The author, in recounting his leadership role during the Nixon administration, argues that the growth of public support for the arts during that period did not come about because elected officials suddenly decided to give culture the public support it deserved. Instead, the Vietnam War opened up a policy window in which support for the arts met the political needs of elected officials to soften and survive hostilities between mutually hostile camps. In such an environment, it was possible for the National Endowment for the Arts and its advocates to avoid stating specific goals or defining those arts activities most worthy of government support, so as not to alienate the many arts constituencies. But the author contends that his political logic is long since outdated. The arts today are faced with acerbic challenges to the basic idea of public subsidy, the omnipresent budget deficit, taxpayer revolts, and electronic alternatives to live cultural experiences. To meet these challenges, the arts and their advocates need a new policy window. The author concludes that the enterprise of education provides the arts with an opportunity to contribute to a policy area that is of deep and growing concern to the vast majority of Americans.

The 2nd annual Hancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy was presented on April 12, 1989, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. by the Friends of Nancy Hanks and the American Council for the Arts. The speaker was Leonard Garment.

Leonard Garment is counsel and heads the public policy practice group of Dechert Price & Rhoads. He began his career in 1949 with the firm of Mudge, Stern, Williams & Tucker, became partner in 1956, and remained with the firm as the head of the litiga­tion department until he joined partner Richard M. Nixon at the White House in 1969. Garment rejoined Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon in 1976, and then was a senior partner in the Washington, D.C. firm of Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin, from 1980 through 1993.