The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think tank, has been a mainstay of conservative domestic and foreign policy thought since 1973, when Paul Weyrich and Edwin Feulner founded it with the help of Joseph Coors, the heir to the Coors beer empire and an important early funder of the right-wing movement (Edwin J. Feulner, "Joe Coors, R.I.P.," National Review, March 18, 2003). The foundation took a leading role in the movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were often heavily influenced by Heritage's "Mandate for Leadership" study (Jacob Weisberg, "Happy Birthday, Heritage Foundation," Slate.com, January 9, 1998). Although not as closely tied to the George W. Bush administration as the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Heritage has played a significant role in influencing debate on many U.S. foreign and security policies, pushing for an expansive war on terror, controversial weapons programs like missile defense, large defense budgets, and a hawkish line vis-à-vis other potential U.S adversaries.
One example of Heritage's efforts to prop up Bush administration policies is its Homeland Defense Project, an initiative it started just a few days after 9/11 and whose report, Defending the American Homeland, was published in January 2002. Although some of the study's recommendations included widely supported ideas such as ways to improve U.S. responses to a potential bioterror attack, the report also used 9/11 to push for defense programs that would have little or no impact on preventing the sort of attacks perpetrated in New York and Washington, like deploying a national missile defense (NMD) system. NMD had been a key item on the agenda of many Bush administration figures, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Participants on the study included L. Paul Bremer (co-chairman), Edwin Meese (co-chairman), Pete Wilson, Daniel Goure, and Fred Ikle.
Many Heritage scholars avoid neoconservative-fashioned rhetoric, such as the idea that the United States is at war with "Islamofascists" intent on taking over the globe; however, the foundation has proved susceptible to such arguments. For instance, in a March 2005 "Heritage Lecture" on how to use language to shape the debate about the war on terror, Deroy Murdock argued that " Islamo-fascism is a worldwide phenomenon that already has touched this country and many of our allies. Yet Muslim extremists rarely have armies we can see, fighter jets we can knock from the sky, or an easily identifiable headquarters, such as the Reichs Chancellery of the 1940s or the Kremlin of the Cold War." Thus, said Murdock, it is important to properly identify "enemies" and the type of "war" the country is engaged in: "Is this a war on terror, per se? A war on terrorism? Or is it really a war on Islamo-fascism? It is really the latter, and we should say so." He then advocated creating a "'Thesaurus of Terrorism' [to] help us linguistically to turn the war on terrorism upside down. Why, for instance, do we inadvertently praise our enemies by agreeing that they fight a jihad or 'holy war?' Why not correctly describe them as soldiers in a hirabah or 'unholy war?'"
Unlike many AEI figures, Heritage writers often express concern at spurning important allies and are less confident in the ability of the United States to shape events on its own. However, they typically frame arguments on the subject to avoid supporting multilateral institutions like the United Nations and repeat notions about the unending duration of the current "war." Thus, for instance, James Jay Carafano and Sally McNamara, two Heritage scholars, wrote in a June 2007 Heritage "backgrounder" titled "Enduring Alliances Empower America's Long-War Strategy": "The threats of the new century are international in character and indeterminable in length, and they require an international response. Alone, the United States cannot win the long war against transnational terrorism, nor can it respond effectively to the other emerging national security concerns of the 21st century. America needs allies. America's greatest strength is strength in numbers: the number of free nations that share its commitment to peace, justice, security, and—above all—freedom. Building strong alliances requires a proactive strategy that reinforces rather than undermines the sovereignty of the state and at the same time strengthens the bonds of trust and confidence between free peoples, enabling them to act in their common interest. The focus of this strategy should be on building enduring alliances, not just 'coalitions of the willing.' As part of a comprehensive alliance-building strategy, the administration and Congress should undertake initiatives to establish international partnerships that more closely resemble those with America's traditional long-standing allies during the Cold War."
On the Iraq War, Heritage writers have proven committed to a long-term intervention in line with other hardline and neoconservative arguments, including support for the "surge" strategy and strong executive powers to override Congress on the issue. James Phillips, one of Heritage's main writers on Iraq, argued in a May 2007 Heritage "webmemo" that the Bush administration must fend off bipartisan efforts in Congress to set benchmarks for continued involvement in Iraq. He wrote: " Congress continues to wrestle with the Bush administration over overdue emergency funding for the war in Iraq, with opponents of the administration's surge strategy seeking to transform proposed benchmarks for measuring progress in Iraq into mechanisms for forcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Rigid benchmarks would become an excuse for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, rather than a means to help Iraqis build a stable and secure country. If Congress insists on inserting rigid, binding benchmarks linked to U.S. troop levels into legislation funding the war effort, President Bush should veto the bill. No President can afford to accept congressional usurpation of his constitutional authority as commander in chief of the armed forces, a precedent that would hamstring the U.S. war effort not only in Iraq, but also in possible future wars. Tying benchmarks to a reduction of U.S. aid to the Iraqi government is also a bad idea but may be a necessary concession for the administration due to the political mood in Congress."
Heritage's policy work extends well beyond current foreign policy dilemmas. Its "Issues" web page lists some two dozen core issues, divided between domestic and foreign policy. Core domestic issues include everything from agriculture to immigration, and from health care to family and marriage. Among the core foreign policy issues are Africa, Asia, Defense, the Middle East, and Worldwide Freedom. Africa, in particular, has proved an important agenda item during the Bush administration, according to Right Web contributor Conn Hallinan. In particular, wrote Hallinan in a July 2007 analysis, Heritage was instrumental in crafting the administration's AFRICOM policy, which established a military command for Africa aimed at shaping events on the continent according to U.S. wishes. He cites Heritage fellows James Jay Carafano and Nile Gardiner, who wrote in a 2003 Heritage analysis: "Creating an African Command would go a long way toward turning the Bush administration's well aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality" (see Hallinan, " The Right Gets Africa Wrong," Right Web, July 9, 2007).
To address it many core issues, Heritage maintains a plank of some 60 in-house experts who are in turn supported by nearly 200 staff and management personnel. It also supports some 30 additional websites and affiliated projects, including the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, the Heritage Congressional Fellowship, NationalSecurity.org, and ReagansHeritage.org. Overseeing the organization is a Board of Trustees, which includes well-known rightist figures like Richard Scaife, a significant and generous funder of the conservative movement for decades; Holly Coors, whose family provided the funding to start Heritage in the early 1970s; Midge Decter, wife of the former Commentary editor and key neoconservative trailblazer Norman Podhoretz; Feulner, president of Heritage; and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes.
According to some observers, Heritage's success over the years is due in part to its unique blend of sound-bite policy proposals and congressional marketing, which gradually eroded the notion of think tanks as centers of nonpartisan scholarship. With success in policymaking its ultimate bottom line, Heritage helped launch a new breed of advocacy outfits driven by ideology and—increasingly—corporate largesse. Commenting on Heritage's methods, Slate.com's Jacob Weisberg wrote in 1998: "Because of its combat mentality, Heritage has never been a place with very high standards. Like other conservative outfits, it loves the lingo of academic life. Its hallways are cluttered with endowed chairs, visiting fellows, and distinguished scholars. The conceit here is that as a PC Dark Age has overcome the universities, conservative think tanks have become the refuge of thought and learning. At Heritage in particular, this is a laugh. ... [It] is essentially a propaganda mill. ... Heritage is focused on selling and promoting its views rather than on developing thoughtful or nuanced ones. It spends nearly half its $29 million annual budget on marketing. It prides itself on producing reports with concision and speed. According to [author Lee Edwards], one recent innovation is the colored index card summarizing a conservative position in 'short, punchy sentences.' According to Heritage's 'vice president for information marketing,' these cards have been 'wildly successful' with Republicans in Congress."
Also critical has been the tremendous funding Heritage has received over the years from core conservative foundations as well as major corporations. Heritage relies on large contributions from a bevy of individual donors, corporate benefactors, and right-wing foundations (for its operating expenses, see "The Heritage Foundation Financial Report, December 31, 2006"). Donors have included Coors, Scaife, General Motors, Ford Motors, Proctor & Gamble, Chase Manhattan Bank, Dow Chemical, Mobil Oil, and Smith Kline Corporation (for more on some its corporate donors, see Norman Solomon, "The Media's Favorite Think Tank: How the Heritage Foundation Turns Money into Media," Extra!, July/August 1996). During the 20-year period of 1985 to 2005, according to MediaTransparency.org, major conservative donors including Scaife, Bradley, and Donner, among many others, gave more than $65 million to Heritage.
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Contact Information
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave, NE
Washington DC, 20002-4999
tel: 202.546.4400
fax: 202.546.8328
e-mail: info@heritage.org
web: www.heritage.org
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