(Introduction and summary for both Parts appear in Volume 16 of the Research.)
In this multi-volume work the author, a Rutgers University professor, argues that organized right-wing interests, sometimes called the
Counter-Establishment, rose to power during the Reagan and first Bush
years, and exerted great influence in these two administrations,
particularly the former.
In the first volume on "key executive appointments", Burch takes a close
look at the economic background and think-tank ties of many of the people
appointed to high posts in these rightist regimes, men connected to some
part of America's new Counter-Establishment, a complex headed by such
groups as the American Enterprise Institute, the Committee on the Present
Danger, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the Institute for
Contemporary Studies, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, and
the (Joseph Coors-backed) Mountain States Legal Foundation. This skewed
recruitment pattern also held true for many of the second- and third-tier
posts in the Reagan's administration and, to a lesser extent, Bush's.
In the second volume on "Supreme Court nominations and major policy
making", Burch found the connections to right-wing think tanks, not only
for the Court but also in such important fields as foreign policy, military
spending, and economics and taxation. He also presents detailed case
studies of the political and economic forces at work in the Iran-Contra
affair, the Star Wars program, and Reaganomics.
These volumes provide a rich source of information which would enable any
reader or researcher to make a compartive analysis of the make-up and
operation of the second Bush administration.
PART A: THE AMERICAN RIGHT-WING TAKES COMMAND: KEY EXECUTIVE BRANCH APPOINTMENTS