In Memoriam: William E. Simon

by R. Emmett Tyrrell

One of the greatest forces in modern conservatism, former Secretary of the Treasury William E. Simon, died on June 3. There was no one quite like him. He was all fire, high intelligence--vitality. He died at 72 of pulmonary fibrosis, a disease he bore with stoicism, even suaveness. It was hard to know that he was sick, but he was very sick. The tremendous challenges that he met through life and the great political opponents whom he took on only hardened his resolve, but a terrible disease finally has silenced one of conservatism's most vital leaders, and we at The American Spectator and The Dartmouth Review are particularly saddened. He was a stalwart at the Spectator from the early 1970s, and was a crucial Review supporter from the start.

Bill's spirit was enormous. With colossal energy and astute judgment he made a fortune on Wall Street. He made another in the early 1980s in partnership with Raymond G. Chambers by buying undervalued companies, bringing them to health, and selling them at a volupt profit. His last years were spent in philanthropy. He was rarely at rest.

After his initial stint on Wall Street, Bill entered government service--and not during tranquil times. He served as "energy czar" in the Nixon Administration during the Arab oil embargo. In April 1974 he became secretary of the Treasury during President Nixon's final days, retaining the position during the Ford administration. The Phillips Curve was the soul of economic wisdom. Bill's free market economics was always being sniped at by the conventional minds, yet Bill stood four-square for sound economic policy.

Later he demonstrated the soundness of his views not only by creating his second fortune with Chambers but also by bringing the United States Olympic program to economic health. While serving as treasurer of the Olympic Committee it fell to Bill to defend President Jimmy Carter's boycott of the Moscow Olympics provoked by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Bill's passionate oratory brought a reluctant majority of amateur sports officials and athletes to support the boycott, which theretofore they had angrily opposed. Typically Bill stood alone, a resolute voice for wisdom and decency. He prevailed.

This episode casts a broad beam into Bill's complexity and adherence to principle. As a member of the Olympic Committee he always saw himself as a spokesman for the athletes first, the organization second.

In amateur sport many who serve on the organizations become careerists, bureaucrats for the organization, intent on padding their resumes. Bill had no reason to pad his ample resume. He had been a swimmer and a boxer. He was there to preserve the spirit of competition and to help young athletes.

He initially opposed the Carter administration's Olympic boycott, knowing that it was penalizing Olympians because of the administration's prior record of fecklessness toward the Russians. Moreover, he was repelled by the pressure the administration put on corporate sponsors to go along with its boycott. Yet Bill perceived another more important principle coming into play, to wit, politics stops at the water's edge. He would support the Carter administration's foreign policy, and in the 1980 election he fought like hell for President Carter's defeat.

Turning to the conservative movement, he led and inspired us with his writing, his organizational skills, and his vigorous role in various organizations, most spectacularly the John M. Olin Foundation, where the foundation's farsighted grants for scholarship and other intellectual work energized a broad critique of the welfare state culture that is no more, or rather that has now been relegated to the museums of the American left.

Across the intellectual landscape Bill's economic and social views have either won the day or stand in very good chance of doing so. He wrote two best-selling books, A Time for Truth and A Time for Action. Both sounded the tocsin against government excess and government incompetence. In A Time for Truth he concluded with a call for businessmen to contribute financially to the institutions that fortify freedom. Those institutions have come to be the institutions of the conservative movement. Bill was a major force in building those institutions, and one hopes later generations of businessmen will notice what he achieved and emulate him.

Bill was a vital presence on the Board of Directors of the American Spectator Educational Foundation and an occasional writer in our pages. During his tenure he was steadfast in urging us to maintain our investigative journalism and the highest literary standards. If we did not, I could be sure I would have him on the telephone roaring in that fortissimo baritone that always steeled me to duty. He never wasted a word. He always made a fine point. One never wanted to let Bill Simon down.

In the years ahead we shall not let him down. He wanted a conservative movement to maintain freedom and personal responsibility in the country he so often called "the greatest country on earth." He set many of us to that goal and with such ardor that we cannot but continue. His last call to me a few months back was a call of encouragement and a call to action that has brought George Gilder to our Board of Directors and renewed commitment to our website and the magazine from some of the great figures of American conservatism. In Bill's voice there was no trace of the illness that he was fighting. He was a tremendous fighter.

Not so well known, he was also a devout man of faith. His Roman Catholicism was a quiet constant in his life. Many a night without any fanfare whatsoever he went out to serve the poor and the broken in soup kitchens. His support of Catholic charities was longstanding, but again discreet. Bill was always too much the gentleman to boast of his good deeds. That was another of his unusual traits. To his beautiful wife and his grieving children I send my condolences. I know Bill Simon is irreplaceable.