In the mid-1970s, I left academic life—left with no regrets whatsoever, for the foolishness and cowardice of the American university scene had been faithfully copied in Australia. For the next seven and a half years, I worked for the Australian government. As part of my job was to help interpret the political culture of the United States, and as the tide of neoconservatism was running strong in those years, Irving Kristol continued to figure prominently in my thought and work. As a self-conscious position, neoconservatism was to all intents and purposes his creation, and in explaining the phenomenon to my political masters, I drew heavily on his ideas. (Our professional diplomats, like their counterparts elsewhere, spoke mainly to other professional diplomats and officials and were slow to recognise and to appreciate the significance of intellectual innovations.) In explaining the significance of the sudden appearance of numerous conservative think-tanks—a startling and unsettling new form of institution for many Australians, who had been schooled to believe that conservatives didn’t think—one also had to talk about Irving. His belief in the importance of the struggle of ideas in determining who would own the future meant that his ramifying practical activities—particularly in encouraging young talent—were shaped by a determination that it would be right-thinking conservatives who would do so.