How Patrick Moynihan Got Richard Nixon To Listen To James Wilson ‘The smartest man in the United States’
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Pat Moynihan once encountered Nixon in the hall of the White House and said ‘Mr. president, James Q. Wilson is the smartest man in the United States. The President of the United States should pay attention to what he has to say.’
Editor’s note: These remarks were delivered at the American Enterprise Institute’s recent chairman’s dinner in Washington D.C. AEI President Arthur Brooks, AEI scholar Charles Murray, and Washington Post columnist George Will spoke in recognition of James Q. Wilson.
Arthur Brooks: Since 1938, AEI has had the motto that the competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society. There are very few individuals that have been central to the competition of ideas in America—truly a man of ideas—as the one we’re honoring here tonight. One of the nation’s leading public intellectuals, an AEI trustee, the chairman of the council of AEI’s academic advisors, and a great American patriot: James Q. Wilson.
Jim is a man who casts a long intellectual shadow. In the estimation of one of our dinner speakers tonight, George Will, to be a political commentator in James Q. Wilson’s era is to know how Mel Torme must have felt being a singer in Frank Sinatra’s era. We’re all competing for the silver medal; Wilson has won the gold. We’re going to hear tonight and celebrate the contributions to the intellectual world from our gold medal winner.
A consummate social scientist, Jim has offered insights on issues of central concern to all of us as Americans. For decades, he has analyzed the change in the political and cultural landscape of our nation with complete clarity and with unfailing honesty. He’s brought his wisdom to bear on all facets of American government and society, and he’s done so with passion, conviction, principle, and unfailing love of his country.
Jim is the author of more than a dozen books. One reviewer has described his 1993 seminal book The Moral Sense as “the most significant reflection on this matter since Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments.” Book reviews just don’t get better than that. He’s had an enormously distinguished academic career. Currently, he’s a professor at Boston College’s Department of Political Science, but before that he has served as the Ronald Reagan Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine, the James Collins Professor of Management at UCLA, and the Shattuck Professor of Government at Harvard.
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush, the Bradley Prize from the Bradley Foundation, and a lifetime achievement award by the American Political Science Association. Jim has been an intellectual hero and mentor to me and to many people of AEI for many years. At one point in my academic career, I was citing Jim so much that my colleagues said I should change my name to Arthur Q. Brooks.