Remember

The Seventh Biennial Convention of Young Americans for Freedom was beginning in Washington’s Sheraton-Park Hotel, and there I was standing in the lobby on the morning of Wednesday, August 15, wondering how I was supposed to cover a convention that went on in several places at once, when I suddenly discovered that my watch was still on Indiana time and I was 15 minutes late for the first press conference. An ominous beginning—but I hadn’t missed a thing. Ron Docksai and Wayne Thor- burn trying to explain YAF to the world, and the press trying to find out about Watergate. And, since the press’ gain is the world’s loss, the world didn’t find out that YAF was meeting to receive encouragement and direction from some of conservatism’s greatest, to honor our returned POWs and remember the MIAs, to elect some officers, and maybe learn something.

The press, I repeat, had something else in mind. “If YAF condemns this scandal, which reaches to the highest level of the Administration, won’titbea personal slap in the face of the President?” As an outsider, I hadn’t yet been informed that a Washington news conference was either true-false or multiple choice; but we broke up before it got painful, and were all late for the opening session, where several hundred (final count: 678) delegates welcomed each other and cheered John Ashbrook —“I am an American conservative first and a Republican second.” A man of principle proven in battle, and the crowd could hardly wait to say amen.