The Neocons: First in War, Last in Peace

The neocon Founders and their acolytes were largely Jews scarred by the Holocaust, much like the men and women with whom I tended to associate. To their credit few of them had suffered any illusions about Stalin’s Russia. But the same was true of those of us on the non-Communist left. Irving Howe — Kristol’s former pal and later his bitter ideological adversary, who would write an introduction to a volume of Present Tense profiles I later edited– loathed the neocons, and vice versa. He once wrote a biting Op Ed mocking neocons for defending Reagan’s alliance with Contra “freedom fighters” in its secret proxy war against Nicaragua. Inspired, I assigned an amazing journalist, Tina Rosenberg, who later moved on to the New York Times, to cover the troubles south of the border, which she did in several impressive reports, none of which I imagine the bellicose pro-Reagan neocons on the floor above appreciated After the U.S.-favored Chilean-Pinochet coup against the elected Salvador Allende, Rosenberg quoted a popular joke among Chileans. “Why is there no military coup in America?” The answer: “There’s no U.S. Embassy.”

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