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Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right

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Except for the chapter describing conservatism's very early days, the rest of this work is very disappointing. It does not describe YAF as I and others knew it. YAF was the center of what became the American political conservative movement. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan represented the mainstream. Within YAF, it was typified by our two greatest National Chairmen: David A. Keene of the University of Wisconsin the the late 1960s, and especially Dr. Ronald F. Docksai of New York University in the early 1970s. These were the two active as well as intelligent young conservative leaders. The others were glorified "young Republicans" and various flake-blowhards. However, too little is said about how Keene and Docksai built up YAF into something big and active. Dr. Schneider gives us a very flawed study with only half the story. He also mistakenly associates "reactionaries" like youthful followers of George Wallace with YAF. However, it was Keene and Docksai who effectively purged the Wallace-types and reactionaries from YAF; and perhaps ruthlessly at times. Yet, Schneider misses all of this. He tells the story only from the standpoint of the ARMCHAIR-libertarians (versus the CAMPUS-libertarians---with whom I associate myself). Keene and Docksai were too close to the William Buckley family, but they nevertheless successfully built up young conservatives into something different than and opposed to the John Birchers or religion-fanatics with all their intolerant hangups. It is clear to me Schneider must be too young to have really experienced any of this, or at least his book is lacking. -Ralph Fucetola

Handsomely "covered," of the hardcopy's 288 pages, only 182 are actual written text. Comprising what's left are "chapter notes" of meandering accuracy and arguable interest.

As YAF's longest serving National Chairman, i.e., retiring in 1975; my name is correctly in this book's citations, which are otherwise amazingly inaccurate. I ascribe this to never having been interviewed by the author, nor as I learn were other more important but equally active young conservative alumnae.

For those of us who actually lived through the brief period described, this book is "history"-lite. Lamely written, but flagrantly inaccurate was Mr. Schneider's description of YAF's profoundest success: its singularly conceived grassroots-campaign against selling STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES to (then) Soviet-dominated economies, the keystone of which becoming YAF's final success with IBM. Schneider tells it otherwise, yet in a fashion less provocative than somnalent....To describe YAF during the period 1968 to 1978 without a large portion devoted to Hon. James L. Buckley, and the unique ad hoc YAF youth movement organized by Herbert Stupp in New York, is to watch opera without music. I could go on, but this book grows ever more boring justthinking about it.

It reads like a foreign student's Masters Thesis submitted to an American university's faculty-committee with little to no knowledge of politics or "conservatives"; and badly "Englished" by its northern Korean translaters.

Someday someone will write an interesting, accurate history of the brief but ideologically formative epoch this book's cover pretends to encase. That day has not yet arrived.

Greg Schneider interviewed many of the major players in YAF and had access to documents and correspondence not previously available. Like John Andrew's earlier work, Schneider spends much time on internal machinations at the national level to the detriment of reflecting "grass roots" activism on campuses and in communities across America. While Andrew's coverage ends in 1964,Schneider covers 25 years of YAF-through the campus conflicts, the Vietnam War era, and the various Reagan presidential campaigns. What is missing? 1. an overemphasis on the actual misses the role of YAF as a training ground for future leadership. Thus, projects and campaigns were undertaken not merely for immediate ends but to develop individual skills for later leadership roles. 2. The book fails to explain a key word in its title. YAF was a "cadre" as part of a nascent conservative movement which represented a bringing together of those intellectuals and writers around National Review and the DC political operatives with a network of activists across the nation. As a "cadre," YAF facilitated the development of lasting relationships and contacts in every state. In this sense, YAF was similar to, but more than, a fraternity or sorority. 3. Finally, the early internal politics tends to overlook the fact that YAF as a youth group was autonomous and independent - a fact which in the 1980s tended to exacerbate its decline. While one can debate when the "end" came, the scattered remnant which employs the YAF name now is not the same as the group portrayed in Schneider's most engaging study.

Gregory L. Schneider's "Cadres for Conservatism" is an attempt to chronicle the history of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the nation's oldest conservative and libertarian youth organization.

Schneider's introduction states that he covers the entire history of YAF, from its founding in 1960 until its collapse in 1986.

There's only one problem with this. YAF did not end in 1986.

In its coverage of the pre-1986 era, this book is quite enjoyable and reasonably accurate (surprisingly so, given the dearth of printed materials covering this organization). In the early 1960's, YAF began as a huge organization - twice filling Madison Square Gardens, and helping draft Barry Goldwater as the Republican candidate for President in 1964. In the late 1960's, YAF found itself outnumbered and outfought (but not always out-argued!) by the New Left on most college campuses.

After the collapse of the student protest movement in the early 1970's, YAF retreated to a less confrontational style - concentrating on press releases and its "New Guard" magazine. By the time YAF's hero, Ronald Reagan, was elected president, YAF was primarily a fundraising organization masquerading as a student group.

Schneider tells the story of YAF's financial collapse in the mid-1980's, but unfortunately he assumes that this was the end of the organization. But the opposite is true - it was the collapse of the bureaucratic YAF which allowed an activist, student-led YAF to resurface. In the late 1980's, the streets of Southern California in particular were filled with confrontations between leftists and YAFers confronting each other (and the police) over such issues as aid to the Nicaraguan "Contras" and the plan to defend America from nuclear missile attack ("Star Wars"). At the 1988 Republican Convention in New Orleans, YAF filled a nearby park with a "Social Security Card Burning" demonstration.

The most mind-boggling aspect of Schneider's oversight in this matter is that he lists Terry Cannon, a Nebraska lawyer, as the last chairman of YAF -- "from 1985 to 1986". Cannon was indeed chairman until April 1986, at which point he resigned and turned the reins over to Sergio Picchio. (Sergio served until 1989, when he was replaced by Jeffrey Wright.) Indeed, Schneider admits that this alleged "death of YAF" was not mentioned in any of the news media (p. 160). Presumably one of leaders of early 1980's YAF whom Schneider interviewed concocted this "death of YAF" story to make his tenure in the organization seem more glorious by comparison.

In any event, Young Americans for Freedom still exists. Indeed, YAF's support for California's "Proposition 5" helped this "Indian Gaming Initiative" become law in 1998.

Gregory Schneider's neglecting of post-1986 YAF is the greatest error in his book. In most other aspects, this volume is a delightful read, and a welcome treatment of an oft-neglected aspect of American history.

Although I was pleased to learn of and read a history of the young conservative movement in the '60s and 70s, this book was a disappointment for me personally, as well as for others who had been involved with me in the New York area during this time. Dr. Schneider's book did help me to better understand the earliest days of YAF, although it seems there is always an emphasis on the factionalism and division within the organization, rather than the accomplishments, beginning with the rallies for Goldwater in the early '60s. However, it seems as though he confined his research to one or two YAFers' personal files, while ignoring key individuals and some of the most important components of YAF history. For example: Dr Schneider's list of interviewees does NOT include Dr. Ronald F. Docksai. Ron Docksai was not only the longest serving National Chairman of YAF, but he was chairman during the organization's period of greatest growth, and it's zenith in membership and chapters. YAF's battles with the left on campuses and in the streets is mentioned, but not in proportion to their importance in the organization's rise and fall. YAF membership swelled, partly, in response to the growth of the NEW Left, and YAF contracted as the left's shrinkage was noted by some conservative minded young people who might have become activists had they perceived a greater threat to their interests and values from the mid 1970s forward. Could you write a comprehensive history of the United States excluding any references to the 19th century?? This book properly highlights the importance of the Goldwater campaign as the breeding ground and training camp for thousands of young conservatives who subsequently assumed positions of great influence in the conservative movement and American society. But because of the author's national office file-oriented research(a variation on a Beltway mentality), he ignores two state wide mpvements that were runners-up to the Goldwater efforts in attracting young conservative activists and future leaders.These state-wide campaigns will not be surprise to YAF members and leaders from the mid '60s and '70s. They were: Reagan for Governor(California), and Buckley for U.S. Senator(New York). As a YAF member and Youth for Buckley volunteer during this period, I can tell you that I was attracted to the conservative movement by Jim Buckley the cnadidate and by key YAF leaders in New York. And I met more than a few others like me who might not have gotten involved, except for the good organizing and outreach efforts of NY-YAF. Yet this book devotes part of one sentence to the Jim Buckley campaign, and refers to the "New York chapter" of YAF. Dr. Schneider, state organizations were not chapters. States were the framework for dozens of chapters. To further illustrate how gross are Dr. Schneider's omissions, think about this: After Jim Buckley's election to the U.S. Senate, New York state YAF essentially DOUBLED in size in about 6 months. Under the leadership of my State Chairman, Herb Stupp, and exec. directorDave Gronsbell and others, they increased the number of chapters in N.Y. from 59 in late 1970 to 121 by mid-1971. This was the only state organization in the history of YAF to break the "100" chapter mark, yet the book does not make any reference to this phenomenom. Membership increased greatly as well, and in 1971, N.Y. state may have accounted for almost one-third of YAF's national membership! How could this not be written about? I don't know as much about the California situation, but am also disappointed that the Reagan for Governor effort did not get enough attention as well.Pat Nolan, who I have met, was a key "Youth for Reagan" leader and later a YAF National Board member and State Assemblyman. Yet Pat Nolan is not quoted, interviewed or mentioned in this book. The list of omissions could go on. Again, I thank Dr. Schneider for rounding out my knowledge of YAF's early years and the Goldwater movement, but I am astounded that my era in YAF (the late '60s to the mid '70s( was covered so spottily. -Rick Monte

The previous review by Mr. King is off the mark, perhaps because of his involvement with the YAF disapora in California. The International Workers of the World still "exist" also, but hardly as a NATIONAL organization of significance. Schneider has performed a very valuable service for American history in capturing -- through extensive interviews with people who were active in YAF in the two-plus decades after its founding in 1960 -- the beliefs and the significance of this young conservative cadre, which went on to play such an important role in electing Ronald Reagan and staffing his two administrations. Many names will be unfamiliar to readers, while others like Bob Tyrrell of THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR, many congressmen, and numerous writers give weight to Schneider's claim that what YAF (and its elder advisors) wrought was an important turning point in the American political system. Moreover, it's simply a great story, fun to read. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I should add that I was a founder of YAF and a board member for many years.)

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