# William E. Simon William Edward Simon (1927–2000) was the 63rd United States Secretary of the Treasury under [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Gerald Ford]], and subsequently the **architect of modern conservative strategic philanthropy** as president of the [[John M. Olin Foundation]] from 1977 until 2000. His 1978 book *[[A Time for Truth]]* — a manifesto for counter-establishment philanthropy — and his two decades running the Olin Foundation make him the figure most responsible for translating conservative donor wealth into the **intellectual infrastructure** that reshaped American law, economics, and public policy. If [[John M. Olin]] provided the fortune and the donor intent, Simon provided the **strategy and execution**. Under Simon's direction, the Olin Foundation funded the law-and-economics programs, the [[Federalist Society]], and the conservative think tanks that became the movement's intellectual backbone. ## Background - Born November 27, 1927, in Paterson, New Jersey - Lafayette College graduate (1952, government and law) - Served in the U.S. Army (1946–1948) - Wall Street career: partner at Salomon Brothers, where he ran the government bond trading desk and became one of the most powerful figures on Wall Street - Appointed Federal Energy Administrator by Nixon in 1973 during the oil crisis; managed fuel allocation during the OPEC embargo - Served as 63rd Secretary of the Treasury (1974–1977) under Nixon and Ford - President of the U.S. Olympic Committee (1981–1985); led the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics that became the first modern Games to turn a profit - Died June 3, 2000, in Santa Barbara, California ## Treasury Secretary Simon served during one of the most turbulent economic periods in American history — the 1973 oil embargo, stagflation, the end of Bretton Woods. As Energy Czar and then Treasury Secretary, he managed fuel rationing, fought inflation, and became a vocal advocate for deregulation, free markets, and [[Supply-Side Economics]]. His experience in government — watching what he saw as bureaucratic bloat and regulatory overreach — radicalized his commitment to free-market ideology and convinced him that the battle for policy had to be fought in the world of ideas, not just legislation. ## "A Time for Truth" (1978) Simon's manifesto, ghostwritten by libertarian author Edith Efron, argued that American capitalism was under existential threat from a "New Despotism" of government regulation, academic leftism, and media bias. The book's prescriptive chapter was the important part: Simon called on conservative businessmen and foundations to fund what he called **"the counter-intelligentsia"** — the scholars, institutions, and programs that could challenge the left's dominance of universities, law schools, media, and public policy. *A Time for Truth* became a bestseller with a foreword by [[Milton Friedman]] and an introduction by F.A. Hayek. It served as the intellectual justification for the strategic philanthropy that Simon himself would execute at the Olin Foundation. Catherine MacArthur reportedly read the book and wanted her foundation to adopt the same mandate — an ironic twist, since the [[MacArthur Foundation]] became one of the left's major philanthropic vehicles. ## The Olin Foundation (1977–2000) After leaving government, [[John M. Olin]] recruited Simon to run his foundation. Simon served as president from 1977 until his death in 2000. Under Simon's direction, the Olin Foundation became the most strategically disciplined conservative grantmaker in the country: - **Law and economics**: Olin funded law-and-economics programs at Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Virginia, and Columbia — creating the academic infrastructure that trained a generation of federal judges in cost-benefit legal reasoning. - **[[Federalist Society]]**: Olin seed-funded the 1982 Yale conference that launched the Federalist Society. Simon recognized that controlling the pipeline of legal talent was more consequential than winning any individual case. - **Think tanks**: Major grants to [[Heritage Foundation]], [[American Enterprise Institute]], [[Hoover Institution]], [[Manhattan Institute]], and others — funding the conservative policy-research ecosystem alongside the legal-academic one. - **Spend-out strategy**: Simon enforced Olin's mandate that the foundation spend all its assets within a generation of the founder's death — ensuring the money went to the intended cause rather than being redirected by future staff. The foundation closed in 2005, having disbursed ~$370M. ## Connection to the KB Ecosystem - **[[John M. Olin Foundation]]**: Simon was the executor — the man who turned Olin's fortune into the conservative legal-intellectual infrastructure. - **[[Olin Family]]**: Simon is the dynasty's most important non-family figure — the operator who made the money consequential. - **[[Federalist Society]]**: Simon's funding decision to sponsor the 1982 conference created the organization that now controls Republican judicial appointments. - **[[Leonard Leo]]**: Leo's later empire of judicial selection and [[Dark Money]] legal activism was built on the Olin-funded Federalist Society infrastructure that Simon helped create. - **[[Powell Memo]]**: Simon's "counter-intelligentsia" strategy is the philanthropic implementation of the Powell Memo's call for organized business-class intellectual investment. ## See Also - [[John M. Olin]] - [[John M. Olin Foundation]] - [[Olin Family]] - [[Federalist Society]] - [[Federalist Society Founding]] - [[Heritage Foundation]] - [[American Enterprise Institute]] - [[Leonard Leo]] - [[Richard Nixon]] - [[Powell Memo]] - [[Dark Money Ecosystem]] - [[Movement Conservatism]]