The Other Other L. Strauss

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the ambitiously named Foundation for Religious Action in the Social and Civil Order. Its purpose: to “unite all believers in God in the struggle between the free world and atheistic Communism.” Writing about the conferences held by this foundation, Frances FitzGerald in her recent book The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America notes that among those giving “speeches on the spiritual factors in the anti-Communist struggle” were not only “Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish clergymen” but also “pious national-security officials such as Leo Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.”

Leo Strauss? The University of Chicago political philosopher alleged by overheated critics of President George W. Bush to have been responsible for the Iraq war? No; here FitzGerald misspoke. But she can be forgiven: after all, even among Jews who pride themselves on their people’s contributions to American history, the name of Lewis Strauss (pronounced Straws, 1896-1974) is all but forgotten.

Which is a pity, since this Strauss was once a very well-known American official—in September 1953, his visage graced the cover of Time magazine—and certainly one of the most influential American Jews of the 20th century. He also happened to be both a political conservative and, for a great deal of his life, a determined anti-Zionist: two facts that might strike today’s reader as mutually exclusive and that make his story well worth knowing.