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LEGACIES
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North’s reaction was representative. Many conservatives simply could
not understand the new vogue for libertarianism, to them a bizarre tendency
that might become dangerous if not nipped in the bud.
YAF was indeed drifting, particularly in California. By the late 1960s
a signifi cant number of chapters and the state director identifi ed as libertarian
rather than conservative. In early 1969 the Californians and
their allies in other states organized a Libertarian Caucus to increase
their infl uence within YAF. Libertarians committed to aggressive antistatism
now questioned YAF’s refl exive patriotism, cultural traditionalism,
and explicit identifi cation as a conservative group. A cultural gap
was opening between libertarians and the clean-cut, anti-Communist
YAF majority, whom libertarians derided as “trads,” short for traditional
conservative. Sporting long hair, beards, and bell bottoms, libertarians
delighted in shocking trads with proposals to legalize marijuana
and pornography. Calling the United States a fascist state, they openly
swapped draft evasion tips. The YAF National Offi ce kept an uneasy eye
on these developments. The libertarian upsurge came at a critical time
for the organization, as it was positioning itself to wealthy donors as the
one group that could effectively challenge SDS and other student activists.
But now some YAF members looked and sounded like the dreaded
New Left itself.
How much of this new wave of libertarianism in YAF drew from Rand’s
work? In 1970 an informal survey published in the New Guard, YAF’s
magazine, listed 10 percent of members as self-proclaimed “Objectivists.”
It is likely, however, that Rand infl uenced a broader group than those
willing to identify as offi cial followers of her philosophy. If exact lines of
infl uence are hard to quantify, they are easy to trace. From the outside,
at least, many saw Rand and libertarianism as interchangeable and used
Rand as shorthand for all libertarians. Running for the national board
on a unity platform, Ron Docksai published a campaign pamphlet that
suggested, “Let us waste no energy in intramural debate over each other’s
credentials, but let us combat those Leftist merchants of death who
will burn a book irrespective of whether it was written by Russell Kirk or
Ayn Rand.” Writing to the Libertarian Caucus prior to the national convention,
Don Feder asked, “Are you saying to the Traditionalists in YAF,
‘Either become Objectivists or leave the organization’? This seems to be
the case.” According to Feder, “an avowed Objectivist” ran the Boston
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