Dan Smoot - Spreading His Conservative Message

Spreading His Conservative Message

Thereafter, Smoot published his weekly The Dan Smoot Report. He also carried his conservative message via weekly reports over radio and television. The Report started with 3,000 paid subscribers; at its peak in 1965, it had more than 33,000 subscribers. Each newsletter usually focused on one major story. One issue, for instance, was devoted to the Alaska Mental Health Bill of 1956, which Smoot claimed was a communist conspiracy to establish concentration camps on American soil. Another issue lionized Douglas MacArthur after the his death in the spring of 1964, and a later 1964 issue opposed a proposal by President Lyndon B. Johnson to transfer sovereignty of the Panama Canal to the Republic of Panama. Johnson failed in his attempt, but President Jimmy Carter in 1978, with bipartisan support, convinced the Senate by a one-vote margin to give Panama control of the Canal Zone. It was liberal Republican support for many Democratic proposals that particularly angered Smoot, who gave up on the Republicans as a viable alternative to the majority Democrats of his day.

In 1962, Smoot wrote The Invisible Government concerning early members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Other books include The Hope of the World; The Business End of Government; and his autobiography, People Along the Way. Additionally he was associated with the John Birch Society and wrote for the society's American Opinion magazine. (Source: Smoot's autobiography and review by Jane Ingraham (1994).)