Young Americans for Freedom at Ohio State University

On February 3, 1966, a debate was held at the Ohio State Sigma Chi fraternity house with roughly forty people in attendance. The topic was the Vietnam War and the participants were James Kellogg, the Vice President of Young Americans for Freedom, and John Perrera, a member of the American Friends Society, the pacifist Quaker organization. In the debate, Kellogg argued that “the United States must continue to aid South Vietnam in its fight against the Viet Kong in order to maintain American security and the integrity of the U.S. commitments all over the world.” He asserted that if South Vietnam fell it would signal to other communist countries that they could do the same. Perrera, on the other hand, argued that the reasons for becoming involved in the war were corrupt to begin with. Aside from showing the range of opinions on Vietnam that existed at Ohio State, the debate is also important insofar as it provides specific insights into the ideas that marked Young Americans for Freedom both at OSU and nationally. Kellogg’s position in the debate mirrored the larger Young Americans for Freedom organization and showed that the core values the group held nationally were also held at a more micro level at The Ohio State University in the 1960’s. For example, the belief that the United States had to exert dominance over the communist movement was widespread within the group. 

Young Americans for Freedom was founded in September of 1960 by William F. Buckley Jr., creator of The National Review, at Buckley’s family estate in Sharon, Connecticut. The anti-communist movement and federal government’s preoccupation with international reputation due to the Cold War allowed Buckley and other conservative activists to reinvent the right and generate a new base of support. Conservatives harnessed that anti-communist sentiment to clarify and promote a platform anchored by Christianity, limited government, and an American identity. It provided an alternative to the Great Society and War on Poverty that Johnson promoted, initiatives that conservatives felt like increased the danger of communism within the borders of United States. Buckley founded Young Americans for Freedom to organize right leaning college students. YAF is perhaps most notable for publishing the Sharon Statement, a seminal conservative document that helped establish and promote key conservative ideas, including the need for smaller federal government and the meritocratic idea of “natural law,” the theory that some people just naturally rise to the top and are best equipped to lead society.

Young Americans for Freedom was first launched at Ohio State on April 8th, 1963 when, in a unanimous vote, the OSU Conservative Club, which had previously been independent, voted to officially affiliate with Young Americans for Freedom. But the process took some effort. After the Conservative Club voted to affiliate with Young Americans for Freedom with an 8-2 vote in January 1963, the Vice President suspended the vote and was quoted in the Lantern as saying, “Why have two clubs doing the same thing?” The merger was postponed until policy adjustments ensured alignment between the groups. A key player in establishing YAF at Ohio State was a Young Americans for Freedom representative from the University of Indiana named Tom Huston. Huston was a regular and controversial speaker at the YAF meetings where he was reported as saying “Fraternities have a right to restrict membership by race and religion” and once called President John F. Kennedy “unamerican.”

Young Americans for Freedom was the primary voice for conservatism at Ohio State in the 1960’s. The group’s history gives us a window into the young conservative movement that was blossoming on campus and would continue to gain speed going into the 1980’s and moving forward. This peak into the past allows us to see a group of young politically involved people who held certain core beliefs close to their heart and actively advocated for these beliefs. The presence of Young Americans for Freedom on campus in the 1960’s is important because it shows that the conservative movement on campus was not merely local but that it was tied to the rise of conservatism in that era on the national level. 

The Lantern, 12 October 1962, "Editor's Mailbag", 2

The Lantern, 11 February 1963, "Conservative Club Postpones Action On Joining YAF", 1 

The Lantern, 7 January 1963, "Conservatives Vote to Affiliate With YAF", 1 

The Lantern, 8 April 1963, "Conservatives To Join YAF", 3 

M. Stanton Evans, “The Sharon Statement,” Young America's Foundation, September 11, 1960, https://www.yaf.org/news/the-sharon-statement/. 

McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right, 67 

Ocker, Sheldon, February 4 1966. "Debaters Argue Vietnam Alternatives". The Lantern, 1