On pages 378-379 of President Nixon: Alone in the White House,
Richard Reeves talks about the issue of I.Q. Reeves quotes a memo to
President Richard Nixon by Pat Buchanan, which was attached to an
article by Richard Herrnstein in the Atlantic Monthly.
Herrnstein's article argued that heredity, not environment, determined a
person's intelligence. Buchanan sought to apply this idea to debates
regarding racial integration:
"Every study we have shows blacks 15
I.Q. point below whites on average....If there is no refutation, then
it seems to me that a lot of what we are doing in terms of integration
of blacks and whites----but even more so, poor and well-to-do----is
likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction----as
the incapable are placed consciously by government side-by-side with
the capable."
Pat Moynihan, who advised President Nixon on matters of domestic policy, had different advice. Moynihan stated:
"It
seems to me essential for you to proceed on the assumption that the
scientists have not proved their case....Herrnstein is probably right
that the world's work is done by persons of talent, but the world is
kept together by the decency of quite ordinary people...."
Nixon
denied the existence of inherent equality. Actually, Reeves states that
Nixon told him in a 1982 two-hour conversation that he (Nixon) believed
that Asians were intellectually superior to Caucasians, and Caucasians
were intellectually superior to blacks. But Nixon ended up agreeing
with Moynihan on how to respond to the Herrnstein article. Nixon said:
"It's clear that everybody is not equal, but we must ensure that anybody
might go to the top."
Here are some thoughts:
1. On the issue of I.Q. and race, I linked in my post here
to a column by African-American conservative Thomas Sowell arguing that
I.Q. is not based on race. Sowell cites examples of African-Americans
doing better on I.Q. tests than whites. Moreover, others have argued
that I.Q. tests are culturally biased.
2. I disagree with the
notion that one racial group is superior to another racial group, but I
still appreciate a point that Moynihan made: that even people with
average I.Q.s can contribute to society. It wouldn't be that good of a
society if only those with high I.Q.s could make contributions, while
everyone else was deprived of opportunity. It's a better society if
everyone is involved and makes a contribution.
3. I think that
Buchanan's comment is sad. Buchanan is a mix, in my opinion. On the
one hand, you find tragic comments like the one in that memo. On the
other hand, I read him in another memo encouraging Nixon in 1968 to
reach out to African-Americans. Buchanan has also expressed admiration
for African-Americans' religiosity, and he has argued that free trade is
bad because it takes away jobs from African-Americans.
4.
Overall, at least in my reading thus far, Reeves' portrayal of President
Nixon's record on civil rights is not particularly glowing. Reeves
quotes racist things that Nixon allegedly said. He cites a memo in
which Nixon shamelessly advocated criticizing judicial activism with a
wink-wink to the South. He talks about segregationists whom Nixon
wanted to appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court, including the attorney who
"represented Little Rock in its 1957 efforts to maintain segregated
schools" (page 382). Reeves treats Nixon's Philadelphia Plan to
increase African-American employment in construction as an attempt by
Nixon to "deflect criticism on racial matters" (page 376). And yet,
there are times when President Nixon listens to progressive advice. On
one occasion, Nixon listened to Vice-President Spiro Agnew on the issue
of housing. (UPDATE: In Nixonland, however, Rick Perlstein says that Agnew argued that the cuts Nixon was thinking about would hurt white suburbanites.) And Nixon agreed with Moynihan's advice to ignore the
Herrnstein article.