This is a list of prominent public figures frequently referred to as neoconservatives. Classifications of this sort are often disputed (see the neoconservative page for a discussion of the terms' controversies), so any listing here should not be taken as definitive.
Public Sector
- Elliott Abrams, Senior director, National Security Council; son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz.
- Kenneth Adelman, member of Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, former member of Reagan administration as hawkish arms control expert.
- John R. Bolton, Undersecretary of State. Candidate to be U.N. Ambassador. Accused during confirmation process of abusing subordinates and politicizing intelligence reports.
- Stephen Cambone, first Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence, Rumsfeld protege.
- Linda Chavez, Hispanic Republican Cabinet Appointee.
- Eliot Cohen, member Defense Policy Board.
- Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy since 2001, responsible for planning the occupation of Iraq. Resignation announced in January 2005.
- Larry Franklin, Feith lieutenant being investigated for passing government secrets to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Israeli Embassy Officials.
- Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and Our Posthuman Future, advocate of cautious and regulated approach to bio-technology on the President's Council on Bioethics. Critic of the Iraq war and some fellow neoconservatives - including Charles Krauthammer.
- I. Lewis Libby, a.k.a Scooter Libby, Chief of Staff to the Vice President. Suspected of revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame as a political reprisal against her husband.
- William J. Luti, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense.
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Former Democratic Senator, controversial U.N. Ambassador, and advisor to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. Associated with the early days of the movement.
- Harold Rhode, Foreign Affairs Specialist, Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense.
- Abram Shulsky, Director Office of Special Plans.
- Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank as of June 2005. Deputy Secretary of Defense 2001-2005, a major advocate for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
- David Wurmser, Office of the Vice President, Middle East Adviser.
- Dov Zakheim, former Comptroller, Department of Defense.
- Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC (born 13 October 1925) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
Private Sector
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
- Ann Coulter
- David Frum, Canadian, newspaper columnist, and speechwriter.
- Donald Kagan, Yale Historian. Father of Robert Kagan.
- Frank Gaffney
- Nathan Glazer, co-editor of The Public Interest with Irving Kristol. Eschews the term "neoconservative" and had no public stanceon the Iraq War.
- Robert Kagan, co-founder, Project for the New American Century.
- Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Ambassador to the United Nations, famous for asserting the existence of a meaningful difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism.
- Charles Krauthammer. Columnist and academic. Advocate of Democratic Realism as a wilsonian version of Realism in international affairs. Critic of Francis Fukuyama.
- Irving Kristol, founder of The Public Interest and The National Interest. Father of William Kristol.
- William Kristol, co-founder, Project for the New American Century.
- Michael Ledeen
- Rush Limbaugh
- Philip Merrill, Chairman of the Export-Import Bank since 2001.
- Richard Perle, Former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Stepped down in early 2003 due to alleged conflict of interest.
- R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence under President Clinton.
- Norman Podhoretz
- Daniel Pipes, journalist, author, academic, and expert on Islamism and terrorism
- Ronald D. Rotunda, law professor at conservative George Mason University, argued for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay to be considered Enemy Combatants rather than Prisoners of War under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
- Michael Rubin, lecturer; former Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Soref Fellow (1999-2000).
- Mark Steyn, author of several books, and politics, arts, and culture commentator for, most notably, the Chicago Sun-Times, the UK's Daily Telegraph, and The Irish Times.
Debated as being neoconservatives
- George W. Bush, President of the United States. He has appointed many neoconservative leaders into various positions within the government, but his support of their ideals is questioned.
- Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States. One of the founders of the PNAC, which is viewed by many as a neoconservative think tank. He supports foreign and national defense policies that seem to be influenced by the ideology (See the Bush Doctrine). This classification is argued by some who view Cheney as more of a moderate or classical Republican. Cheney has worked for many presidential administrations during the latter 20th Century.
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under President G.W. Bush, also a founder of the PNAC. Rumsfeld's backing of a preemptive war policy during the second Gulf War between the United States of America and Iraq is considered by many to be the result of a neoconservative ideology. Some think otherwise.
External Links
- RightWeb (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/index.php), a highly critical examination of neoconservatives and neoconservatism (about rightweb (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/about.php)).
- Conservative National Review Online essays on Neoconservatism, Part One (http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg051603.asp) and Part Two (http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg052003.asp).
