Springtime for Neocons

IN MAY 1968, Richard Hofstadter published an essay about the Vietnam War in the New York Times Magazine. It was called “Uncle Sam Has Cried ‘Uncle!’ Before.” Hofstadter had earned fame for works such as The American Political Tradition and Anti-Intellectualism In American Life that upended traditional interpretations of American history. The two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning historian was also a colleague and close friend of Lionel Trilling, Jacques Barzun and Daniel Bell at Columbia University. It was a moment when the voice of the New York intellectuals carried, even as the paladins of the New Left assaulted everything that they cherished.

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