the just published book of
Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives, also omits him. (Honorable
exceptions include Paul Gottfried and Thomas Fleming, The Conservative
Movement, and Jeffrey Hart, The Making of the American Conservative
Mind.)

Why has Oliver been dropped from the picture? The answer is not far to
seek. Oliver became more and more controversial, and after the
mid-1960s proved too extreme even for Welch. In February 1964, he
wrote “Marxmanship in Dallas” that advanced as one hypothesis for the
Kennedy assassination that the Communists killed Kennedy “because he
was planning to turn American.” Though this was in fact the view that
Oliver considered the least likely of the three hypotheses he
considered, it understandably provoked a widespread angry reaction. It
was too soon after the assassination for such mordantly negative
opinions of Kennedy. Matters did not improve when Oliver acquitted
himself poorly in testimony before the Warren Commission. It
transpired that he could not support the more extreme allegations of
his assassination articles; often, he had relied on dubious inferences
from unreliable newspaper sources. Perhaps, though, he was reluctant
to go into details before a hostile audience.

Oliver and the John Birch Society came to a final parting in July
1966, after a speech by Oliver, “Conspiracy or Degeneracy?” which he
delivered at the New England rally for God, Family, and Country. In
this talk, Oliver asked whether the failure adequately to confront
Western decline stemmed more from biological degeneracy or
conspiracies that aim at our destruction. Suggesting that the former
was more likely, he asked his audience to imagine that the Jews, a
group he held in the forefront of the anti-Western conspiracy, “were
vaporized at dawn tomorrow.” Would not the problems that had led to
the present crisis, Oliver thought, soon recur? He was taken by
hostile critics to have called for the extermination of the Jews,
though this was not what he had said. Nevertheless, his position in
the Society became untenable, and, after a bitter break with Welch, he
resigned.

In the years after that, until his death in 1994, he became more
strident, reveling in coarse terms of ethnic abuse that comported
oddly with his eminence as a classical scholar. The Jews had become
for him the chief enemy, and in his posthumous work The Jewish
Strategy, he claimed that we are now in the “third stage” of the
Jewish onslaught, which has as its goal the killing of all Gentiles.
He became, as he had not been in earlier times, a fervent supporter of
Adolf Hitler and praised the “clear-sighted realism” of Reinhard
Heydrich.

Given the record of his later years, it is small wonder that
contemporary conservatives prefer to ignore Oliver. To do so, though,
is a serious mistake; his thought continues to raise issues of vital
concern to the Right. Particularly worthy of study is his article,
“Conservatism and Reality,” which appeared in Modern Age (Fall 1961).
Telling us that “politics is the art of the possible,” Oliver opposes
attempts to plan an ideal society that, necessarily, cannot command a
consensus. Plato, “the greatest of all political theorists” had been
careful to state the “precisely delimited scope” of his political
writings, but later philosophers often ignored Plato’s wisdom, seeking
to bring about a society in full conformity with their ideals.

For Oliver, this striving for the ideal cannot succeed.

I do not deprecate metaphysical thought, of which I am the first
to vindicate the necessity, but I do suggest that when conservatives
undertake to formulate a political doctrine, they will do well to give
priority to thought about problems within the very narrow range of
what is now possible.

Attempts to base conservatism on Christianity, Oliver argues, fail
this test. Christians dispute among themselves the doctrines of their
faith, and no version of Christianity commands consensus. If there is
to be an Established Church, what would be its doctrines? (In fact,
as his later writings made evident, Oliver bitterly opposed
Christianity; for him, the Bible was “the Jew-book.” He did not
disclose this aspect of his thought until his later period.)

If a viable American conservatism cannot be based on Christianity,
what is the alternative? One possibility would be to say that, because
of the severity of the threats to Western survival, we need a dictator
to assume extraordinary powers. Oliver is tempted by such an appeal to
the “centripetal power,” and he elsewhere mentioned Amaury de
Riencourt, The Coming Caesars, as an example of this view.

But to rely on a dictator is dangerous; why assume that the
centripetal power will be exercised in a way favorable to the Right?
Instead, Oliver suggests, conservatives should rally round the
Constitution as the embodiment of our traditional way of life against
alien assaults. “A majority of the American people, despite the best
efforts of our educators and publicists, retain a deep respect and an
emotional attachment for the Constitution.” The task of contemporary
American conservatives is “to devise strategy and to formulate, on the
only available basis, the principles of our Constitution, a realistic
and rational patriotism. . . Our task is to defend
Rome.” (Incidentally, at one point the legendary Oliver erudition
lapses: he wrongly refers to Thaddeus Stevens as a senator.)

Another aspect of Oliver’s thought is among his most valuable
contributions. He criticized American entry into both world wars, and
the mendacity of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt in embroiling
us in fratricidal wars is a topic that often occupied him. In a
notable review for American Opinion, he called attention to Philip
Dru, Administrator (1912), a novel by Wilson’s advisor Edward Mandell
House that favored presidential dictatorship and war to enact
“progressive” reforms. He strongly supported Pearl Harbor revisionism
and claimed, on the basis of his work in an intelligence agency of the
government during World War II, inside knowledge of Roosevelt’s
mendacity in provoking the Japanese attack.

An underlying theme in “Conservatism and Reality” came to the fore in
his later work, and this again raises a fundamental issue. If, as
Oliver does, one rejects religion as a guide to life, what is to
replace it? For Oliver, the answer is clear: race is fundamental. In
“History and Biology,” American Opinion (1963), Oliver highly
recommends Lothrop Stoddard’s “The Revolt Against Civilization”
Stoddard, “one of the most brilliant of American writers,” argued that
the colored races pose a threat to the white race, and Oliver
enthusiastically agrees. For him, racial struggle is primary, and he
regards ethical obligations as limited to one’s own race. For him,
this view was unquestionable. In response to a correspondent to
National Review who asked why one should give primary emphasis to the
needs of one’s own race, Oliver was puzzled. Was this not how everyone
in fact acted?

Skeptical readers may think Oliver has played rather fast and loose
with the foundations of ethics. Further, do the racial views he
supported have behind them the consensus that he urged was necessary
for political action? When Americans did not act in the racially
motivated way he thought self-evidently true, he ascribed this to
conspiracy and propaganda. The notion that his own opinions were
merely that—opinions—rather than the expression of a primordial racial
consciousness seems not to have occurred to him. Whether Oliver’s
stress on racial struggle is an example of the sectarianism he
effectively warns against is a question his readers must confront.
But, agree with him or not, Oliver poses basic questions that all too
many other writers choose to ignore."

http://www.takimag.com/article/the_f..._conservative/

[Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!]

On Sep 23, 5:03*pm, Bret L wrote:

Why has Oliver been dropped from the picture?

Matters did not improve when Oliver acquitted
himself poorly in testimony before the Warren Commission. It
transpired that he could not support the more extreme allegations of
his assassination articles; often, he had relied on dubious inferences
from unreliable newspaper sources.

He became, as he had not been in earlier times, a fervent supporter of
Adolf Hitler and praised the “clear-sighted realism” of Reinhard
Heydrich.

I love it when an author answers their own question so thoroughly.

The question might have been, "Why does Bratzi love Oliver so much
that he wants to have his baby?" LoL.

[Bret L]

On Sep 23, 5:18*pm, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"
wrote:
On Sep 23, 5:03*pm, Bret L wrote:

Why has Oliver been dropped from the picture?
Matters did not improve when Oliver acquitted
himself poorly in testimony before the Warren Commission. It
transpired that he could not support the more extreme allegations of
his assassination articles; often, he had relied on dubious inferences
from unreliable newspaper sources.
He became, as he had not been in earlier times, a fervent supporter of
Adolf Hitler and praised the “clear-sighted realism” of Reinhard
Heydrich.

I love it when an author answers their own question so thoroughly.

The question might have been, "Why does Bratzi love Oliver so much
that he wants to have his baby?" LoL.

Oliver was retroactively written out, Soviet style, from the
conservative history.

He was right about at least a few things. Anyone visiting Los Angeles
today can not disagree.

Whether you agree with him or not, you must acknowledge the level on
which he thought. If he came to admire, in some ways, Hitler, he was
well driven to it.

Hitler was made inevitable by policies advocated and implemented in
the US and Britain and France. Each of those nations today is set on
policies that will make new Hitlers inevitable in their own countries.
If you do not want that, oppose those policies.

And I think you know what those policies are.

[vinyl anachronist]

On Sep 23, 5:03�pm, Bret L wrote:

But, agree with him or not, Oliver poses basic questions that all too
many other writers choose to ignore."

Because they were dumb questions. Duh.

[Clyde Slick]

On Sep 23, 6:03*pm, Bret L wrote:
((Actually, he isn't quite forgotten, is he? Bret.))

The Forgotten Conservative
by Nesta Bevan on September 22, 2009

"A once prominent name has been erased from the history of the American Right after World War II. Readers of National Review in the late 1950s and early ‘60s would have found it difficult to miss the contributions of Revilo P. Oliver, among the most frequent book reviewers for the magazine. Oliver, who taught at the University of Illinois and read 11 languages, including Sanskrit, was a classical philologist of great distinction, and his articles for the magazine displayed his remarkable erudition.

Oliver was a close friend of the founder and editor of National
Review, William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley went sailing with him and
described him in Cruising Speed as “without exception the single most
erudite man” he had ever met. But their friendship faced a difficulty
that could not be overcome. Oliver joined the John Birch Society at
its inception in 1958 and served on its National Council. After an
initial period of wariness, Buckley repudiated the Birch Society, in
particular the claim by its founder Robert Welch that President
Eisenhower was an agent of the Communist conspiracy.

Oliver after this falling out made American Opinion, a monthly journal
sponsored by Welch, his principal outlet for political writing. He
continued to review books, on an even more extensive scale than he had
done for Buckley. His articles there included learned discussions of
Oswald Spengler and Eric Voegelin. He wrote a special issue of the
magazine, An Introduction to the Contemporary History of Latin
America, which made clear that he had the history of every nation of
that region at his command. He also bore primary responsibility for
the annual Scoreboard issue, which estimated the extent of Communist
influence for each nation in the world. Often, these estimates struck
skeptics as absurdly high; the United States, for example, regularly
scored over 60 percent!

Oliver was thus a presence, if a controversial one, among American
conservatives. But one would never know this if one consults most
standard accounts of the period. George Nash, the author of the best
known survey, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since
1945, makes no mention of Oliver, and the just published book of
Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives, also omits him. (Honorable
exceptions include Paul Gottfried and Thomas Fleming, The Conservative
Movement, and Jeffrey Hart, The Making of the American Conservative
Mind.)

Why has Oliver been dropped from the picture? The answer is not far to
seek. Oliver became more and more controversial, and after the
mid-1960s proved too extreme even for Welch. In February 1964, he
wrote “Marxmanship in Dallas” that advanced as one hypothesis for the
Kennedy assassination that the Communists killed Kennedy “because he
was planning to turn American.” Though this was in fact the view that
Oliver considered the least likely of the three hypotheses he
considered, it understandably provoked a widespread angry reaction. It
was too soon after the assassination for such mordantly negative
opinions of Kennedy. Matters did not improve when Oliver acquitted
himself poorly in testimony before the Warren Commission. It
transpired that he could not support the more extreme allegations of
his assassination articles; often, he had relied on dubious inferences
from unreliable newspaper sources. Perhaps, though, he was reluctant
to go into details before a hostile audience.

Oliver and the John Birch Society came to a final parting in July
1966, after a speech by Oliver, “Conspiracy or Degeneracy?” which he
delivered at the New England rally for God, Family, and Country. In
this talk, Oliver asked whether the failure adequately to confront
Western decline stemmed more from biological degeneracy or
conspiracies that aim at our destruction. Suggesting that the former
was more likely, he asked his audience to imagine that the Jews, a
group he held in the forefront of the anti-Western conspiracy, “were
vaporized at dawn tomorrow.” Would not the problems that had led to
the present crisis, Oliver thought, soon recur? He was taken by
hostile critics to have called for the extermination of the Jews,
though this was not what he had said. Nevertheless, his position in
the Society became untenable, and, after a bitter break with Welch, he
resigned.

In the years after that, until his death in 1994, he became more
strident, reveling in coarse terms of ethnic abuse that comported
oddly with his eminence as a classical scholar. The Jews had become
for him the chief enemy, and in his posthumous work The Jewish
Strategy, he claimed that we are now in the “third stage” of the
Jewish onslaught, which has as its goal the killing of all Gentiles.
He became, as he had not been in earlier times, a fervent supporter of
Adolf Hitler and praised the “clear-sighted realism” of Reinhard
Heydrich.

Given the record of his later years, it is small wonder that
contemporary conservatives prefer to ignore Oliver. To do so, though,
is a serious mistake; his thought continues to raise issues of vital
concern to the Right. Particularly worthy of study is his article,
“Conservatism and Reality,” which appeared in Modern Age (Fall 1961).
Telling us that “politics is the art of the possible,” Oliver opposes
attempts to plan an ideal society that, necessarily, cannot command a
consensus. Plato, “the greatest of all political theorists” had been
careful to state the “precisely delimited scope” of his political
writings, but later philosophers often ignored Plato’s wisdom, seeking
to bring about a society in full conformity with their ideals.

For Oliver, this striving for the ideal cannot succeed.

* * I do not deprecate metaphysical thought, of which I am the first
to vindicate the necessity, but I do suggest that when conservatives
undertake to formulate a political doctrine, they will do well to give
priority to thought about problems within the very narrow range of
what is now possible.

Attempts to base conservatism on Christianity, Oliver argues, fail
this test. Christians dispute among themselves the doctrines of their
faith, and no version of Christianity commands consensus. If there is
to be an Established Church, what would be its doctrines? *(In fact,
as his later writings made evident, Oliver bitterly opposed
Christianity; for him, the Bible was “the Jew-book.” He did not
disclose this aspect of his thought until his later period.)

If a viable American conservatism cannot be based on Christianity,
what is the alternative? One possibility would be to say that, because
of the severity of the threats to Western survival, we need a dictator
to assume extraordinary powers. Oliver is tempted by such an appeal to
the “centripetal power,” and he elsewhere mentioned Amaury de
Riencourt, The Coming Caesars, as an example of this view.

But to rely on a dictator is dangerous; why assume that the
centripetal power will be exercised in a way favorable to the Right?
Instead, Oliver suggests, conservatives should rally round the
Constitution as the embodiment of our traditional way of life against
alien assaults. “A majority of the American people, despite the best
efforts of our educators and publicists, retain a deep respect and an
emotional attachment for the Constitution.” The task of contemporary
American conservatives is “to devise strategy and to formulate, on the
only available basis, the principles of our Constitution, a realistic
and rational patriotism. *. *. Our task is to defend
Rome.” (Incidentally, at one point the legendary Oliver erudition
lapses: he wrongly refers to Thaddeus Stevens as a senator.)

Another aspect of Oliver’s thought is among his most valuable
contributions. He criticized American entry into both world wars, and
the mendacity of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt in embroiling
us in fratricidal wars is a topic that often occupied him. In a
notable review for American Opinion, he called attention to Philip
Dru, Administrator (1912), a novel by Wilson’s advisor Edward Mandell
House that favored presidential dictatorship and war to enact
“progressive” reforms. He strongly supported Pearl Harbor revisionism
and claimed, on the basis of his work in an intelligence agency of the
government during World War II, inside knowledge of Roosevelt’s
mendacity in provoking the Japanese attack.

An underlying theme in “Conservatism and Reality” came to the fore in
his later work, and this again raises a fundamental issue. If, as
Oliver does, one rejects religion as a guide to life, what is to
replace it? For Oliver, the answer is clear: race is fundamental. In
“History and Biology,” American Opinion (1963), Oliver highly
recommends Lothrop Stoddard’s “The Revolt Against Civilization”
Stoddard, “one of the most brilliant of American writers,” argued that
the colored races pose a threat to the white race, and Oliver
enthusiastically agrees. For him, racial struggle is primary, and he
regards ethical obligations as limited to one’s own race. For him,
this view was unquestionable. In response to a correspondent to
National Review who asked why one should give primary emphasis to the
needs of one’s own race, Oliver was puzzled. Was this not how everyone
in fact acted?

Skeptical readers may think Oliver has played rather fast and loose
with the foundations of ethics. Further, do the racial views he
supported have behind them the consensus that he urged was necessary
for political action? When Americans did not act in the racially
motivated way he thought self-evidently true, he ascribed this to
conspiracy and propaganda. The notion that his own opinions were
merely that—opinions—rather than the expression of a primordial racial
consciousness seems not to have occurred to him. Whether Oliver’s
stress on racial struggle is an example of ...

read more »

Terb Giwdul just has to keep telling us about Revolting Gnitlover.