Martin Anderson (August 5, 1936 – January 3, 2015)[1] was an American academic, economist, author, policy analyst, and adviser to U.S. politicians and presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.

In the Nixon administration, Anderson was credited with helping to end the military draft and creating the all-volunteer armed forces.

Under Reagan, Anderson helped draft the administration’s original economic program that became known as “Reaganomics.” A political conservative and a strong proponent of free-market capitalism, he was influenced by libertarianism and opposed government regulations that limited individual freedom.

"[2] Anderson wrote and edited numerous books on topics concerning urban renewal, military manpower, welfare reform, higher education, and his experiences advising Reagan and Nixon.

[16] Amongst a topic with charged opinions, when someone suggests the modification or elimination of a government initiative, as Anderson did, it is often met with a strong responses, which quickly became the case.

[17] Anderson's strong claims supported by unqualified and fragile evidence generated a hostile reaction among academics to The Federal Bulldozer.

[21][22][23] Along with Walter Oi and Milton Friedman, Anderson is credited with helping to end military conscription in the United States.

[24][20] As Nixon’s chief urban affairs adviser, Anderson was tasked with developing policy to address the problems associated with America’s low-income neighborhoods.

[20] A report written by Anderson on the subject of basic income, which quoted heavily from Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation on the Speenhamland system, was credited by Rutger Bregman and Corey Robin with Nixon moving away from the idea of basic income,[25][9] and by Bregman as, from there, ultimately providing arguments for various welfare reforms by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

[30] In Anderson's 1990 book Revolution, he lamented that the Nixon transition was not able to find middle- and lower-level staff loyal to the new administration’s policy goals.

[34] In September 1970, Bryce Harlow recruited Anderson, William Safire, and Pat Buchanan to travel with Vice President Agnew and support the reelection campaigns of GOP senators.

In response, Nixon appointed a group of White House staff, headed by Anderson, to review the commission’s findings and report on the cost and feasibility of an all-volunteer force.

[38][39] In March 1971, Anderson left the White House to return to academia as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

[11] In 1975, John Sears and Lyn Nofziger invited Anderson to join the Reagan presidential campaign as an adviser on foreign, defense, and economic policy.

[53] During this time, Anderson was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger, which played an important role in developing defense policy.

[55][56][11] In March 1979, Anderson took an indefinite leave of absence from the Hoover Institution and moved to Los Angeles to join the Reagan campaign.

[61][62][63] After Reagan’s 1980 election to president, Anderson, reporting to Edwin Meese, participated in a broad range of decision-making activities.

[71][72] Anderson became known as the “conscience of the administration,” due to his insistence that policy decisions reflect campaign promises and Reagan's personal views.

Reporting directly to the president,[77] it was chaired by George P. Shultz and included distinguished economists Arthur Burns, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, Paul McCracken, and William Simon Sr.[78] Some White House economists, including Martin Feldstein and Murray Weidenbaum, asserted that the board had little influence.

[79] However, Anderson said the board played an important role in pushing the administration to enact tax cuts and go forward with deregulation.

[83][84][85][86] In March 1982, desiring a return to the world of academia and writing as administration policy development slowed down, Anderson left the White House.

[96] In 1971, after leaving the Nixon administration, Anderson joined the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as a senior fellow, conducting research on economic and political issues.

Upon returning to the Hoover Institution in 1976, Anderson helped compile a book of short essays and policy recommendations, The United States in the 1980s, published in 1980.

When Anderson returned to the Hoover Institution in 1982, he retained influence in the Reagan administration through membership on various boards and committees and through his writings.

[107] In 1992, he turned his focus to administrative problems and malfeasance in higher education, publishing Impostors in the Temple] (Simon & Schuster, 1992).