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Vast, Right-Wing Cabal?
Meet the Most Powerful Conservative Group You've Never Heard Of
By Marc J. Ambinder
W A S H I N G T O N, May 2 � When Steve Baldwin, the executive director of an
organization with the stale-as-old-bread name of the Council for National Policy,
boasts that "we control everything in the world," he is only half-kidding.
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Half-kidding, because the council doesn't really control the world. The staff of about
eight, working in a modern office building in Fairfax, Va., isn't even enough for a
real
full-court basketball game.
But also half-serious because the council has deservedly attained the reputation for
conceiving and promoting the ideas of many who in fact do want to control everything
in the world.
For many liberals, the 22-year-old council is very dangerous and dangerously
secretive, and has fueled conspiratorial antipathy. The group wants to be the
conservative version of the Council on Foreign Relations, but to some, CNP
members � among the brightest lights of the hard right � are up to no good. The
CNP meets this weekend at a Washington location known to fewer insiders than the
identity of the vice president's undisclosed chunk of bedrock.
Look for them if you're at a ritzy hotel in Tyson's Corner, Va.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the headliner. White House counsel
Alberto Gonzales will speak, as will Timothy Goeglein, deputy director of the White
House Office of Public Liaison. There have been no public announcements, and
there won't be. The 500 or so members will hear private, unvarnished presentations.
White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said Gonzales' remarks would not be
released. The CNP's bylaws keep out the press and prevent disclosure of the
transcribed proceedings � unless all the speakers give their assent. Few do.
In a 2000 filing with the Internal Revenue Service, the CNP says it holds "educational
conferences and seminars for national leaders in the field of business, government,
religion and academia." It says it produces a weekly newsletter keeping members
abreast of developments, and a biyearly collection of speeches. Executive Director
Morton Blackwell was paid a little more than $70,000. The organization took in more
than $732,000.
Baldwin said he doesn't get many calls from the press. But he's happy to answer
some basic questions.
Of the group's reputation, he said, "There's a lot of stuff out there claiming we're a
lot
more than we are."
What they are � or rather, what sway they hold � is a source of some dispute.
In 1999, candidate George W. Bush spoke before a closed-press CNP session in
San Antonio. His speech, contemporaneously described as a typical mid-campaign
ministration to conservatives, was recorded on audio tape.
(Depending on whose account you believe, Bush promised to appoint only anti-
abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court, or he stuck to his campaign "strict
constructionist" phrase. Or he took a tough stance against gays and lesbians, or
maybe he didn't).
The media and center-left activist groups urged the group and Bush's presidential
campaign to release the tape of his remarks. The CNP, citing its bylaws that restrict
access to speeches, declined. So did the Bush campaign, citing the CNP.
Shortly thereafter, magisterial conservatives pronounced the allegedly moderate
younger Bush fit for the mantle of Republican leadership.
The two events might not be connected. But since none of the participants would say
what Bush said, the CNP's kingmaking role mushroomed in the mind's eye, at least
to the Democratic National Committee, which urged release of the tapes.
Partly because so little was known about CNP, the hubbub died down.
The CNP Against Liberalism
The CNP describes itself as a counterweight against liberal domination of the
American agenda.
That countering is heavy and silent, in part because few people, outside its
members, seem to know what the group is, what it does, how it raises money, and
how interlocked it has become in the matrix of conservative activism. Conservative, it
clearly is.
Unlike other groups that meet in darkened chambers, the CNP doesn't seem to
favor, as a matter of policy and choice of guests, one-worlders, secular humanists, or
multicultural multilateralists.
According to one of its most prominent members (who asked that his name not be
used), the CNP is simply and nothing but a self-selected, conservative counterweight
to the influential center-left establishment.
Panel topics at this year's convention hew to the CNP's world view, but Baldwin, who
wouldn't give specifics, said they reflected many different vantage points.
"We'll probably discuss some of the hot issues that are relevant today. The Middle
East � We'll have a number of speakers from different perspectives. We're not of all
one like mind when it comes to what's going on there."
He continued: "Worldwide terrorism. Campaign finance reform. Generally, we kind of
mirror what's going on in society. We pride ourselves on being relevant and timely,
so that members want to come to our meetings."
Still, the group's shadowy reputation deters some high-profile figures from speaking
before it � those who directly influence policy.
For example: A knowledgeable person lists former CIA Director James Woolsey as a
Friday night speaker and says that on Saturday, Reagan defense official Frank
Gaffney will debate former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan about Israel.
The cavalcade of "formers" resembles nothing more formidable than a Fox News
prime-time guest lineup.
In the 1990s, social issues tended to dominate the panels, and guests tended to be
talking heads who were plugged in to policy circles, rather than operating from within
them.
The concoction of federalism, economic growth, social traditionalism, religious
activism and anti-secularism goes down well among members because it is spiced
with disdain for a common enemy: the creeping influence of political and
philosophical liberalism.
Many current and former members politely said they would prefer not to speak on the
organization's behalf. Those who did respond to telephone and e-mail messages
declined to talk about their interest in the organization. More than a dozen did not
respond at all.
"Obviously, membership would imply that there is a commonality, so that goes
without saying," said Alvin Williams, CEO of a political action committee that
promotes black conservatives. "I don't think it is anything threatening at all."
He declined to elaborate.
Darla St. Martin, associate executive director of the National Right to Life, would
only
say, "Since everyone else is so skeptical [about speaking], I don't think I should."
Even Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman, the watchdog and open government
proponent, would not comment, a spokesman said. His busy schedule � four
depositions in two days � precluded a short telephone interview.
Gary Bauer, the former presidential candidate and ubiquitous media presence, asked
a spokesman to decline a request for an interview about the CNP, citing the group's
long-standing policy against press publicity.
Judging by its 1998 membership roster, which was obtained by a secular watchdog
group called the Institute for First Amendment Studies and posted on its Web site,
the New Right's many colors are represented, but there are few, if any, neo-
conservatives, Republican moderates and libertarians.
Selective name dropping doesn't juice up a conspiracy. The evidence that the CNP is
an axis of nefarity is slim. Conservative groups are quick to point out that liberal
watchdogs like Common Cause have a great influence in public policy debates, and,
for instance, a direct hand in writing the campaign-finance legislation.
A New Force in the Age of Reagan
But even CNP backers claim that the liberal establishment has nothing comparable
� no central gathering of its powerful members. The idea for CNP gestated since
the late 1960s, when the American Right, aiming for more cake, desired a vigorous
voice to influence policy and elite opinion at the margins. Intellectuals it had, but
practical policy seminars were missing. The Moral Majority flashed into being after
Roe vs. Wade, but it was oriented toward Middle America, not to not-liberal
Washington power-brokers.
CNP was conceived in 1981 by at least five fathers, including the Rev. Tim LaHaye,
an evangelical preacher who was then the head of the Moral Majority. (LaHaye is the
co- author of the popular Left Behind series that predicts and subsequently depicts
the Apocalypse). Nelson Baker Hunt, billionaire son of billionaire oilman H.L. Hunt
(connected to both the John Birch Society and to Ronald Reagan's political network),
businessman and one-time murder suspect T. Cullen Davis, and wealthy John
Bircher William Cies provided the seed money.
Top Republicans were quickly recruited to fill in the gaps; hard-right thinkers met up
with sympathetic politicians. And suddenly, the right had a counterpart to liberal
policy groups. Christian activist Paul Weyrich took responsibility for bringing
together
the best minds of conservatism, and his imprint on the group's mission is
unmistakable: It provided a forum for religiously engaged conservative Christians to
influence the geography of American political power.
At its first meeting in May of 1981, the CNP gave an award to Reagan budget guru
David Stockman, strategized about judicial appointments, and reveled in its
newness.
Since then, at thrice-yearly conventions, the CNP has functioned as a sausage
factory for conservative ideas of a particular go�t: strong affirmations of military
power, Christian heritage, traditional values, and leave-us-alone-get-off-our-backs
legislation. That red meat is seasoned by groups like David Keene's American
Conservative Union, researched and vetted by conservative policy groups, chewed
on and tested at statewide activist meetings.
There's no denying their influence: Money is transferred from benefactor to worthy
cause. Aspirants meet benefactors.
The CNP helped Christian conservatives take control of the Republican state party
apparati in Southern and Midwestern states. It helped to spread word about the
infamous "Clinton Chronicles" videotapes that linked the president to a host of crimes
in Arkansas.
But the CNP is one factory among many. It stands out nowadays because it prefers
not to stand out.
Unlike, say, the Heritage Foundation, which has a media studio in its headquarters,
or the American Enterprise Institute, which publishes journals, the CNP is content to
operate in the alleyways of downtown Washington. Part of what keeps it so healthy,
according to current members, is the same penchant for secrecy that drives
outsiders crazy.
As then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton prepared to tell NBC News' Katie Couric
that her husband was a victim of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy," a senior Clinton
adviser asked Skipp Porteous, then the head of a secular watchdog group, for
information on the CNP. Porteous' conclusions � "that this is a group that has the
ideology, the money and the political backing to cause social change in the United
States" � became a part of the White House litany.
Such talk is an apparition, members say. Much ado about nothing.
CNP will forever be nothing more than a "comfortable place" for like-minded folks to
brainstorm, one member said.
"What they decided at one point was that people will simply feel more at ease," said
another member, Balint Vazsonyi, who joined the group in 1997. "It's certainly not for
a political reason. The views discussed here are among those you see on the
television or when you open a newspaper."
Vazsonyi, a concert pianist who writes a column syndicated by Knight-Ridder, said
CNP gave him a chance to meet people who shared his views.
"I knew very, very few people in the political world. I knew lots of musicians, but
nobody in politics. Then someone said to me, 'There's a place for people who are
and have been interested in what you're interested in, and you might like to be known
by them.'
"That," he said, "was really the hook."
Quiet � Just the Way They Like It
CNP may simply be press-shy because of traditional qualms about the establishment
media's secular, often politically liberal perspective, and because "they attribute
things that individual members may do to us," Baldwin says.
The London Guardian linked arch-conservative gun-rights activist Larry Pratt with
Attorney General John Aschroft by saying "the two men know each another from a
secretive but highly influential right-wing religious group called the Council for
National Policy."
More recently, when California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon disclosed his
campaign's contributors, The Associated Press made sure to note that four
members of CNP had donated to Simon's campaign � as if conservatives donating
to conservatives was worthy of a news story all its own. (Simon's father, the former
treasury secretary, was a CNP member).
Other CNP press leaks have been less the product of liberal media snooping than of
internal jockeying. When James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, told a
CNP gathering in 1998 that he was thinking of withdrawing support for the
Republican Party, rival conservative leaders made sure the national media got word
of the speech.
The CNP remains obscure. Experienced Washingtonians often mistake them for
another organization, the liberal Center for National Policy. The Washington Times
reported Jan. 23 that Sen. John Kerry spoke to the Council for National Policy about
AWNR drilling, when, in fact, the Massachusetts Democrat spoke to the Center for
National Policy, a very different organization. Both the Council and Center are not to
be confused with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Or the National Center
for Policy Analysis.
Porteous' group, The Institute for First Amendment Studies, posted the CNP's roster
on its Web site and managed to slip past security at several CNP meetings
throughout the 1990s and soon published details notes of the proceedings.
If their summaries are reliable � and the IFAS swears they are � the from-the-fly-
on- the-wall thrill and the occasional agitated quotation for Democratic opposition
research files do little to sustain the belief that the CNP is ruling America behind
those French doors of the Fairfax hotel conference rooms.
"There's nothing wrong with what they are doing," Porteous said. "It's just that
they're
ultraconservative and a lot of people don't agree with that."
"I don't think they are out there pounding their chests," said Joel Kaplan, a Syracuse
University journalism professor who has studied CNP's ties to conservative projects.
"But I don't think that they're hiding either."
Who's Who at the CNP
According to a membership roster obtained by Institute for First Amendment Studies,
notable former and current Council for National Politics members include:
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy
Thompson. (Both are no longer members).
Christian businessmen like Holland and Jeffrey Coors, of the brewing company,
and entrepreneur and Orlando Magic owner Rich DeVos.
Two of fundamentalist Christianity's most prominent end-of-the-world theologists:
John Ankerberg, who believes that biblical prophecies were literal promises and are
coming true; and Dave Breese, who hosts The King Is Coming, a show devoted
entirely to Christian eschatology. Also: Chuck Missler, an Idaho radio host who has
predicted an imminent invasion of Jerusalem by forces guided by the Antichrist.
Former presidential candidate and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson;
former Texas GOP Rep. Steve Stockman, who stunned the political world in 1994 by
ousting House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks from his seat; the Rev. Don Wildmon
of the American Family Association.
Christian reconstructionists like Rousas J. Rushdoony.
Williams, the founder of BAMPAC, a political action committee that promotes black
conservatism.
Sam Moore, president of Thomas Nelson, the country's most successful Christian
book publishing company.
Prominent creationist Henry Morris; political scientist Dora Kingsley; Red Cross
board member Ann Drexel; Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead.
Center-right coalitionist Grover Norquist and values activist Phyllis Schlafly.
Oliver North, whose speeches to CNP members during the height of his
involvement in Iran-Contra stirred up debate.
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