Administration, conservative writers and journalists had taken a more active role than

ever before. On the pages of their journals and in their newspaper columns, right-wing

pundits probed Eisenhower's position on the critical issues of the day, lest he slip

back into the candidate-centered focus or the "me-tooism" associated with the Dewey

faction. Yale law student Brent Bozell, writing in Human Events, believed that

Eisenhower and his advisors were unprepared to deal with the Korean conflict. "A

'me-too' on ignorance," Bozell claimed, "won't do."52 Despite the conservative tone

of the campaign, Human Events was skeptical as to how Eisenhower would govern.

On October 22, the magazine reported that Taft's backers were working hard for

Eisenhower, but were saving some of their energy for the future in case Eisenhower

won and followed the line of the "Eastern internationalists." 53

 According to George Nash, the conservative intellectual movement did not

speak with one voice and often had large internal disagreements on policy issues.54

This fact is evident in the broad spectrum of conservative opinion during the

presidential campaign. Felix Morley, writing in Barron 's, believed that Taft's

influence on the campaign would be enough to convince Eisenhower that "liberty

against creeping socialism" was the central issue of the campaign.55 The editors of

The Freeman, saw the Taft-Eisenhower alliance as a validation of the numerical

superiority of conservative Republicans and believed that the GOP was finally







52 Brent Bozell, "An Education for Ike And Others," Human Events 9, no. 33. 13 August 1952.

53 Human Events 9, no. 43, 22 October 1952.

54 Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, xv-xvii.

55 Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly 32, no. 38, 22 September 1952, 3.