It's Tuesday, May the 2nd, 2023, and welcome back to Goodfellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns. I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow, and I'll be your moderator today, a job made considerably easier by the presence of three

the smartest men I know, are good fellows as we jokingly refer to them. That would include the historian

Neil Ferguson, economist John Cochran, and the geostrategist, Lieutenant General A.R. McMaster, they are Hoover

Institution Senior Fellows, all. And joining us today is the author, journalist, and according to

at least one American

publication provocateur, Douglas Murray. Douglas joins us to discuss the future of the West,

its alliances, H.R. and Neal, its economics, John, and potential unraveling of its social fabric,

something Douglas gets into in his wonderful book, The War on the West, How to Prevail in the Age

of Reason. And before that, we're going to talk about the big news in London this weekend, which is, of course, the coronation

of King Charles III and Her Majesty, the Queen Consort. But first, I'd like to take you inside the

world of the Hoover Institution for a moment. Last week, we Hoover Fellows mourned the loss of our

colleague, the economist John Racian. I doubt many of you have heard the name John Racian, but he was enormously important in the life of our institution.

John has served as Hoover's director from 1990 to 2015, 25 years, yes.

Just as it was a different world in 1990, so too was at a very different Hoover Institution.

Our finances were not secure.

Our relationship with Stanford University

was strained at best, and the institution's outlook was decidedly murky. So John, who was a very

quiet man, quietly got to work behind the scenes, and he righted the ship, and he got us on

its current course, which has it back to our full health. In fact, much of what you see of the Hoover

institution today is thanks to John's

hard work. We are today thanks to his contributions, a vibrant center of intellectual thought

and stellar research addressing today's greatest challenges. Neil, you tweeted about John's

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