Reagan’s administration recruited heavily from conservative think-tank ranks

Evidence

Several contributors to Heritage’s Mandate for Leadership went on to positions in the new administration, including William J. Bennett, who would eventually serve as secretary of education (a cabinet post that Mandate had recommended be eliminated), future Interior Secretary James Watt, and James Malone, who would serve as the head of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations conference on the Law of the Sea. … While the close relationship between Heritage and the Reagan White House was widely noted, the American Enterprise Institute could boast of sending an even larger number of alumni to the new administration. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1808

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of Mandate for Leadership recommending elimination of the very cabinet post its contributor later took is a crisp, tweetable irony.
• XREF: Personnel pipeline from think tanks into a defining administration connects to the broader topic of how the neoliberal network positioned people inside government. — connects to: Heritage pre-positioned a policy blueprint for the anticipated Reagan administration — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1807; Reagan-era appointments turned the Fed into a channel for neoliberalizing economics — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 529; Conservative ideas formed through cross-national networks and institutional contexts, not isolated biography. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 27 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Reagan-era appointments turned the Fed into a channel for neoliberalizing economics #complicates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 529
• Neoliberal think tanks were built through direct coaching from older ones #corroborates (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 575
• Conservative ideas formed through cross-national networks and institutional contexts, not isolated biography. #expands (0.70) — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 27