Bruce K. Chapman (born 1934 in
EvanstonEvanston, Illinois is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois directly north of the City of Chicago, east of Skokie, and south of Wilmette, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan. Evanston is concurrently a city...
,
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
) is the director and founder of the
Discovery InstituteThe Discovery Institute is a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design. Its Teach the Controversy campaign aims to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses...
, an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
conservativeConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
think tank often associated with the
religious rightThe Christian right, also known as the Religious Right and the Evangelical Bloc, is a term used predominantly in the United States of America to describe a spectrum of right-wing Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of conservative social...
. He was previously a
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
, a Republican Party
politicianA politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest,...
and a
diplomatA diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organisation. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
.
After graduating from
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
in 1962, he served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, and worked as an editorial writer for the
New York Herald TribuneThe New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. The Herald Tribune was a leading Republican paper, and a voice for moderate "internationalist" Republicans as opposed to the "isolationist" variety represented by the Chicago...
. In 1966 Chapman moved to Seattle and wrote a book entitled
The Wrong Man in Uniform, arguing against
conscriptionConscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces...
.
With his college roommate
George GilderGeorge F. Gilder is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual, Republican Party activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute...
, he wrote an attack on the anti-intellectual policies of
Barry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as "Mr...
entitled
The Party That Lost Its Head (1966).
Chapman became active in politics through the Seattle Young Republicans, and became a member of the United States Republican Party.
Bruce K. Chapman (born 1934 in
EvanstonEvanston, Illinois is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois directly north of the City of Chicago, east of Skokie, and south of Wilmette, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan. Evanston is concurrently a city...
,
IllinoisIllinois , the 21st state admitted to the United States of America, is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern state and the fifth most populous state in the nation...
) is the director and founder of the
Discovery InstituteThe Discovery Institute is a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design. Its Teach the Controversy campaign aims to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses...
, an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
conservativeConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
think tank often associated with the
religious rightThe Christian right, also known as the Religious Right and the Evangelical Bloc, is a term used predominantly in the United States of America to describe a spectrum of right-wing Christian political and social movements and organizations characterized by their strong support of conservative social...
. He was previously a
journalistA journalist is a person who practises journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for viewpoints that are not biased.Reporters are one type of journalist...
, a Republican Party
politicianA politician or political leader is an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government, and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d'état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest,...
and a
diplomatA diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organisation. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
.
Political career
After graduating from
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
in 1962, he served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, and worked as an editorial writer for the
New York Herald TribuneThe New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. The Herald Tribune was a leading Republican paper, and a voice for moderate "internationalist" Republicans as opposed to the "isolationist" variety represented by the Chicago...
. In 1966 Chapman moved to Seattle and wrote a book entitled
The Wrong Man in Uniform, arguing against
conscriptionConscription is a general term for involuntary labor demanded by an established authority. It is most often used in the specific sense of requiring citizens to serve in the armed forces...
.
With his college roommate
George GilderGeorge F. Gilder is an American writer, techno-utopian intellectual, Republican Party activist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute...
, he wrote an attack on the anti-intellectual policies of
Barry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as "Mr...
entitled
The Party That Lost Its Head (1966).
Chapman became active in politics through the Seattle Young Republicans, and became a member of the United States Republican Party. He was elected to the Seattle City Council in 1971. In 1975, he was appointed
Secretary of State of WashingtonThe Secretary of State of Washington is one of the elected constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Washington. The duties of the office are specified in Article III, Section 17 of the Washington State Constitution and Chapter 43.07 of the Revised Code of Washington.The current Secretary of...
. He campaigned for the office of Governor of Washington in 1980, but ultimately did not win the Republican nomination.
Chapman was appointed by President
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
to the position of Director of the
United States Census BureauThe United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data. As part of the United States Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau serves as the leading source of quality data about...
and served in that role from 1981 until 1983. Between 1983 and 1985 he was Deputy Assistant to President Reagan and Director of the
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the residence of every...
Office of Planning and Evaluation. From 1985 to 1988 he served in the appointed position of United States Ambassador to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
Organizations in
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
. His portfolio included
nuclear proliferationNuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
,
refugeeUnder the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s,
economic developmentEconomic development is the increase in the standard of living of a nation's population associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy...
, and the control of narcotics.
Think tank work
From 1988 to 1990 Chapman was a fellow at the
Hudson InstituteThe Hudson Institute is an American, conservative, non-profit think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
, a conservative think tank. In 1990 , he left Hudson and founded the
Discovery InstituteThe Discovery Institute is a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design. Its Teach the Controversy campaign aims to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses...
. The institute is best known as the hub of the
Intelligent Design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include...
, and also focuses on a broad range of issues, including transportation and international cooperation in the
CascadiaThe Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America, bound by the Pacific Ocean to the west. There are several partially overlapping definitions of the region, but they generally include the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, and...
region.
Chapman is a Roman Catholic and is married to the former Sarah Gilmore Williams (a great-granddaughter of
Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. He is well remembered for his energetic persona, his range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Bull Moose Party...
), with whom he has two sons, Adam and Andrew.
Books
- The Party That Lost Its Head Alfred A. Knopf; 1st edition (1966)
- The Wrong Man in Uniform Trident Press (1967)
- Instead of Revolution The Ripon Society (1971)
External links