Interview
An interview with Peter Hannaford
From Reagan to the war on Islamofascism
By Robert Nathan Eberhart
From the February 2007 Print Edition
Peter Hannaford briefly served as the chair of the recent 2004 incarnation of the Committee on the Present Danger, a Cold War think tank founded in 1950 and once again in 1976. It advocated a larger defense budget and a more aggressive foreign policy stance to counter the Soviet Union’s strategy of international communist expansion. Hannaford resurrected the CPD due to what he saw as clear parallels between the Soviet threat and Islamofascism.
Hannaford is a public-relations professional by trade who worked as director of public affairs for Ronald Reagan when Reagan was governor of California. He became research director for Reagan’s unsuccessful 1975 bid for the White House, as well as his senior communications director during Reagan’s historic 1980 presidential campaign.
Presently, Hannaford is president of the public-relations firm Hannaford Enterprises and serves as a senior consultant for the global communications firm APCO Worldwide. In addition to serving in the Reagan administration, his career as a public servant has included membership on the U.S. Information Agency’s Public Relations Advisory Committee, and the White House Preservation Fund.
He is the author of five books on Ronald Reagan as well as a number of others on presidential history and media relations. The California Patriot spoke with Mr. Hannaford about his time as a student at UC Berkeley, his political career, and personal recollections of his relationship with the Gipper.
California Patriot: Coming out of Cal, how did you first become involved in conservative politics?
Peter Hannaford: I worked at a telephone bank in the 1960 Nixon campaign. Down here on Harrison Street in Berkeley. By 1964 I was working for an assemblyman, Mr. Don Volker, and I was his volunteer, communications guy. Then two years later I was managing two state Senate campaigns, plus a couple of Assembly campaigns in the county. Then I was asked to join the County Central Committee, which I did. I soon realized that members of that committee spent their time fighting each other and not the Democrats ... I was pretty naive; I didn’t realize what they were all fighting about. It was a precursor to the Goldwater-Rockefeller primary of 1964.
We were for Goldwater — voted for him, talked about him. One thing led to another and I was appointed to the State Central Committee. Worked that for six years, and then in ’72 I ran for Congress. We came pretty close. In those days, our [Republican] registration was about 35 percent. While that was marginal, I figured maybe we could catch him and we came fairly close. I ran 10,000 votes ahead of Nixon in the district and that election was a landside, which tells you how bad the district really was. Of course over the hill it was heavily Republican, something like 4-to-1. In those days the sun rarely set on a live Democrat! Now, of course, things are different.
CP: What about your involvement with the Daily Cal?
PH: I was a reporter for a few years. I was the co-winner of the Freshman Editorial Award. It was a lot of fun, the staff was pretty free-spirited. I thought I wanted to be a journalist until I realized that the seniors, who were graduating, if they could even find a job in the Bay Area, were making something like $150 a month! It never occurred to me to work anywhere else but the Bay Area. I’ve always just wanted to live and die right here.
CP: What were your first experiences with Ronald Reagan?
PH: It was actually quite coincidental. Two friends and I had gone to San Francisco in early February 1965. Mulford was running for lieutenant governor at the time and sent us there to file a list of important Republicans willing to donate and the like. Well, we arrived early and were killing time at the hotel when Reagan comes walking down the aisle. This was the period in time when he was just exploring the idea of running for governor and a very well known figure at the time through his movies, political speeches, and the like. We made eye contact and he made a beeline right for us. We introduced ourselves and chatted. I remember him being a very likeable, affable guy. As he walked away I thought, “What a nice man, it’s too bad he can never be elected!” Since then I’ve written four books on Reagan; boy was I wrong.
CP: What about your work with the Committee on the Present Danger?
PH: We are moving forward as an active organization. The CPD had two previous incarnations. It was first founded under President Truman to support his policies regarding stopping the growth of global communism. That went out of business when Eisenhower became president. It became active shortly after Carter was elected. They pushed very hard for a stronger foreign and defense policy against the Soviet Union. They in essence pushed for a more stern line with the Soviets than was the accepted policy of detente. They said at the time that once we had achieved our goal they would go inactive. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990-91 they did what they said they were going to do and they went out of business. They packed up their archives and sent them to the Hoover Institution.
In 2004, the company I was with had a client here in California who was very concerned that there was not enough public support for the war on terrorism and saw the Iraq war as part and parcel of that. So we sat down, talked about it and it was one of those moments where a light bulb goes off in your head all of a sudden and we both said, almost simultaneously, “The Committee on the Present Danger; let’s resurrect it!” It had a single objective each time. It said it would take a while for that objective to be met, and would go out of business when the objective was finally met. It fit perfectly.
We asked Jim Woolsey, Democrat, former CIA director, and a hawk, to be co-chairman along with George Schultz. They are the acting co-chairmen. Then we asked two senators to be honorary co-chairmen. Not acitve members as we didn’t want to get involved in politics as such, so we asked Senator Lieberman and Senator Kyl of Arizona and they have been excellent honoraries.
We are finishing our third year now and we now have about 100 members. All of them with very few exceptions are former senior officials in the government, think tank and university specialists, and heads of various relevant advocacy groups. Our audience, well, the whole country is our audience I suppose, but who we are really aiming at is the Congress and administration and to a lesser extent the media as a conduit to effect policy. We are trying to effect specific policy. We are not trying to shape public opinion as such.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting the Patriot