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Preserving and Extending Freedom: An Interview with YAF Director Ken Cribb
Preserving and Extending Freedom:
An Interview with YAF Director Ken Cribb
By Raj Kannappan, Editor
About Ken Cribb
T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., is a native of South Carolina. He received his B.A. from Washington and Lee University and J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He also has honorary doctorates from Thomas Aquinas College, Oklahoma Christian University, and Universidad Francisco Marroquín, among other universities. Cribb was deputy to the chief counsel of the 1980 Reagan campaign. During the 1980 Presidential transition, he supervised some 20 teams, including the Department of Justice and the major regulatory agencies. He went on to serve in the Reagan administration for eight years as Ken Cribb helps ensure Young America’s Counselor to Attorney General Edwin Meese and Assistant to the Foundation’s success through his leadership on YAF’s Board of Directors and the National President for Domestic Affairs. In the latter post, he was President Journalism Center’s Board of Governors. Reagan’s top advisor on domestic matters, supervising four White House offices: policy development, cabinet affairs, public liaison, and welfare reform. Following the Reagan administration, Cribb served as president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) for 22 years, where he was the founding publisher of ISI Books. He retains the title of president emeritus of ISI. He is the past president of the Collegiate Network, Council for National Policy, and Philadelphia Society; and formerly served as a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, vice chairman of the Fulbright Commission, governor of the American Red Cross, and chairman of Brevard Music Center. Currently, Cribb serves on Young America’s Foundation’s Board of Directors and as the chairman of YAF’s National Journalism Center Board of Governors. He is a trustee and counselor to the Federalist Society and a trustee of the Sarah Scaife Foundation. YAF has been honored to work with Ken Cribb since its early years and thanks him for his essential leadership.
Libertas: How did you get involved with the Conservative Movement?
Cribb: Actually, it was through Young America’s Foundation itself! My parents were conservatives and introduced me to the writings of William F. Buckley, Jr., among others. When Buckley founded YAF for conservative youth outreach, I became an early member and organized the first chapter in South Carolina. I don’t think the YAF leadership knew I was just entering high school. They didn’t ask, and I certainly didn’t volunteer it! As a teenager, I was thrilled with the YAF motto, “To preserve and extend freedom.” I’ve been privileged to work for that noble cause ever since.
Libertas: What was your experience like working on the Reagan Presidential campaign and serving in the White House?
Cribb: I was just starting out as a lawyer when the 1980 Presidential campaign came along. I knew it was the big one of my lifetime, so I called the campaign’s chief counsel, Loren Smith, and offered my services for one dollar. Loren was desperately busy and asked, “Can you get here tomorrow?” That would have been Sunday; but I did get there on Monday and stayed nine years—through the campaign, the 1980 Presidential transition, six years at the White House, and two years at the Department of Justice. Going in, I was prepared for the proverbial smoke-filled room. But what I found in Ronald Reagan and Ed Meese were two citizen-politicians who wanted nothing more and nothing less than to bring forth a new birth of American
freedom. It was such an honor to serve at their sides.
Libertas: You served in numerous key roles in the Reagan administration, including as Counselor to Attorney General Ed Meese and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs. Can you share a moment or event from this period that taught you an important lesson?
Cribb: Whittaker Chambers was the great witness against communism and the Soviet spy ring in the U.S. government that included prominent Roosevelt official Alger Hiss. Reagan was a close student of what was called “the Hiss case”;
and Chambers’ famous account of it, Witness, remains in his personal library at the Reagan Ranch to this day. When the President awarded the Medal of Freedom to Chambers posthumously, I asked him, “Mr. President, why are you giving this honor to a man long dead when there are so many living claimants?” He replied, “Ken, history will only have time for one sentence about the outcome of the Hiss
— KEN CRIBB
President Ronald Reagan, Ken Cribb, and Attorney General Edwin Meese enjoy a light moment during their time in the White House.
case. I want history to say, ‘Hiss went to jail, and Chambers was awarded his country’s highest civilian honor.’” This is an illustration of what I call Ronald Reagan’s moral imagination. He had the ability to imagine a moral order that others thought to be out of reach. In this example, the order was how history would judge communism. Another example of President Reagan’s moral imagination was his vision of a world where the Soviet Union no longer existed. He was alone in that, even among his own advisors. And then he made it happen. What will be history’s one sentence to sum up Ronald Reagan? We can’t know at this moment, but perhaps it will be something like this: “Reagan defeated Soviet communism abroad and at home brought forth a new birth of freedom under the Constitution.”
Libertas: Do you see any similarities between the period leading up to Ronald Reagan’s election victory in 1980 and where conservatives find ourselves today?
Cribb: When Reagan made his decision to run in 1979, there was a consensus among opinion elites that America’s life force was waning in the face of waxing Soviet might. Our own President, Jimmy Carter, came to speak of his countrymen’s malaise. The economy was the worst since the Great Depression, with outof-control inflation and interest rates above 20 percent. Well-known historians wrote heavy tomes about American decline. Politicians believed the relevant questions were how to withdraw from the world and how to redistribute the shrunken wealth of an American economy whose best days were behind it. Reagan refused to bow to this conventional wisdom and swung into action. He reduced tax rates and deregulated, producing the longest peacetime expansion since World War II.
The Trump-Pence team used this same formula to bring back the economy after the Great Recession. When you unleash Americans to produce, the economy responds every time. But Reagan didn’t stop with these actions; he also left us three indelible principles of conservative governance that we can use in these troubled times to bring America back: • Fidelity to the consent of the governed as expressed in the commands of the written
Constitution; • Limited government at home to protect personal freedom and unleash prosperity; and • Strong defense to protect the collective freedom of Americans from foreign menace.
Libertas: What is the most pressing challenge conservatives face today?
Cribb: Ironically, the greatest challenge facing conservatives today is the same menace that the modern Conservative Movement was formed to counter: a newly surging socialist philosophy. The early Movement conservatives called themselves “individualists” because that was the opposite of the “collectivists” they were fighting. We are now fighting a new breed of collectivists who are armed with totalitarian tactics such as cancel culture and even mob actions against individuals and small businesses. Still, this challenge is hardly new. The dominant trend in government for the 75 years before Reagan had been one of state guarantees of equality of condition and equality of result—as opposed to political equality or even equality of opportunity. With very few exceptions, 20th century American presidents had pursued various strains of equality of result in their policies and programs. Many times, they gave their handiwork a special name—New Freedom (Woodrow Wilson), Fair Deal (Harry Truman), Square Deal (Theodore Roosevelt), New Deal (Franklin Roosevelt), New Frontier (John F. Kennedy), and the Great Society (Lyndon Johnson). Ronald Reagan stopped this in his tracks. He offered up no program through which the government took from some and gave to others in a vain attempt to level off the natural differences between individuals that characterize the human condition. He knew that government efforts of this kind reduce freedom—and it was to secure freedom, not equality, that our fathers fought a revolution and framed the Constitution. We conservatives have transcended socialism before, and we can do it again. Now, we have to identify the talent to lead us, and readers of Libertas are well qualified to do so.
— KEN CRIBB
Libertas: What advice would you share with a student who is interested in pursuing a career in the Conservative Movement?
Cribb: My advice would be: First, put loyalty to principle ahead of personal advancement. If you are just out for yourself, people figure that out. And you will not be put in positions of trust. Second, learn the principles. Get grounded in conservative philosophy. Read Russell Kirk’s The Conservative
Ken Cribb (fourth from left), who serves as chairman of the National Journalism Center Board of Governors, joins fellow board members and staff at NJC’s 40th anniversary celebration in 2017.
Mind and Roots of American Order and George Nash’s The Conservative Intellectual Movement. Politicians and policymakers who are grounded intellectually are the most effective. When the ground shifts under them, they know what to do because they first apply principles to any circumstance. Here endeth the sermon.
Libertas: You have served as the chairman of the National Journalism Center’s Board of Governors for a number of years. Why is this particular aspect of YAF’s work important to you?
Cribb: I was very supportive when YAF President Ron Robinson engineered the merger of NJC into the Foundation. For decades, NJC has nurtured truth-seeking journalists in the basics of reporting. Many of America’s leading conservative journalists are NJC products. Under YAF, NJC’s techniques have been brought into the new digital age so that young conservatives have the skills to produce videos and podcasts and use the latest internet research for investigative reporting. We cannot win the battle for freedom without producing these journalists.
Libertas: What are your fondest memories with the Foundation?
Cribb: YAF saving the Reagan Ranch is, of course, a highlight. But I would say that the camaraderie with Ron Robinson and my fellow directors as we worked together for almost four decades is what I treasure most. It is a source of immense satisfaction to see the Foundation grow from modest beginnings to a powerhouse in support of America’s free society.
Libertas: How has YAF impacted your career?
Cribb: Since YAF gave me my start in the Conservative Movement, I would say that YAF deserves major credit for everything that followed in my career. It has given that same start to thousands of young people along the way.
Libertas: What would you say to someone who is considering making a gift to Young America’s Foundation?
Libertas: What are your hopes for the future of Young America’s Foundation?
Cribb: At the time, Reagan was the oldest President in history, but he was also our best bridge to young minds. This was due to his visionary, future-oriented politics and his infectious optimism. Now that he is gone, it is important that YAF solidifies its role as the principal conveyor belt for guidance and resources to those young minds. YAF’s recent move to acquire and preserve the Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois, solidifies its role as the shepherd of the Reagan legacy to
the young. The Board of Directors has secured the services of the man who saved Wisconsin to lead YAF into this future, and Governor Scott Walker is off to a fast start. YAF is our go-to organization to nurture the young as they first encounter conservative thought and America’s founding principles. It remains indispensable. Cribb: YAF has already built out its infrastructure such that every incremental dollar can be spent on programming. For a donor who wants to see the best and brightest new leaders take their place in freedom’s vanguard, that’s a real bang for the buck. Cribb participates in one of many YAF Board of Directors meetings during his nearly 40 years of service.
