Hoover Institution 2017 Annual Report

“This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and its method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity. . . . Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves. . . . The overall mission of this Institution is, from its records, to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records and their publication, to recall man’s endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of the American way of life. This Institution is not, and must not be, a mere library. But with these purposes as its goal, the Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system.”

excerpt from herbert hoover’s 1959
statement to stanford’s board of trustees

Thomas W. Gilligan
Tad and Dianne Taube Director

Joel C. Peterson
Chairman, Board of Overseers

Throughout the Hoover Institution’s history, our supporters and fellows have stood together in the arena of public policy to address the most significant issues of our time, helping sustain prosperity, peace, and the exceptional foundations of our country. Today we find ourselves at another crucial turning point for US policy, with new leadership in Washington and a world inundated with challenges that people in our communities, our universities, and our capitals are struggling to understand. As highlighted in this 2017 Annual Report, our impact in each of these areas has never been stronger. Mindful of the year’s accomplishments and the extraordinary dedication of our supporters, we have never looked forward with greater hope.

We invite you to read further about this work.

Completed in 1941 as a permanent home for the institution’s growing collections and scholarship, Hoover Tower remains an iconic component of the Stanford University campus. In addition to research and administrative offices and the Hoover Library, the tower features a public observation deck and a forty-eight-bell carillon originally cast for the Belgian Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair.

Photo: Tim Griffith

For nearly three years we’ve watched as plans to add a new building to Hoover’s Stanford University campus came to life thanks to longtime member and former chairman of the Board of Overseers David Traitel and his wife, Joan.

The Traitels’ extraordinary gift opened a new chapter in the institution’s hundred-year history of evolution and growth. Several other Hoover supporters joined them with major contributions to fund the initiative fully. Designed by Boston architecture firm William Rawn Associates with assistance from CAW Architects of Palo Alto, the 55,000-square-foot Traitel Building is a beautiful yet highly functional addition to the Hoover Institution and Stanford campuses. Carefully managed by Hoover and Stanford, the project remained on schedule and on budget throughout the entire construction process. This year we are honored to announce that the new David and Joan Traitel Building, named in honor of its lead donors, is complete.

435 LASUEN MALL The Traitel Building’s vibrant, approachable public entrance ends the long-standing seclusion of Hoover facilities within the Stanford University campus.

A Look Inside Clockwise from top left: Glass-walled Welcoming Pavilion. Fairweather Courtyard, sponsored by Hoover overseer Arthur Hall and his wife, Joanne, and named for their philanthropic foundation. Blount Hall, the 440-person dining and multipurpose room named for Hoover overseer and project supporter William Blount. Hauck Auditorium, the theater-style venue with capacity for 400 guests named for Overseer Everett “Sparky” Hauck and his wife, Jane.

Blount Hall Photo: Patrick Beaudouin
Other Photos: Tim Griffith

On October 22, 2017, during Hoover’s Fall Retreat, supporters, fellows, and staff came together with Stanford University leaders to dedicate the David and Joan Traitel Building. Here Thomas W. Gilligan, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director at Hoover, addresses guests in the building’s Fairweather Courtyard.

Photo: Eric Draper

Research and scholarship are the fundamental embodiments of the Hoover Institution’s values: economic freedom, private enterprise, limited government, and commitment to facts and reason. Working together, Hoover’s supporters and its more than 150 fellows produce influential works that apply these principles to the major policy challenges facing our nation and world.

hoover institution conferences

Highlights from the year’s more than 150 conferences and meetings—a staple of Hoover scholarship—include the Restoring Prosperity: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives conference. Organized by John B. Taylor, the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics, along with Senior Fellow Lee Ohanian and Jesús Fernández-Villaverde of the University of Pennsylvania, the conference assessed the fundamentals underlying continued subpar economic performance in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and discussed policy actions to put the global economy back on track.

The Workshop on the Future of Western Civilization, organized by Senior Fellow Russell A. Berman and W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow Kiron K. Skinner, explored challenges to Western values and institutions. Hoover fellows and other scholars discussed such topics as globalization, populism, and international threats including Islamist violence, a globally assertive Russia, and an economically rising China. The Elections, Policymaking, and Economic Uncertainty conference, hosted in partnership with the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, addressed the causes and effects of policy uncertainty in the context of democratic decision making. The Structural Foundations of Monetary Policy conference brought Hoover fellows and other leading economists together with Federal Reserve System leaders for direct, big-picture discussions of contemporary monetary policy challenges.

Left to right: Federal Reserve Bank presidents Eric Rosengren, James Bullard, and Charles Evans, along with Senior Fellow John H. Cochrane.

PHOTO: ROD SEARCEY

Alan Greenspan speaks at Hoover’s Elections, Policymaking, and Economic Uncertainty Conference.

Photo: Jay Mallin

Hoover Institution research is driven both by individual fellows—world-renowned scholars with backgrounds in academia, policy making, and industry—and collaborative research groups that join Hoover scholars with experts from other top institutions. Significant research projects developed this year include Senior Fellow Morris P. Fiorina’s Essays on Contemporary American Politics, a fascinating, eleven-essay series that explains America’s changing electoral landscape and the foundation for Fiorina’s new Hoover Press book, Unstable Majorities.

Hoover fellows and cochairs of Hoover’s Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order Russell A. Berman and Charles Hill developed another major research project in the final months of the 2016 election: a refocused policy framework titled Ten Proposals on the Middle East for the New US Administration. The group followed their initial proposals with a postelection series exploring US policy in Egypt under President Obama, the common ideological threads underlying radical Islamist movements, and the history and motivations of the Iranian regime. Group members then presented their research on Capitol Hill, before the National Security Council, and in a Hoover Institution in Washington policy forum.

Hoover’s Jean Perkins Foundation Working Group on National Security, Technology, and Law published nine new legal and technical analyses of cyber security issues as part of its Aegis Paper Series, including Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security Herbert Lin’s Attribution of Malicious Cyber Incidents: From Soup to Nuts. In addition, drawing lessons from her experiences on the frontlines of democratic change, Condoleezza Rice, the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow at Hoover and the sixty-sixth secretary of state, released her new book Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom.

See the Latest Scholarship from Hoover Fellows

As the campaign politics of 2016 drew to a close and the new presidential administration turned its attention to governance, Hoover fellows stepped up as a source of expertise and leadership, continuing a tradition that first bloomed under President Reagan. Numerous fellows have worked as advisers to the Trump administration and Congress since the 2016 election. Others put aside their scholarship at Hoover to engage fully in shaping policy, including Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster.

General Jim Mattis Appointed US Secretary of Defense

A 43-year US Marine with a legendary reputation as a warrior and scholar, Secretary of Defense Mattis came to Hoover in 2013 shortly after retiring as commander of the United States Central Command. First as an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow and later as the Davies Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Mattis’s countless contributions to Hoover scholarship include coediting the landmark civil-military relations study Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military and contributing to the Blueprint for America project.

National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster

Shortly after selecting Mattis as secretary of defense, President Trump appointed Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, a Hoover Institution visiting fellow and National Security Affairs Fellowship Program alumnus, as national security adviser. A renowned military strategist and scholar, McMaster has written widely in publications including The Caravan and the Hoover Digest.

National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, a former Hoover fellow, speaks with director Thomas W. Gilligan at a Hoover Board of Overseers meeting.

Photo: ERIC DRAPER

Educating Americans in Public Policy (EAPP), the pathbreaking initiative made possible by Hoover supporters Mary Jo and Dick Kovacevich, is the institution’s boldest effort to empower Americans at large—particularly young people—with the knowledge to make informed decisions about public policy. EAPP content teaches viewers about Hoover research and the principles behind it: individual liberty, free-market economics, and limited constitutional government. Learn more at PolicyEd.org.

*Intellections* are sixty- to ninety-second animated videos that cover trending public policy issues in an engaging format that targets younger audiences, released and paired with supplementary resources via PolicyEd.org.

Hoover’s new *Blueprint for America* video series illustrates the lessons of Hoover’s landmark policy handbook of the same name.

Just below the surface of any ordinary town is a mystery. A vast network of farmers, millers, bakers, and merchants coordinate with seemingly impossible precision to provide as much bread of as many different varieties as consumers demand, yet no one directs their activities. Written by Russ Roberts, the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at Hoover, the new short animated film *It’s a Wonderful Loaf* tells a story about the hidden economic order that explains this puzzle.

Launched by David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow Scott W. Atlas, MD, along with Senior Fellow Joshua D. Rauh, and taught entirely by Hoover fellows, the new Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp is a robust, fact- and data-based supplement to university public policy curricula. The program gives students and recent graduates the tools they need to think critically about public policy, assess its results, and help improve it through their academic and professional careers. Nearly a quarter of the approximately eighty students admitted to the 2017 inaugural class—more than 200 competed for admission—came from Ivy League universities; more than half came from schools on the US News & World Report “Top 25 National Universities” list. Thanks to the generosity of Hoover supporters, tuition was free to all accepted students.

Learn More About the Program

Senior fellow and Boot Camp co-organizer Joshua D. Rauh lectured on the true size of public pension liabilities.

PHOTO: Patrick Beaudouin

Following their joint lecture, Hoover fellows Stephen D. Krasner and Kori Schake asked students to form groups and develop alternatives to US policy toward North Korea.

PHOTO: Patrick Beaudouin

“One of the important contributions of this program is not just knowledge; it’s getting inspired about what you can do in your future that will help others.”
Nina, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

The inaugural class of the Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp arrives at the institution’s Stanford University campus.

Photo: PATRICK BEAUDOUIN

Communications are crucial to the institution’s work to advance the principles of freedom. By underwriting the institution’s outreach in both new and traditional media, Hoover supporters help change minds and, ultimately, change policy.

Targeted Media Outreach

Behind Hoover fellows’ consistent presence in the news is a network of relationships developed through numerous targeted media outreach programs. These include the William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellowship Program, which this year brought more than twenty-five top reporters, editors, and producers to Hoover to work directly with fellows. Hoover hosted more than thirty-five journalists from leading outlets in its Media Roundtables this year, offering daylong, issue-focused group discussions with fellows. Building from those connections, media placements for the year included more than 500 appearances on television, 560 on radio, and nearly 1,000 op-eds and articles.

Follow our Fellows in
the Hoover Daily Report

Leadership Forum

Hoover’s Leadership Forum allows fellows to meet directly with leaders in the government, business, and world communities to discuss policy challenges in practice. This year’s participants included Nebraska senator Ben Sasse, President Trump’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, Wisconsin representative Mike Gallagher, and former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels.

Hoover fellows increasingly turn to digital media to distribute their prolific analysis and scholarship directly to target audiences. Among Hoover’s portfolio of online journals is Strategika, the principal journal of Hoover’s Working Group on the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict, now approaching its fiftieth edition. Hoover podcasts include the new program Area 45, hosted by Research Fellow Bill Whalen, which convenes fellows and other experts to discuss policy in the Trump administration from a strategic, outside-the-Beltway perspective that steers clear of partisanship and hyperbole.

Other Digital Products Available at Hoover.org

Podcasts

The Classicist, by Victor Davis Hanson
The Libertarian, by Richard Epstein
Security by the Book, by Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes
Uncommon Knowledge, by Peter Robinson

Digital Journals

The Caravan, the journal of Hoover’s Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order
Eureka, a Hoover journal on California policy
Defining Ideas, highlighting individual scholarship by fellows

Selected Books Published by the Hoover Institution Press, September 2016–August 2017

Blueprint for America, edited by
George P. Shultz
Hammer, Sickle, and Soil: The Soviet Drive to Collectivize Agriculture, by Jonathan Daly
Milton Friedman on Freedom: Selections from The Collected Works of Milton Friedman, edited by Robert Leeson and Charles G. Palm
Rugged Individualism: Dead or Alive?, by David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd

John B. Taylor, the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Hoover, records an interview during the May 2017 Structural Foundations of Monetary Policy Conference.

Photo: ROD SEARCEY

The Hoover Institution in Washington, the institution’s education and outreach arm located blocks from the White House, provides Hoover fellows with a platform in national policy discussions and serves as one of Washington’s preeminent information centers.

The office’s near-daily events attract high-profile attendees and speakers, which recently included then secretary of defense Ashton B. Carter, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, and retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus. The office also leads the Stuart Family Congressional Fellowship Program, which immerses congressional staff in Hoover research at the institution’s Stanford University campus. Fellows also testified eleven times before Congress this year and hosted thirteen briefings on Capitol Hill.

Senior Fellow John H. Cochrane.

PHOTO: Jay Mallin

Selected Congressional Testimony

September 14, 2016 Senior Fellow John H. Cochrane testified in front of the House Committee on the Budget on “Growing Risks to the Budget and the Economy.”

February 1, 2017 Research Fellow Adam J. White testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on “A Growth Agenda: Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens.”

March 28, 2017 Senior Fellow Stephen D. Krasner testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on “The Budget, Diplomacy, and Development.”

“Why has growth halved? The most plausible answer is, I think, simple and sensible: Our legal and regulatory system is slowly strangling the golden goose of growth.”
Senior Fellow John H. Cochrane, speaking before the House Committee on the Budget

Ashton B. Carter, a former Hoover fellow and then secretary of defense, sits on a panel with senior fellow and former secretary of defense William J. Perry and moderator Phil Taubman at the Hoover Institution in Washington.

Photo: Jay Mallin

Since 1919 the Hoover Institution Library & Archives have continuously carried out the institution’s founding mandate to collect and preserve materials documenting war, revolution, and peace, while expanding this vision in support of the institution’s evolving mission.

This work has culminated in what today is one of the world’s largest and most significant historical repositories in the world, as well as a rich array of programs that enable deep engagement with Hoover’s collections by scholars, students, and the general public.

In addition to letters and documents, the Milton Friedman Papers contain candid photographs as well as publicity stills from Friedman’s popular PBS series *Free to Choose*.

Milton Friedman PAPERS, HOOVER ARCHIVES

The Collected Works of Milton Friedman

Digital access allows the Library & Archives to reach audiences far exceeding the thousands of visitors who study collections in person each year. Among this year’s numerous digitization initiatives was the launch of the largest collection of Milton Friedman’s work available on the web, featuring more than 1,500 videos, essays, op-eds, personal papers, and other materials by the Hoover fellow and Nobel laureate. Users can browse this collection by curatorial themes, publication types, and item formats, allowing for the continued study and appreciation of the work and life of one of the twentieth-century’s most influential economists.

Explore The Collection

Unpacking History

Unpacking History: New Collections at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives (September 27, 2016–February 25, 2017) celebrated the diversity and historical significance of Hoover’s holdings by asking each Library & Archives curator to select a favorite rare and intriguing item from recently acquired collections. Pictured here is a selection by Anatol Shmelev, the Robert Conquest Curator of the Russia and Eurasia Collection, taken from Hoover’s holdings of difficult-to-acquire publications of volunteer battalions that formed to bolster the regular Ukrainian army in fighting Russian-backed separatists.

Weapon on the Wall

Drawing from Hoover’s world-renowned archive of more than 130,000 posters, Weapon on the Wall: American Posters Of World War I (April 5, 2017–September 2, 2017) marked America’s entry into the First World War by exploring one of the most powerful tools the country used to persuade its public to support and sustain the war effort. Pictured here is a 1917 poster by artist James Montgomery Flagg (Poster Collection US 4647) that was featured in the exhibition.

See More Exhibitions at Hoover

The Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion displays the exhibition Weapon on the Wall: American Posters of World War I. Other recent exhibitions held in the pavilion include The Crown under the Hammer: Russia, Romanovs, Revolution, hosted jointly with Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center from October 18, 2017 through March 4, 2018.

PHOTO: Rod Searcey

Continuing the work for free enterprise and constitutional government that has proved so vital throughout our history, our supporters, fellows, and staff are the backbone of the Hoover Institution.

We offer special recognition to those individuals whose exceptional contributions made possible the accomplishments highlighted in this report: Hoover’s overseers, who help guide us in pursuing our mission; the generous members of the Hoover Council and its Leadership Circle and Director’s Circle; and all the supporters, fellows, and staff whose dedication shapes a better world for our generation and those that come after us.

To learn more about joining this community of supporters and scholars working together to advance ideas defining a free society, contact Hoover’s Office of Development or visit Hoover.org/get-involved.

HOOVER INSTITUTION

Office of Development
434 Galvez Mall, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6003
Tel. 650-725-6715
hooverdevelopment@stanford.edu

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Ideas Defining A Free Society

Hoover Institution