The Powell Memorandum

Summary

A confidential 1971 memo to the US Chamber of Commerce from Lewis Powell, months before he joined the Supreme Court. Seeing free enterprise under attack, he urged business to answer on every front – campuses, textbooks, television, the courts – because “Strength lies in organization”, in long-range planning and “consistency of action over an indefinite period of years”.

Rationale

Stories don’t arrive on neutral ground, and Powell set out to work the ground itself, for years. We can learn from that patience without sharing his aims.