http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4366
by Richard Hoste
Earlier this decade, Skeptic magazine editor Frank Miele published a book entitled Intelligence, Race, And Genetics: Conversations With Arthur R. Jensen based on a series of exchanges he had with the famous Berkley psychologist. As Jensen is best known for his belief that the root of the black/white gap in intelligence is largely genetic, one of the most interesting topics discussed was what, if anything, powerful people have thought about his work. Jensen’s fame began with his 1969 Harvard Educational Review article “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?”
Apparently, it was New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who coined the term “Jensenisn,” now an official English word. Jensen tells about a time he was in Washington for an American Educational Research Association meeting during the Nixon administration and learned that people at the highest levels of government were taking his ideas seriously:”. . . I received a message from Moynihan’s secretary asking if I could come to his office while I was in town. So I met him in the White House at about 4:00 that afternoon. He was a very open and cordial fellow, quite jolly and immediately likable. He offered me a drink from the bar in his office and asked if I minded if he invited his “assistant of Jensenism” to come over from the Old Executive Office Building across the street . . . [one of the assistant’s jobs was to read my stuff and keep him [Moynihan informed about it. Moynihan in turn forwarded this information to President Nixon, who was keenly interested in Jensenism.”
The president believed that genetics put limitations on how much could be done for blacks but that helping them was “the right thing to do.” Nixon’s unconventional views on race recently made the news when one of his tapes revealed that he thought abortion was necessary when the potential offspring is of mixed black/white descent. This revelation came seven years after a previous tape revealed him saying politically incorrect things about Jews in the media.
Contrast Nixon’s reaction to information diverging from the liberal line with that of George H. W. Bush.
http://www.toqonline.com/2009/08/how-two-presidents-faced-race-science/