Letters

National Review, July 17, 2000

Remembering Bill Simon

It is difficult to add to the moving tribute to Bill Simon that his friend Bill Buckley penned ("The Week," July 3), but I would like to offer a few observations from my long relationship with him at the John M. Olin Foundation.

Bill Simon's formal connection to the foundation began in the late 1970s. John M. Olin was a prominent industrialist who, later in life, became an equally prominent philanthropist, conservationist, and benefactor. He admired Bill Simon. By 1977, Olin was in his 80s and wanted to ensure that his philanthropy would be directed after his death by someone who shared his belief in freedom and limited government, and who was not afraid to support programs and initiatives that might be unpopular in elite circles. So shortly after Bill Simon left government in 1977, Olin asked him to assume the presidency of his grant- making foundation.

At that time, Bill Simon had countless offers for employment, speaking engagements, and philanthropic and charitable causes to consider. But he understood the vital importance of the John M. Olin Foundation. He saw it as a force to strengthen the free-enterprise system in America, which he knew was facing an intellectual attack from abroad by socialism, and at home from America's elite institutions, which were increasingly hostile to America and freedom.

Olin had created his foundation in 1953 to support philanthropic causes and educational initiatives, but the grant-making had been pursued largely informally. Olin brought Bill Simon aboard to create an ongoing structure. Under Simon's leadership, the foundation established a formal mission, implemented a non-bureaucratic structure, hired a staff, and brought systematic organization to grant-making. Under the leadership of Bill Simon, the John M. Olin Foundation would support ideas, projects, and educational programs that were consistent with the American tradition of free enterprise and limited government. In 1978, Simon outlined his philanthropic mission in his best-selling book, A Time for Truth. He urged businessmen to support a "counter- intelligentsia" of academics, writers, and thinkers who would defend freedom and pursue research that would strengthen the free-enterprise system. John M. Olin passed away in 1982, leaving Bill Simon to continue his legacy.

Simon knew what the foundation was established to achieve, and with the grants program, he set about achieving it. In a January 1992 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Waldemar A. Nielson, an adviser to several major foundations and a noted observer of philanthropy, encouraged liberal foundations to emulate the focused strategy of the Olin Foundation: "Look at the mush and incoherence coming out of other foundations. In comparison, Olin is a sharp-edged, attacking machine."

Bill Simon may have left government in 1977 after four tough and demanding years as energy czar and secretary of the treasury, at a time when the Nixon and Ford administrations contended with Watergate, the Arab oil embargo, and inflation. But his subsequent work in business and philanthropy made him one of the most influential leaders of the last 20 years.

He often said that one of his roles was to be the interpreter of John M. Olin's philosophy. In this role, he was far more successful than Olin himself or any other conservative in the late 1970s could have imagined. His family, friends, colleagues, and country are all the better for Bill Simon's service.

James Piereson

Executive Director

John M. Olin Foundation

Our Capital debate

On reading Carl M. Cannon's "The Problem with the Chair" (July 3), I was struck more by the impression that there is a greater need for reform in the judicial system than for eliminating the death penalty. Zealous prosecutors who are more intent on convictions than on justice are the problem. While sentencing an innocent man to death is a tragedy, the more alarming problem appears to be prosecutors who knowingly go after innocent men, even manufacturing confessions from them. The problem here is not the finality of the death penalty, but the flaws that have crept into our judicial system, allowing a man to be wrongfully convicted whether his sentence includes death or merely imprisonment.

Shawn Parrish

Lynchburg, Va.

Superb! One of the best critiques of capital punishment I've ever read.

Hiawatha Bray

Boston, Mass.

Editor's Note: For further responses to Carl Cannon's article on the death penalty, see pp. 42- 45 and p. 16.

Rosie Scenario

Kudos to Jay Nordlinger for skewering the political activism of Rosie O'Donnell ("Rosie O'Donnell, Political Activist," July 3). My only concern is that Mr. Nordlinger was overly respectful of Ms. O'Donnell's intelligence. Certainly, Rosie and many other liberal celebrities surrender any claim to intelligence when they subordinate thoughtful and sound reasoning to emotional diatribes, uninformed by facts.

Rosie proves more insidious when we consider two realities. First, she and other people have a profound impact on our young, who accept the opinions of these people as gospel. Second, rigidly ideological liberals like O'Donnell and Barbra Streisand now determine who works in Hollywood. Shades of the blacklist of the Fifties! Thus, political celebrity now runs our brave new society, all out of proportion to any rightful claims to power.