Principles and Heresies

As the subtitle to Kevin Smant's biography indicates, the shape of the postwar American conservative movement was decisively influenced by Frank Meyer (1909-1973). One of the most passionate and committed of the Cold War's communists-turned-conservatives, Meyer's untiring efforts to locate a principled ground for the fusion of the disparate strands of conservatism -- particularly its traditionalist and libertarian wings -- provided the necessary cohesion for a fractious movement to eventually sweep to power with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.