As Hillary Clinton recasts herself as a moderate Democrat, recently uncovered letters between the potential presidential candidate and left-wing activist and author
Saul Alinsky provide insight into the influences that shaped her political ideology.
The correspondence, which was obtained and reported by The Washington Free Beacon, was written in 1971, several years after she enrolled as a student at Yale Law School.
In one letter, dated July 13, 1971, Alinsky's secretary, Georgia Harper, writes that he is away but "since I know his feelings about you I took the liberty of opening your letter because I did not want something urgent to wait for weeks."
Harper then notes that she included several reviews of Alinsky's upcoming book, "Rules for Radicals," which would be of interest to Clinton.
Clinton was 23 years old at the time the letters were written to Alinsky, who was 62.
Clinton had inquired in a July 8 letter about the book's release date, noting that she had "just had my one-thousandth conversation about "Reveille [for Radicals"] and need some new material to throw at people."
"Reveille for Radicals" was Alinsky's 1946 book expounding on his thoughts about community organizing.
In her memoir, "Living History," Clinton briefly mentions Alinsky, although primarily about her decision to pass up an opportunity to work for him in favor of going to law school.
However, in the same July 8 letter, Clinton writes: "The more I've seen of places like Yale Law School and the people who haunt them, the more convinced I am that we have the serious business and joy of much work ahead—if the commitment to a free and open society is ever going to mean more than eloquence and frustration."
Clinton concludes the letter by asking Alinsky whether rumors were true that he was going to southeast Asia to "recruit organizers" or, she asks, had he had gotten a "CIA-sponsored junket to exotica?"
Clinton acknowledged some agreement with his ideas in "Living History," but said they had "fundamental disagreement" over his anti-establishment tactics, reports The
Washington Free Beacon's Alana Goodman.
It was those tactical disagreements that prompted their parting of ways and Clinton's belief that the system could be changed from within," writes Goodman.
Clinton met with Alinsky several times in 1968 while writing a Wellesley college thesis about his theory of community organizing. The thesis itself became a matter of controversy when, at the request of the Clintons, Wellesley's president,
Nannerl Overholser Keohane, approved a rule that said a senior thesis written by a president or first lady was off limits, according to a 2007 NBC News report.
The letters have been stored at the University of Texas at Austin, the site of a
training center for community organizers founded by Alinsky in 1940.
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