How did a nice, liberal Jewish boy from the Bronx come to be called a conservative?Ben J. Wattenberg has been at the center of American ideas and events since 1966, when he became a speechwriter for and aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Recruited out of the blue, Wattenberg worked closely with press secretary Bill Moyers and immersed himself in the world of high-powered Democratic strategy making. Eventually he served as an adviser to two Democratic presidential candidates and in...

When President Carter responded to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan by slapping an embargo on U.S. grain shipments to the U.S.S.R., he used ""the wealth weapon"" to defend American strategic interests and human rights, as authors Ben J. Wattenberg and Richard J. Whalen propose in this book that breaks new ground in analyzing U.S. foreign policy.Writing from their different personal perspectives (as a liberal Democrat and a moderate Republican respectively), this pair of partisan activist...