From Liberal to Conservative: Marxism, New Left, 1960s Radical Politics, Black Panthers (1997)

• Report rights infringement
• published: 17 Mar 2014
• views: 3262

David Joel Horowitz (born 10 January 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and current president of the conservative-leaning think tank the David Horowitz Freedom Center, editor of FrontPage Magazine, and director of Discover the Networks, a website that tracks left-wingers. Horowitz founded the organization Students for Academic Freedom, whose self-stated goal is combating what it calls the "leftist indoctrination" in academia. Horowitz was raised by parents who were members of the Communist Party USA. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting leftism completely. Horowitz has recounted his ideological journey in a series of retrospectives, culminating with his 1996 memoir Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey. In the early 1960s, Horowitz lived in London as an employee of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.[9][10] He regarded himself as a serious Marxist intellectual. In 1966, Ralph Schoenman persuaded Bertrand Russell to convene a war crimes tribunal to judge American involvement in the Vietnam War.[11] Horowitz developed serious reservations about the process when the tribunal's judges, who included Isaac Deutscher, Jean-Paul Sartre, Stokely Carmichael, Simone de Beauvoir, James Baldwin, and Vladimir Dedijer, degenerated into a feuding rabble.[12] See Russell Tribunal. While in London, Horowitz was a close friend of Deutscher, of whom he published a biography in 1971.[13][14] He also wrote The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War. In January 1968, Horowitz returned to the United States and became co-editor of the New Left magazine, Ramparts.[10] During the early 1970s, Horowitz developed a close friendship with Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton. In Horowitz's subsequent writings, Newton is depicted as equal parts gangster, terrorist, intellectual, and media celebrity.[10] As part of their work together, Horowitz helped raised money for Newton and assisted with the running of a school for the children of Party members. He further recommended that Newton hire a bookkeeper, Betty Van Patter, who was then working for Ramparts. In December 1974, Van Patter's murdered body was found floating in San Francisco Harbor. Horowitz, who was certain that the Panthers were responsible, had his suspicions confirmed by several Party members. He has cited that experience as the catalyst which led him to reject Marxism completely. For nearly a decade, Horowitz's rejection of Marx remained a private matter. In the spring of 1985, however, Horowitz and longtime collaborator Peter Collier wrote an article for The Washington Post entitled "Goodbye to All That". The article explained their change of views and recent decision to vote for President Ronald Reagan.[16] In 1986 he published "Why I Am No Longer a Leftist" in the Village Voice.[17] Horowitz has not been completely welcomed by the conservative right. Jay Nordlinger says conservatives are uneasy with Horowitz' activism and confrontational style.[18] In 1987, Horowitz co-hosted a "Second Thoughts Conference" in Washington, D.C., described by Sidney Blumenthal in The Washington Post as his "coming out" as a social conservative. According to attendee Alexander Cockburn, Horowitz related how his Stalinist parents had not permitted him or his sister to watch Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies. Instead, they were required to watch propaganda films from the Soviet Union.[19] In May 1989, Horowitz, Ronald Radosh, and Peter Collier travelled to Poland for a conference in Kraków calling for the end of Communism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Horowitz