| module = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan on the Discontinuation of "Black Talon" Sales.ogg|title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan's voice|type=speech|description=Moynihan speaks on the discontinuation of public sales of Black Talon ammunition
Recorded November 22, 1993}}

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Daniel Patrick Moynihan ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɔɪ|n|ɪ|h|æ|n|}}; March 16, 1927 – March 26, 2003) was an American politician, diplomat and social scientist.{{cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_MoynihanDP.htm |title=U.S. Senate: Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Featured Biography }} A member of the Democratic Party, he represented New York in the United States Senate from 1977 until 2001 after serving as an adviser to President Richard Nixon, and as the United States' ambassador to India and to the United Nations.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Moynihan moved at a young age to New York City. Following a stint in the navy, he earned a Ph.D. in history from Tufts University. He worked on the staff of New York Governor W. Averell Harriman before joining President John F. Kennedy's administration in 1961. He served as an Assistant Secretary of Labor under Presidents Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson, devoting much of his time to the War on Poverty. In 1965, he published the controversial Moynihan Report on black poverty. Moynihan left the Johnson administration in 1965 and became a professor at Harvard University.

In 1969, he accepted Nixon's offer to serve as an Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and he was elevated to the position of Counselor to the President later that year. He left the administration at the end of 1970, and accepted appointment as United States Ambassador to India in 1973. He accepted President Gerald Ford's appointment to the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations in 1975, holding that position until early 1976; later that year he won election to the Senate.

Moynihan served as Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee from 1992 to 1993 and as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1993 to 1995. He also led the Moynihan Secrecy Commission, which studied the regulation of classified information. He emerged as a strong critic of President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy and opposed President Bill Clinton's health care plan. He frequently broke with liberal positions, but opposed welfare reform in the 1990s. He also voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Congressional authorization for the Gulf War. He was tied with Jacob K. Javits as the longest-serving Senator from the state of New York until they were both surpassed by Chuck Schumer in 2023.

Early life and education

Moynihan was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Margaret Ann (née Phipps), a homemaker, and John Henry Moynihan, a reporter for a daily newspaper in Tulsa but originally from Indiana.{{cite journal|title=Current Biography Yearbook|author=H.W. Wilson Company|journal=Current Biography Yearbook: Annual Cumulation|date=1986|volume=47|publisher=H. W. Wilson Company|issn=0084-9499|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iP0ZAAAAYAAJ|access-date=January 26, 2017}}{{cite book|title=The lives of ethnic Americans|author=Gonzales, J.L.|date=1991|publisher=Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company |isbn=9780840364876 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IZIMAQAAMAAJ|access-date=January 26, 2017}} He moved at the age of six with his Irish Catholic family to New York City. Brought up in the working-class neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen,{{Cite news|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/opinion/15MON3.html|title= Recalling a Complicated Man|first=Francis X.|last=Clines|newspaper=The New York Times|date=March 15, 2004|access-date=January 5, 2025}} he shined shoes and attended various public, private, and parochial schools, ultimately graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. He was a parishioner of St. Raphael's Church, where he also cast his first vote.[http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/SSCyrilMethodius.html NYC Organ History Website] (Accessed January 24, 2011) He and his brother, Michael Willard Moynihan, spent most of their childhood summers at their grandfather's farm in Bluffton, Indiana. Moynihan briefly worked as a longshoreman before entering the City College of New York (CCNY), which at that time provided free higher education to city residents.

He also had a half-brother, Thomas Joseph Stapelfeld, born on June 28, 1941, to their mother and Henry Charles Stapelfeld.

Following a year at CCNY, Moynihan joined the United States Navy in 1944. He was assigned to the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Middlebury College from 1944 to 1945 and then enrolled as a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps student at Tufts University, where he received an undergraduate degree in naval science in 1946. He completed active service as Gunnery officer of the USS Quirinus at the rank of lieutenant (junior grade) in 1947. Moynihan then returned to Tufts, where he completed a second undergraduate degree in sociology{{cite web|url=https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/textual/central/smof/moynihan.php|publisher=nixonlibrary.gov|title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan|access-date=February 4, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161231170504/https://nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/textual/central/smof/moynihan.php|archive-date=December 31, 2016|url-status=dead}} cum laude in 1948 and earned an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1949.

After failing the Foreign Service Officer exam, he continued his doctoral studies at the Fletcher School as a Fulbright fellow at the London School of Economics from 1950 to 1953. During this period, Moynihan struggled with writer's block and began to fashion himself as a "dandy", cultivating "a taste for Savile Row suits, rococo conversational riffs and Churchillian oratory" even as he maintained that "nothing and no one at LSE ever disposed me to be anything but a New York Democrat who had some friends who worked on the docks and drank beer after work." He also worked for two years as a civilian employee at RAF South Ruislip.{{cite book|title=Moynihan's Moment: America's Fight Against Zionism as Racism|author=Troy, G.|date=2013|publisher=OUP USA|isbn=9780199920303|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fyOoaxtz6KoC&pg=PA44|page=44|access-date=January 26, 2017}}

He ultimately received a PhD in history from Tufts (with a dissertation on the relationship between the United States and the International Labour Organization) from the Fletcher School in 1961 while serving as an assistant professor of political science and director of a government research project centered around Averell Harriman's papers at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.{{cite web|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/302084811/|title=The United States and the International Labor Organization, 1889–1934|access-date=January 26, 2017|id={{ProQuest|302084811 }}}}{{cite web|url=http://search.marquiswhoswho.com/profile/100002530045|publisher=search.marquiswhoswho.com|title=Marquis Biographies Online|access-date=January 26, 2017}}

Political career and return to academia

Moynihan's political career started in the 1950s, when he served as a member of New York Governor Averell Harriman's staff in a variety of positions (including speechwriter and acting secretary to the governor). He met his future wife, Elizabeth (Liz) Brennan, who also worked on Harriman's staff.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/10/27/archives/elizabeth-moynihan-leaves-the-sidelines-for-an-active-role-in.html|title=Elizabeth Moynihan Leaves the Sidelines for an Active Role in Senate Race|newspaper=The New York Times|date=October 27, 1976|last1=Dullea|first1=Georgia}}

This period ended following Harriman's loss to Nelson Rockefeller in the 1958 general election. Moynihan returned to academia, serving as a lecturer for brief periods at Russell Sage College (1957–1958) and the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (1959) before taking a tenure-track position at Syracuse University (1959–1961). During this period, Moynihan was a delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention as part of John F. Kennedy's delegate pool.

=Kennedy and Johnson administrations=

Moynihan first served in the Kennedy administration as special (1961–1962) and executive (1962–1963) assistant to Labor Secretaries Arthur J. Goldberg and W. Willard Wirtz. In 1962, he authored the directive "Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture", which discouraged use of an official style for federal buildings, and has been credited with enabling "a wide ranging set of innovative public building projects" in subsequent decades, including the San Francisco Federal Building and the United States Courthouse in Austin, Texas.{{Cite web|url=https://archinect.com/news/article/150182232/new-executive-order-could-make-classical-architecture-the-preferred-and-default-style-for-america-s-public-buildings|title=New executive order could make classical architecture "the preferred and default style" for America's public buildings|last=Pacheco|first=Antonio|date=February 4, 2020|website=Archinect|language=en|access-date=February 9, 2020}}

He was then appointed as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy, Planning and Research, serving from 1963 to 1965 under Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In this capacity, he did not have operational responsibilities. He devoted his time to trying to formulate national policy for what would become the War on Poverty. His small staff included Ralph Nader.

They took inspiration from historian Stanley Elkins's Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (1959). Elkins essentially contended that slavery had made black Americans dependent on the dominant society, and that such dependence still existed a century later after the American Civil War. Moynihan and his staff believed that government must go beyond simply ensuring that members of minority groups have the same rights as the majority and must also "act affirmatively" in order to counter the problem of historic discrimination.

Moynihan's research of Labor Department data demonstrated that even as fewer people were unemployed, more people were joining the welfare rolls. These recipients were families with children but only one parent (almost invariably the mother). The laws at that time permitted such families to receive welfare payments in certain parts of the United States.

== Controversy over the War on Poverty ==

Moynihan issued his research in 1965 under the title The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, now commonly known as The Moynihan Report. Moynihan's report{{cite web|url=http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm|publisher=dol.gov|title=U.S. Department of Labor – History – The Negro Family – The Case for National Action (Moynihan's War on Poverty report)|access-date=January 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170120102028/https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm|archive-date=January 20, 2017|url-status=dead}} fueled a debate over the proper course for government to take with regard to the economic underclass, especially blacks. Critics on the left attacked it as "blaming the victim",The National Review; March 27, 2003 a slogan coined by psychologist William Ryan.See William Ryan, Blaming the Victim, Random House, 1971 Some suggested that Moynihan was propagating the views of racistsGraebner, William. "The End of Liberalism: Narrating Welfare's Decline, from the Moynihan Report (1965) to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (1996)", Journal of Policy History, Vol. 14, Number 2, 2002, pp. 170–190 because much of the press coverage of the report focused on the discussion of children being born out of wedlock. Despite Moynihan's warnings, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program included rules for payments only if no "Man [was] in the house."{{cite book |last1=Moynihan |first1=Daniel P. |title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan : a portrait in letters of an American visionary |date=2010 |publisher=Public Affairs/Perseus Books |location=New York |isbn=9781586488017 |edition=First}}{{cite journal |last1=Hale |first1=Dennis |title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of An American Visionary, edited by Steven R. Weisman.: Public Affairs/Perseus Books, 2010. 705 pp. $35.00. {{text|ISBN}} 9781586488017 |journal=Society |date=December 2011 |volume=48 |issue=6 |pages=545–549 |doi=10.1007/s12115-011-9493-9|s2cid=141461880 }} Critics of the program's structure, including Moynihan, said that the nation was paying poor women to throw their husbands out of the house.

After the 1994 Republican sweep of Congress, Moynihan agreed that correction was needed for a welfare system that possibly encouraged women to raise their children without fathers: "The Republicans are saying we have a hell of a problem, and we do."{{cite magazine |first=Richard|last=Lacayo|title= Down on the Downtrodden |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982006,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050118235340/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982006,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 18, 2005 |magazine=Time |date=December 19, 1994 |access-date=July 22, 2007}}

=Local New York City politics and ongoing academic career=

By the 1964 presidential election, Moynihan was recognized as a political ally of Robert F. Kennedy. For this reason he was not favored by then-President Johnson, and he left the Johnson Administration in 1965.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} He ran for office in the Democratic Party primary for the presidency of the New York City Council, a position now known as the New York City Public Advocate. However, he was defeated by Queens District Attorney Frank D. O'Connor.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Throughout this transitional period, Moynihan maintained an academic affiliation as a fellow at Wesleyan University's Center for Advanced Studies from 1964 to 1967. In 1966, he was appointed to the faculties of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and Graduate School of Public Administration as a full professor of education and urban politics. After commencing a second extended leave because of his public service in 1973, his faculty line was transferred to the university's Department of Government, where he remained until 1977. From 1966 to 1969, he also held a secondary administrative appointment as director of the Harvard–MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies. With turmoil and riots in the United States, Moynihan, "a national board member of ADA incensed at the radicalism of the current anti-war and Black Power movements", decided to "call for a formal alliance between liberals and conservatives",Rothbard, Murray N. [https://www.mises.org/story/1842 Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal], Ludwig von Mises Institute and wrote that the next administration would have to be able to unite the nation again.

=Nixon administration=

File:Daniel Patrick Moynihan, three-quarter-length portrait, seated in plastic chair, facing front, at a two-way television conference between business leaders and the Nixon administration sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce.jpg

Connecting with President-elect Richard Nixon in 1968, Moynihan joined the Executive Office of the President in January 1969 as Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and executive secretary of the Council of Urban Affairs (later the Urban Affairs Council), a forerunner of the Domestic Policy Council envisaged as an analog to the United States National Security Council. As one of the few people in Nixon's inner circle who had done academic research related to social policies, he was very influential in the early months of the administration. However, his disdain for "traditional budget-conscious positions" (including his proposed Family Assistance Plan, a "negative income tax or guaranteed minimum income" for families that met work requirements or demonstrated that they were seeking work which ultimately stalled in the Senate despite prefiguring the later Supplemental Security Income program) led to frequent clashes (belying their unwavering mutual respect) with Nixon's principal domestic policy advisor, conservative economist and Cabinet-rank Counselor to the President Arthur F. Burns.{{cite news|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-12-28/when-nixon-listened-to-liberal-moynihan|newspaper=bloomberg.com|title=When Nixon Listened to Liberal Moynihan – Bloomberg View|date=December 28, 2014|access-date=February 4, 2017}}

While formulating the Family Assistance Plan proposal, Moynihan conducted significant discussions concerning a Basic Income Guarantee with Russell B. Long and Louis O. Kelso.

Although Moynihan was promoted to Counselor to the President for Urban Affairs with Cabinet rank shortly after Burns was nominated by Nixon to serve as Chair of the Federal Reserve in October 1969, it was concurrently announced that Moynihan would be returning to Harvard (a stipulation of his leave from the university) at the end of 1970. Operational oversight of the Urban Affairs Council was given to Moynihan's nominal successor as Domestic Policy Assistant, former White House Counsel John Ehrlichman. This decision was instigated by White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman,{{cite book|title=The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House|author=Hess, S.|date=2014|publisher=Brookings Institution Press|isbn=9780815726166|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZU2aBAAAQBAJ|access-date=February 4, 2017}} a close friend of Ehrlichman since college and his main patron in the administration. Haldeman's maneuvering situated Moynihan in a more peripheral context as the administration's "resident thinker" on domestic affairs for the duration of his service.{{cite book|title=Richard M. Nixon: Politician, President, Administrator|author1=Friedman, L.|author2=Levantrosser, W.F.|author3=Hofstra University|date=1991|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=9780313276538|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mFcqC8-9xa8C&pg=PA165|page=165|access-date=February 4, 2017}}

In 1969, on Nixon's initiative, NATO tried to establish a third civil column, establishing a hub of research and initiatives in the civil area, dealing as well with environmental topics. Moynihan named acid rain and the greenhouse effect as suitable international challenges to be dealt by NATO. NATO was chosen, since the organization had suitable expertise in the field, as well as experience with international research coordination. The German government was skeptical and saw the initiative as an attempt by the US to regain international terrain after the lost Vietnam War. The topics gained momentum in civil conferences and institutions.Die Frühgeschichte der globalen Umweltkrise und die Formierung der deutschen Umweltpolitik(1950–1973) (Early history of the environmental crisis and the setup of German environmental policy 1950–1973), Kai F. Hünemörder, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004 {{ISBN|3-515-08188-7}}

In 1970, Moynihan wrote a memo to President Nixon saying, "The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of 'benign neglect'. The subject has been too much talked about. The forum has been too much taken over to hysterics, paranoids, and boodlers on all sides. We need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades."[http://www.aol.bartleby.com/73/1579.html "1579: Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003)"]. Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. Bartleby. 1989. Moynihan regretted that, as he saw it, critics misinterpreted his memo as advocating that the government should neglect minorities.{{Cite news|title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Liberal? Conservative? Or Just Pat?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/16/magazine/daniel-patrick-moynihan-liberal-conservative-or-just-pat.html|date=September 16, 1990|first=James|last=Traub|author-link=James Traub|work=The New York Times Magazine|access-date=August 15, 2013}}. This supposed "misinterpretation" was perhaps understandable given the timing of the memo: it was written around- and leaked on- March 1, 1970, soon after Nixon's announcement of the extremely racist G. Harrold Carswell as his next Supreme Court nominee, which was followed a few weeks later by the resignation of Leon Panetta and six members of his staff.

=U.S. Ambassador=

Following the October 1969 reorganization of the White House domestic policy staff, Moynihan was offered the position of United States Ambassador to the United Nations (then held by career Foreign Service Officer Charles Woodruff Yost) by Nixon on November 17, 1969; after initially accepting the president's offer, he decided to remain in Washington when the Family Assistance Plan stalled in the Senate Finance Committee.{{cite book|title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary|author1=Moynihan, D.|author2=Weisman, S.|date=2010|publisher=PublicAffairs|isbn=9781586489205|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bm-BjcLtRwwC|access-date=February 4, 2017}} On November 24, 1970, he refused a second offer from Nixon due to potential familial strain and ongoing financial problems; depression stemming from the repudiation of the Family Assistance Plan by liberal Democrats; and the inability to effect change due to static policy directives in the position, which he considered to be a tertiary role behind Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger and United States Secretary of State William P. Rogers. Instead, he commuted from Harvard as a part-time member of the United States delegation during the ambassadorship of George H. W. Bush.

In 1973, Moynihan (who was circumspect toward the administration's "tilt" to Pakistan) accepted Nixon's offer to serve as United States Ambassador to India, where he would remain until 1975. The relationship between the two countries was at a low point following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Ambassador Moynihan was alarmed that two great democracies were cast as antagonists, and set out to fix things. He proposed that part of the burdensome debt be written off, part used to pay for U.S. embassy expenses in India, and the remaining converted into Indian rupees to fund an Indo-US cultural and educational exchange program that lasted for a quarter century. On February 18, 1974, he presented to the Government of India a check for 16,640,000,000 rupees, then equivalent to $2,046,700,000, which was the greatest amount paid by a single check in the history of banking.[https://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/11/moynihan-letters-201011 "An American Original"], Vanity Fair, October 2010 The "Rupee Deal" is logged in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's largest check,Guinness Book of World Records 1978 edition (Sterling Publishing, 1977)pp.407-408 presented to India's Secretary of Economic Affairs.[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/america-can-learn-from-india/1/119060.html America can learn from India], India Today, November 6, 2010

In June 1975, Moynihan accepted his third offer to serve as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a position (including a rotation as President of the United Nations Security Council) that he would only hold until February 1976. Under President Gerald Ford, Ambassador Moynihan took a hardline anti-communist stance, in line with the agenda of the White House at the time. He was also a strong supporter of Israel,[http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0694/9406044.html Daniel Moynihan], WRMEA. condemning UN Resolution 3379, which declared Zionism to be a form of racism.{{cite book|title= How We Got Here: The '70s|last= Frum|first= David|author-link= David Frum|year= 2000|publisher= Basic Books|location= New York City|isbn= 0-465-04195-7|page= [https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/320 320]|url= https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/320|url-access= registration}} Moynihan's wife Liz later recalled being approached in the UN galleries by Palestine Liberation Organization Permanent Observer Zuhdi Labib Terzi during the controversy. He made a remark of which she later did not remember the exact phrasing, but rendered it approximately as 'you must have mixed feelings about remembering events in New Delhi', which she and biographer Gil Troy interpreted as a threatening reference to a failed assassination plan against her husband two years earlier.Troy, Gil, Moynihan's Moment: America's Fight Against Zionism as Racism (2012), New York: Oxford University Press, p. 55, {{ISBN|978-0-19-992030-3}} But the American public responded enthusiastically to his moral outrage over the resolution; his condemnation of the "Zionism is Racism" resolution brought him celebrity status and helped him win a US Senate seat a year later.Moynihan's Moment, page 6 Moynihan opposed the resolution because he thought it was completely false and perverse. Also, his years in New York sensitized him on a pragmatic issue: "resolution against Zionism not only affected Israel but every Zionist people, which included the majority of American Jews", which became clear when that community promoted a touristic boycott against Mexico as a consequence of its vote for the approval of the Resolution.{{Cite book|last=Katz Gugenheim|first=Ariela|url=http://libcat.calacademy.org/title/boicot-el-pleito-de-echeverria-con-israel/oclc/1122578103%26referer%3Dbrief_results|title=Boicot. El pleito de Echeverría con Israel|publisher=Universidad Iberoamericana/Cal y Arena|year=2019|isbn=978-607-8564-17-0|location=Mexico|language=Spanish|access-date=October 28, 2021|archive-date=April 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220410191926/http://libcat.calacademy.org/title/boicot-el-pleito-de-echeverria-con-israel/oclc/1122578103%26referer%3Dbrief_results|url-status=dead}} In his book, Moynihan's Moment, Gil Troy posits that Moynihan's 1975 UN speech opposing the resolution was the key moment of his political career.[http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/with-words-we-govern-men With Words We Govern Men], Suzanne Garment, Jewish Review of Books, Winter 2013

Perhaps the most controversial action of Moynihan's career was his response, as Ambassador to the UN, to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975. Gerald Ford considered Indonesia, then under a military dictatorship, a key ally against Communism, which was influential in East Timor. Moynihan ensured that the UN Security Council took no action against the larger nation's annexation of a small country. The Indonesian invasion caused the deaths of 100,000–200,000 Timorese through violence, illness, and hunger.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cavr-timorleste.org/en/Brief.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120513220045/http://www.cavr-timorleste.org/en/Brief.htm|url-status=dead|title=Chega! The CAVR Report|archive-date=May 13, 2012}}[http://www.cavr-timorleste.org/updateFiles/english/CONFLICT-RELATED%20DEATHS.pdf Conflict-Related Deaths In Timor-Leste: 1974–1999] Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor In his memoir, Moynihan wrote:

{{blockquote|The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ON2TPWZkiCIC A Dangerous Place], Little Brown, 1980, p. 247}}

Later, he said he had defended a "shameless" Cold War policy toward East Timor.[https://archive.org/details/pandaemoniumethn00moyn Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics], Oxford University Press 1993, p. 153

Moynihan's thinking began to change during his tenure at the UN. In his 1993 book on nationalism, Pandaemonium, he wrote that as time progressed, he began to view the Soviet Union in less ideological terms. He regarded it less as an expansionist, imperialist Marxist state, and more as a weak realist state in decline. He believed it was most motivated by self-preservation. This view would influence his thinking in subsequent years, when he became an outspoken proponent of the then-unpopular view that the Soviet Union was a failed state headed for implosion.

Nevertheless, Moynihan's tenure at the UN marked the beginnings of a more bellicose, neoconservative American foreign policy that turned away from Kissinger's unabashedly covert, détente-driven realpolitik.Moynihan's Moment, p. 159 Although it was never substantiated, Moynihan initially believed that Kissinger directed Ivor Richard, Baron Richard (then British Ambassador to the United Nations) to publicly denounce his actions as "Wyatt Earp" diplomacy. Demoralized, Moynihan resigned from what he would subsequently characterize as an "abbreviated posting" in February 1976. In Pandaemonium, Moynihan expounded upon this decision, maintaining that he was "something of an embarrassment to my own government, and fairly soon left before I was fired."

=United States Senator from New York (1977–2001)=

In November 1976, Moynihan was elected to the U.S. Senate from the State of New York, defeating U.S. Representative Bella Abzug, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, New York City Council President Paul O'Dwyer and businessman Abraham Hirschfeld in the Democratic primary, and Conservative Party incumbent James L. Buckley in the general election. He also was nominated by the Liberal Party of New York.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=6301|title=Our Campaigns – NY US Senate Race – Nov 02, 1976|website=www.ourcampaigns.com}} Shortly after election, Moynihan analyzed the State of New York's budget to determine whether it was paying out more in federal taxes than it received in spending. Finding that it was, he produced a yearly report known as the Fisc (from the French[https://web.archive.org/web/20210919112228/https://fiscreport.org/index02a7.html/?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=26 "The History of the Fisc"], on the Fisc Report website. Retrieved June 17, 2010.). Moynihan's strong support for Israel while UN Ambassador inspired support for him among the state's large Jewish population.{{cite book|author=Alan H. Levy|title=The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1920–1976: Political Passions, Women's Rights, and Congressional Battles|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kS9nAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA252|year=2013|publisher=Lexington Books|page=252|isbn=9780739181652}}

In an August 7, 1978 speech to the Senate, following the jailing of M. A. Farber, Moynihan stated the possibility of Congress having to become involved with securing press freedom and that the Senate should be aware of the issue's seriousness.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/08/08/archives/new-jersey-pages-moynihan-sees-need-for-bill-to-guarantee-freedom.html|title=Moynihan Sees Need For Bill to Guarantee Freedom of the Press|date=August 8, 1978|work=The New York Times}}

Moynihan's strong advocacy for New York's interests in the Senate, buttressed by the Fisc reports and recalling his strong advocacy for US positions in the UN, did at least on one occasion allow his advocacy to escalate into a physical attack. Senator Kit Bond, nearing retirement in 2010, recalled with some embarrassment in a conversation on civility in political discourse that Moynihan had once "slugged [Bond] on the Senate floor after Bond denounced an earmark Moynihan had slipped into a highway appropriations bill. Some months later Moynihan apologized, and the two occasionally would relax in Moynihan's office after a long day to discuss their shared interest in urban renewal over a glass of port."[http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2010/06/02/pages/3628/index.xml?page=2& "Uncivil society: Jim Leach '64 leads an effort to restore respectful discourse to our national life, but it's tough going"], by Mark F. Bernstein, Princeton Alumni Weekly, June 2, 2010. Retrieved June 17, 2010.

Moynihan continued to be interested in foreign policy as a Senator, sitting on the Select Committee on Intelligence. His strongly anti-Soviet views became far more moderate when he emerged as a critic of the Reagan administration's hawkish tilt in the late Cold War, as exemplified by its support for the Contras in Nicaragua. Moynihan argued there was no active Soviet-backed conspiracy in Latin America, or anywhere. He suggested the Soviets were suffering from massive internal problems, such as rising ethnic nationalism and a collapsing economy. In a December 21, 1986 editorial in The New York Times, Moynihan predicted the replacement on the world stage of Communist expansion with ethnic conflicts. He criticized the administration's "consuming obsession with the expansion of Communism – which is not in fact going on." In a September 8, 1990 letter to Erwin Griswold, Moynihan wrote: "I have one purpose left in life; or at least in the Senate. It is to try to sort out what would be involved in reconstituting the American government in the aftermath of the [C]old [W]ar. Huge changes took place, some of which we hardly notice."Kauffman, Bill. [http://www.amconmag.com/blog/ikes-last-stand/the-other-eisenhowers/ The Other Eisenhowers], The American Conservative In 1981 he and fellow Irish-American politicians Senator Ted Kennedy and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill co-founded the Friends of Ireland, a bipartisan organization of Senators and Representatives who opposed the ongoing sectarian violence and aimed to promote peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Moynihan introduced Section 1706 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which cost certain professionals (like computer programmers, engineers, draftspersons, and designers) who depended on intermediary agencies (consulting firms) a self-employed tax status option, but other professionals (like accountants and lawyers) continued to enjoy Section 530 exemptions from payroll taxes. This change in the tax code was expected to offset the tax revenue losses of other legislation that Moynihan proposed to change the law of foreign taxes of Americans working abroad.[https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/22/nyregion/new-tax-law-threatens-high-tech-consultants.html "New Tax Law threatens high-tech consultants"] by Karla Jennings, The New York Times, February 22, 1987 (p. 11 in paper). Link retrieved June 17, 2010. Joseph Stack, who flew his airplane into a building housing IRS offices on February 18, 2010, posted a suicide note that, among many factors, mentioned the Section 1706 change to the Internal Revenue Code.Newsday, February 22, 2010, p. A19; [http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/simmering-for-decades-engineer-s-grudge-explodes-1.1773289 "Simmering for decades, engineer's grudge explodes"] by Allen G. Breed, Associated Press via Newsday, February 21, 2010. Subscription only access. Link retrieved June 17, 2010.[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19tax.html/ATk2MaeIow "Tax Law Was Cited in Software Engineer's Suicide Note"] by David Kay Johnston, The New York Times, February 18, 2010. In this article, the Moynihan action is labeled "a favor to IBM", but that was not mentioned in the contemporaneous 2/22/87 Times article cited immediately above. Retrieved June 17, 2010.

As a key Environment and Public Works Committee member, Moynihan gave vital support and guidance to William K. Reilly, who served under President George H. W. Bush as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.EPA Alumni Association: EPA Administrator William K. Reilly notes the valuable relationship he had with Senator Moynihan. Reflections on US Environmental Policy: An Interview with William K. Reilly [http://www.epaalumni.org/history/video/interview.cfm?id=37 Video], [http://www.epaalumni.org/userdata/pdf/3E0FC143699CD31B.pdf#page=3 Transcript] (see pages 3,7).

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?79710-1/senator-moynihan-tribute Tribute to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Wilson International Center for Scholars, March 17, 1997 (part one)], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?79711-1/senator-moynihan-tribute Tribute to Moynihan at the Wilson Center, March 17, 1997 (part two)], C-SPAN| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?297164-1/daniel-patrick-moynihan Panel discussion on Moynihan's life and career, held at the Museum of the City of New York, October 18, 2010], C-SPAN}}

In the mid-1990s, Moynihan was one of the Democrats to support the ban on the procedure known as partial-birth abortion. He said of the procedure: "I think this is just too close to infanticide. A child has been born and it has exited the uterus. What on Earth is this procedure?" Earlier in his career in the Senate, Moynihan had expressed his annoyance with the adamantly pro-choice interest groups petitioning him and others on the issue. He challenged them saying, "you women are ruining the Democratic Party with your insistence on abortion."Human Life Review, Summer 2003, p. 13.Chapter4: Too close to infanticide [https://books.google.com/books?id=WS7IqNEKUFQC&pg=PT51 GB link] at Google Books

Moynihan broke with orthodox liberal positions of his party on numerous occasions. As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in the 1990s, he strongly opposed President Bill Clinton's proposal to expand health care coverage to all Americans. Seeking to focus the debate over health insurance on the financing of health care, Moynihan garnered controversy by stating that "there is no health care crisis in this country."{{cite web |last1=Tumulty |first1=Karen |title=The Lost Faith of Daniel Patrick Moynihan |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-19-tm-5965-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |date=June 19, 1994 |access-date=29 April 2022}}

On other issues though, he was much more progressive. He voted against the death penalty; the flag desecration amendment;{{USBill|106|SJ|14}}, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, [https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=2&vote=00048#position Record Vote Number: 48] the balanced budget amendment, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act; the Defense of Marriage Act; the Communications Decency Act; and the North American Free Trade Agreement. He was critical of proposals to replace the progressive income tax with a flat tax.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} Moynihan also voted against authorization of the Gulf War.{{Cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1021/vote_102_1_00002.htm|title=U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 102nd Congress – 1st Session}} Despite his earlier writings on the negative effects of the welfare state, he voted against welfare reform in 1996, a bill that set time limits on benefits and imposed work requirements. He was sharply critical of the bill and certain Democrats who crossed party lines to support it.{{cite web |title=Welfare-Reform Critics Were Wrong |url=https://www.heritage.org/welfare/commentary/welfare-reform-critics-were-wrong |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208161750/https://www.heritage.org/welfare/commentary/welfare-reform-critics-were-wrong |url-status=unfit |archive-date=December 8, 2019 |website=heritage.org |publisher=The Heritage Foundation |access-date=29 April 2022}}

Public speaker

Moynihan was a popular public speaker with a distinctly patrician style. He spoke with a slight stutter, which led him to draw out vowels. Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg compared his speaking style to that of William F. Buckley, Jr.{{cite web|last=Nunberg|first=Geoff|title=William F. Buckley: A Man of Many Words|website=NPR.org|date=March 17, 2008 |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88397125|publisher=National Public Radio|access-date=May 16, 2011}}

Commission on Government Secrecy

In the post-Cold War era, the 103rd Congress enacted legislation directing an inquiry into the uses of government secrecy. Moynihan chaired the commission, which studied and made recommendations on the "culture of secrecy" that pervaded the United States government and its intelligence community for 80 years, beginning with the Espionage Act of 1917, and made recommendations on the statutory regulation of classified information.

The commission's findings and recommendations were presented to the President in 1997. As part of the effort, Moynihan secured release from the Federal Bureau of Investigation of its classified Venona file. This file documents the FBI's joint counterintelligence investigation, with the United States Signals Intelligence Service, into Soviet espionage within the United States. Much of the information had been collected and classified as secret information for over 50 years.

After release of the information, Moynihan authored Secrecy: The American Experience{{cite book|url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300080794|title= Secrecy: The American Experience |website= Amazon |year= 1999 |publisher= Yale University Press |isbn= 978-0-300-08079-7 |access-date=January 26, 2017}} where he discussed the impact government secrecy has had on the domestic politics of America for the past half century, and how myths and suspicion created an unnecessary partisan chasm.

Personal life

Moynihan married Elizabeth Brennan in 1955. The couple had three children, Tim, Maura, and John, and were married until his death.

Moynihan was criticized after reportedly making offensive comments towards a woman of Jamaican descent at Vassar College in early 1990.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/15/nyregion/moynihan-quits-lectureship-after-a-protest.html|title=Moynihan Quits Lectureship After A Protest|date=February 15, 1990|work=The New York Times}} During a question-and-answer session, Moynihan told Folami Grey, an official at the Dutchess County Youth Bureau, "If you don't like it in this country, why don't you pack your bags and go back where you came from?" This incident caused a protest in which 100 students took over the college's main administration building in response to his comments.

Death

File:Gravesite of United States Navy Lieutenant Daniel Moynihan in Section 36, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia on April 24, 2024 (cropped).jpg]]

Moynihan died at Washington Hospital Center on March 26, 2003, from complications of a ruptured appendix,{{cite news | title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Former Senator From New York, Dies at 76| work=The New York Times | date=March 27, 2003 | url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/obituaries/27MOYN.html | last1=Clymer | first1=Adam|access-date=January 5, 2025 }} 10 days after his 76th birthday.{{cite news|url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-mar-27-me-moynihan27-story.html|title = Daniel Moynihan, 76; Served 4 Presidents|work = Los Angeles Times|date = March 27, 2003|accessdate = April 26, 2022|last = Simon|first = Richard}}

Career as scholar

As a public intellectual, Moynihan published articles on urban ethnic politics and on the problems of the poor in cities of the Northeast in numerous publications, including Commentary and The Public Interest.

Moynihan coined the term "professionalization of reform", by which the government bureaucracy thinks up problems for government to solve rather than simply responding to problems identified elsewhere.The Public Interest, volume 1, Issue 1 1965

In 1983, he was awarded the Hubert H. Humphrey Award given by the American Political Science Association "in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist."{{cite web |title=Tribute to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CRECB-2000-pt13/html/CRECB-2000-pt13-Pg18441-5.htm |website=govinfo.gov |access-date=29 April 2022}} He wrote 19 books, leading his personal friend, columnist and former professor George F. Will, to remark that Moynihan "wrote more books than most senators have read." After retiring from the Senate, he rejoined the faculty of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he began his academic career in 1959.{{cite news |last1=Rosenbaum |first1=David E. |title=Moynihan to Take a Post at Syracuse School of Public Affairs |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/12/nyregion/moynihan-to-take-a-post-at-syracuse-school-of-public-affairs.html |access-date=March 31, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=December 12, 2000 |page=B2}}

Moynihan's scholarly accomplishments led Michael Barone, writing in The Almanac of American Politics to describe the senator as "the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson."{{cite book |title=The Almanac of American Politics 2000 |last=Barone |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Barone (pundit) |author2=Grant Ujifusa |year=1999 |work=National Journal |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=0-8129-3194-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/almanacofamerica00/page/1090 1090–1091] |quote=Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson, now approaches the end of a long career in public office. |url=https://archive.org/details/almanacofamerica00/page/1090 }} Moynihan's 1993 article, "Defining Deviancy Down",The American Scholar, vol. 62, no. 1, winter 1993, pp. 17–3 was notably controversial.{{cite web|url=http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/formans/DefiningDeviancy.htm|publisher=www2.sunysuffolk.edu|title=Defining Deviancy|access-date=January 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170128102459/http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/formans/DefiningDeviancy.htm|archive-date=January 28, 2017|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/defining_deviancy_down_daniel_patrick_moynihan|publisher=barrypopik.com|title=The Big Apple: "Defining deviancy down" (Daniel Patrick Moynihan)|access-date=January 26, 2017}} Writer and historian Kenneth Weisbrode describes Moynihan's book Pandaemonium as uncommonly prescient."[https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/163802 Daniel Patrick Moynihan's Amazing and Grim Prophecy]"

=Selected books=

Beyond the Melting Pot, an influential study of American ethnicity, which he co-authored with Nathan Glazer (1963)
The Negro Family: The Case For National Action, known as the Moynihan Report (1965)
Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding: Community Action in the War on Poverty (1969) {{ISBN|0-02-922000-9}}
Violent Crimes (1970) {{ISBN|0-8076-6053-1}}
Coping: Essays on the Practice of Government (1973) {{ISBN|0-394-48324-3}}
The Politics of a Guaranteed Income: The Nixon Administration and the Family Assistance Plan (1973) {{ISBN|0-394-46354-4}}.
Business and Society in Change (1975) {{OCLC|1440432}}
A Dangerous Place coauthor Suzanne Garment, (1978) {{ISBN|0-316-58699-4}}
Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, 1980 (1980) {{ISBN|1-56554-516-8}}
Family and Nation: The Godkin Lectures (1986) {{ISBN|0-15-630140-7}}
Came the Revolution (1988)
On the Law of Nations (1990) {{ISBN|0-674-63576-0}}
Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics (1994) {{ISBN|0-19-827946-9}}
Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy (1996) {{ISBN|0-674-57441-9}}
Secrecy: The American Experience (1998) {{ISBN|0-300-08079-4}}
Future of the Family (2003) {{ISBN|0-87154-628-0}}

Awards and honors

In 1966, Moynihan was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences{{Cite web |title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/daniel-patrick-moynihan |access-date=2022-09-19 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}
In 1968, Moynihan was elected to the American Philosophical Society{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Daniel+Moynihan&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-09-19 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}
The 5th Annual Heinz Award in Public Policy (1999){{cite web|url=http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients/daniel-patrick-moynihan|publisher=heinzawards.net|title=The Heinz Awards :: Daniel Patrick Moynihan |access-date=January 26, 2017}}
Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Tufts, his alma mater.
1989 Honor Award from the National Building Museum[http://www.nbm.org/support-us/awards_honors/honor-award/ Award: Daniel Patrick Moynihan], National Building Museum
In 1989, Moynihan received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.{{cite web|url=http://www.jeffersonawards.org/pastwinners/national|publisher=jeffersonawards.org|title=Jefferson Awards FoundationNational – Jefferson Awards Foundation|access-date=January 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124043935/http://jeffersonawards.org/pastwinners/national|archive-date=November 24, 2010|url-status=dead}}
On August 9, 2000, he was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton.{{cite web|url=http://usinfo.org/wf-archive/2000/000810/epf405.htm|publisher=usinfo.org|title=American Spaces – Connecting YOU with U.S. #124; Washington File – Transcript: Clinton Remarks at Medal of Freedom Awards |access-date=January 26, 2017}}
In 1992, he was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame, considered the most prestigious award for American Catholics.{{cite web |title=Recipients |url=https://laetare.nd.edu/recipients/#info1992|website=The Laetare Medal|publisher=University of Notre Dame |access-date=July 31, 2020}}
In 1994 the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation awarded Moynihan its Lone Sailor Award for his naval service and subsequent government service.

Honors

The Moynihan Train Hall, which opened in January 2021, is named for him. It expanded New York Penn Station with a new concourse for Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak passengers in the adjacent, renovated James Farley Post Office building.{{Cite web| last = Coburn| first = Jesse| title = NYC's Moynihan Train Hall opens Friday to LIRR commuters| work = Newsday| access-date = December 28, 2020| date = December 28, 2020| url = https://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/moynihan-train-hall-lirr-penn-station-1.50103548}} Moynihan had long championed the project, which is modeled after the original Penn Station; he had shined shoes in the original station as a boy during the Great Depression. During his latter years in the Senate, Moynihan had to secure federal approvals and financing for the project.[http://www.moynihanstation.org/newsite/2006/07/a_narrative_history_of_penn_st.html Friends of Moynihan Station] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023437/http://www.moynihanstation.org/newsite/2006/07/a_narrative_history_of_penn_st.html |date=March 4, 2016 }}. Moynihanstation.org (July 1, 2006). Retrieved July 26, 2013.
In 2005, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University renamed its Global Affairs Institute as the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs.{{cite web|url=http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/default.html|publisher=maxwell.syr.edu|title=Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs|access-date=January 26, 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060221231144/http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/default.html|archive-date=February 21, 2006}}
The federal district courthouse in Manhattan's Foley Square was named in his honor.

Quotes

"I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. I guess that we thought we had a little more time."
– Reacting to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, November 1963{{Cite web|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/03/st-patricks-day-symposium/|title=A Real Saint Patrick's Day Seisiún|website=National Review|date=March 17, 2015}}
"No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty."
– The Politics of a Guaranteed Income, 1973{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/rr/mss/moynihan/moynihan-about.html|title=About the Daniel P. Moynihan Papers (Manuscript Reading Room, Library of Congress)|website=www.loc.gov}}
"Secrecy is for losers. For people who do not know how important the information really is."
– Secrecy: The American Experience, 1998{{Cite web|url=http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/12/27/daniel-patrick-moynihans-1998-lesson-on-the-price-of-secrets/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102063851/http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/12/27/daniel-patrick-moynihans-1998-lesson-on-the-price-of-secrets/|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 2, 2014|title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1998 lesson on the price of secrets|first=Jack|last=Shafer|date=December 27, 2013}}

:The quote also adds, "The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular, and singularly American, advantage."

"The issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect."
– Memo to President Richard Nixon{{Cite web |url=https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/releases/jul10/53.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=December 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170210094440/https://nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/releases/jul10/53.pdf |archive-date=February 10, 2017 |url-status=dead }}
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
– Column on January 18, 1983 The Washington Post. Based on an earlier quote by James R. Schlesinger.{{cite web |last1=O'Toole |first1=Garson |title=People Are Entitled To Their Own Opinions But Not To Their Own Facts |url=https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/03/17/own-facts/ |website=Quote Investigator |date=March 17, 2020 |access-date=April 13, 2020}}
(In response to the question: "Why should I work if I am going to just end up emptying slop jars?") "That's a complaint you hear mostly from people who don't empty slop jars. This country has a lot of people who do exactly that for a living. And they do it well. It's not pleasant work, but it's a living. And it has to be done. Somebody has to go around and empty all those bed pans. And it's perfectly honorable work. There's nothing the matter with doing it. Indeed, there is a lot that is right about doing it, as any hospital patient will tell you."{{cite book |title=In Their Own Words |work=U.S. News & World Report |date=June 2, 2008}}
"Food growing is the first thing you do when you come down out of the trees. The question is, how come the United States can grow food and you can't?"
– speaking to Third World countries about global famineFrances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins. Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity Chapter 12: Why Can't People Feed Themselves?
"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary (Weisman, Steven R., ed.). Public Affairs (New York, NY), {{ISBN|978-1-58648-801-7}}, p. 664 (2010).{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/books/review/daniel-patrick-moynihan-was-often-right-joe-klein-on-why-it-still-matters.html | title=Daniel Patrick Moynihan Was Often Right. Joe Klein on Why It Still Matters. | work=The New York Times | author=Joe Klein | date=May 15, 2021 | accessdate=March 18, 2022}}
"Truman left the Presidency thinking that Whittaker Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley were nuts, crackpots, scoundrels, and I think you could say that a fissure began in American political life that's never really closed. It reverberates, and I can say more about it. But in the main, American liberalism—Arthur Schlesinger, one of the conspicuous examples—got it wrong. We were on the side of the people who denied this, and a president who could have changed his rhetoric, explained it, told the American people, didn't know the facts, they were secret, and they were kept from him."
– Secrecy: The American Experience, October 1998{{cite web |url=http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/114123-1 |title=Secrecy: The American Experience |last1=Moynihan |first1=Daniel |date=October 21, 1998 |publisher= C-SPAN |at=44:34 to 45:40 minute mark |location= City University of New York Graduate School |access-date= February 5, 2014}}

References

=Primary sources=

Robert A. Katzmann, ed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life (Johns Hopkins; 2004)
Steven R. Weisman, ed. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary (PublicAffairs; 2010) 705 pages; primary sources
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The Negro family: The case for national action(US Government Printing Office, 1965) [https://books.google.com/books?id=VkcsTeQUjQgC&dq=Daniel+Patrick+Moynihan&pg=PA1 online].
Rainwater, Lee, William L. Yancey, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan report and the politics of controversy; a Trans-action social science and public policy report (1967).
[https://www.loc.gov/rr/mss/moynihan/moynihan-about.html About the Daniel P. Moynihan Papers (Manuscript Reading Room, Library of Congress)]

External links

{{Congbio|M001054}}
{{Internet Archive film clip|id=openmind_ep988|description="The Open Mind – Taking a Stand for American Beliefs (September 27, 2007)"}}
{{C-SPAN|299}}
[http://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/danielpatrickmoynihanun3379.htm Ambassador Moynihan's 1975 Address to the United Nations General Assembly]
{{Internet Archive author |sname= Daniel Patrick Moynihan}}
American Masters: [https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/moynihan-documentary/ Moynihan] Season 38, episode 2

{{s-bef|before=Joe Califano|as=White House Domestic Affairs Advisor}}

{{s-aft|after=John Ehrlichman|as=White House Domestic Affairs Advisor}}

{{s-ttl|title=Counselor to the President|years=1969–1970|alongside=Bryce Harlow}}

{{s-ttl|title=United States Ambassador to India|years=1973–1975}}

{{s-ttl|title=United States Ambassador to the United Nations|years=1975–1976}}

{{s-ttl|title=Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from New York
(Class 1)|years=1976, 1982, 1988, 1994}}