Introduction

Summary

On a warm Washington, DC evening in mid-May 1979, a reception got underway in the speakers’ dining room in the Capitol building. Cohosted by Paul Findley, a Republican representative from Illinois, and Jim Wright, a Texas Democrat and the House Majority leader, and chaired by Tip O’Neill, the House speaker from Massachusetts, the reception celebrated Clarence Streit, described as the “founder of the Atlantic Union movement and author of ‘Union Now.’” Successive speakers affectionately recalled Streit’s four decades of dedication, in Findley’s words, to the cause of “greater unity among the nations which prize individual liberty.” Wright bestowed on the guest of honor an award named after Estes Kefauver, the deceased senator from Tennessee, former vice-presidential candidate, and Streit’s political ally during the 1950s. Other tokens of admiration included a card signed by almost 200 well-wishers, as well as a book of “congratulatory messages” with entries from former presidents Nixon and Ford, among other political luminaries. Accompanied by Jeanne, his wife and collaborator of over five decades, Streit characteristically urged the attendees to continue the couple’s work. His appeal, though, did little to dent the pervasive sense of nostalgia, of bygone times, and vanishing possibilities. Afterward, Streit quickly faded from view, his death in 1986 at the age of ninety marked by perfunctory obituaries.¹ Today, he is all but forgotten.