Watching the Parade Pass Them By

The Hoover Institution, situated in the center of Stanford University, is the nation’s best-known conservative think tank. It provided intellectual firepower for the so-called Reagan Revolution--”built the knowledge base,” as the former President himself once put it. For most of a decade, its fellows enjoyed access to the highest circles of federal government. Their books were read by Cabinet secretaries; their theories on everything from welfare to foreign affairs shaped tangible policies.

In short, they mattered, and mattered in a way that, after Wednesday, will be impossible to re-create for a long time. Wednesday was a day for Hoover fellows to contemplate new tasks, a day for reassessing institutional direction and waiting for the telephone to ring. An inauguration was under way in Washington, and this one had nothing to do with the Hoover.

“My phone has been quiet,” said senior fellow Alvin Rabushka, co-author of a flat tax plan that once captured Reagan’s interest. Rabushka was listening to Rush Limbaugh when I entered his office. He turned down the radio and recalled the busier times, times when entire days could be consumed with calls from campaign consultants, policy advisers, newspaper reporters. This was not one of those days.

“I’ve had two calls all morning,” he said, “and one was a wrong number.”

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In another office was S. Fred Singer, a visiting fellow who once advised the White House on environmental matters. What Clinton needed, Singer said, was somebody close to him who could stand up to the “extreme environmentalists, the crazies.” What he needed, Singer went on, warming to the notion, “is someone like me. He should get me!” Then he paused, gave a dismissive flick of his hand and mumbled: “But he won’t.”

Somewhat surprisingly, few tears were shed for George Bush. Singer and others spoke bitterly of a “systematic purge of the Reaganauts” by the Bush forces--”Boston bluebloods,” in one telling--who dismissed Reagan advisers and Reagan ideas as so much Left Coast foolishness. Nonetheless, there also was the recognition that William Jefferson Clinton would not come knocking on Hoover Tower anytime soon.

“If the Reagan years were the high years,” said senior fellow John H. Bunzell, former president of San Jose State University, “and the Bush years were the falloff years, then the Clinton years will be the dry years.”

As the self-described “resident Democrat,” Bunzell personifies a change from Hoover’s early days as an exclusive outpost of Commie-hating, conservative die-hards. Diversity is the watchword now, although some fellows do grumble that the ideological broadening is merely “the price of peace” with Stanford’s faculty. A war was waged in the late 1980s over plans to place the Reagan library at Hoover. It ended with the retirement of longtime Hoover Director W. Glenn Campbell and an agreement to place greater emphasis on straightforward, non-controversial academic research.

Resident Democrats aside, there seems to be little danger of Hoover outflanking the liberal Brookings Institution on the left. On my rounds, I picked up talk of “1.2 billion Communists still in China” and “card-carrying Marxists” on Stanford’s faculty. And the place hardly was infected with Clinton fever. “I was the only fellow down in the lounge watching the inaugural on television today,” Bunzell said, adding slyly: “I do recall that in 1980, when Reagan was inaugurated, there was quite a, uh, larger audience.”

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Though Ted Koppel wasn’t calling Wednesday, some of the Hoover fellows do believe the think tank might actually gain prominence during the Clinton Administration. They envision a role as “the loyal opposition,” providing counterpoints to policy debates. Said Director John Raisan: “In the Bush Administration, a lot of our folks were apologetically quiet. Now I get the sense that, with Clinton, they will be a little more outspoken.”

Further, the shunning by Bush and other events--like the fall of the Berlin Wall--already had forced the institution into new fields and even new countries. Its archives are swelling with new documents retrieved from behind the Iron Curtain, and fellows who once gave advice to Ronald Reagan now draft speeches for Boris Yeltsin. And yes, they still talk about “taking back” the White House, and keep watch for the next Reagan.

“The Republican animals are out in the forest,” said senior fellow Martin Anderson, “and moving very swiftly.” One of Hoover’s biggest stars, Anderson played a major role in the early Reagan Administration. Twelve years ago, in fact, he was in Washington, overseeing development of a domestic agenda. On Wednesday, he was preparing for humbler duty. “I’m going to write a newspaper column,” he said. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.