clearly made national self-interest paramount to any internationaln”one world” organization:nMy friends all know I’m interpersonal.nBut long before I’m interpersonalnAway ‘way down inside I’m personal.nJust so before we’re internationalnWe’re national and act as nationals.nTwenty-six years later, in a letter to President John F. Kennedyn(24 July 1962), Frost reiterated his conviction that nationalnself-interest is primary in all international relations: “This is thenway we are one world … of independent nations interdependent—thenseparateness of the parts as important as thenconnection of the parts.” Frost believed that delegates to anyninternational organization, such as the League of Nations ornUnited Nations, acted as nationals in the self-interest of theirnrespective countries, and not, as Wilson, Gox, and internationalistsnassumed, by an abstract code of morality and justicenthat transcended nationalism.nThe independence of nations was primary tonFrost; their interdependences were secondary,nbecause nations, hke individuals, needed tonbe free to pursue their own destiny.nFrost’s belief that we love the things we love for what theynare, from our familiarity with them, made him highly criticalnof those Americans who ignored their local and national loyaltiesnwhile seeking to embrace an abstract love for the wholenworld: “We think the word ‘provincial’ is a shameful wordnhere in America. But. . . you can’t be universal without beingnprovincial, can you? It’s like trying to embrace the wind.”nThroughout his life the poet remained profoundly skepticalnthat any meaningful or practical and effective love and loyaltyncould be practiced by any individual beyond nationalism,nfor mankind in the abstract. Sovereignty began in the consciencenof each individual, and extended to his local communitynand finally to his country, but not to a remote and abstractnhumanity:nThe question for every man and every nation is to benclear about where the first answerability lies. Are we asnindividuals to be answerable first only to others or tonourselves and some ideal beyond ourselves? Is thenUnited States to be answerable first to the United Nationsnor to its own concept of what is right?nFrost’s skepticism toward Wilson’s League of Nations was extendednto the United Nations after World War II.nIn 1957, when Sweden gave a huge rock of pure iron ore tonthe United Nations, to build into its center in New York, as ansymbol of nature’s strength and humanity’s unity. Frost was invitedn”to write a poem celebrating the ideal of the interdependencenof the nations.” He rejected the prescribed theme,nand noted that iron could indeed be used to strengthen then22/CHRONICLESnnnUnited Nations building, but that it could also be used fornweapons of war, which was historically the way with human naturenand nations. He then wrote a couplet that expressed hisnown belief:nNature within her inmost self dividesnTo trouble men with having to take sides.nThe independence of nations was primary to Frost; their interdependencesnwere secondary, because nations, like individuals,nneeded to be free to pursue their own destiny.nIn an interview with Frost in 1957, James Reston summarizednhis negative conservative social and political views: “Henis against everything and everybody that want people to rely onnsomebody else. He is against the United Nations. He is againstnthe welfare state. He is against conformity and easy slogansnand Madison Avenue, and he hasn’t seen a President he likednsince Grover Cleveland.” In 1959 Louis Untermeyer, Frost’snlifelong Marxist friend, also summarized what the poet mostndisliked, but added what he insisted upon:nHe is still against One World, World Federation, UniversalnBrotherliood, Unity, the breaking down of barriersnin the interest of Oneness; he is unalterably againstnOne anything. You may quote him to the effect thatn”Something there is that does not love a wall,” but youncan be sure that he much prefers the opposed quotationnthat “good fences make good neighbors.” He insistsnupon Nature’s divisions and differences; in art, asnin nature, we want all the differences we can get. Innsociety, too. We want people and nations to maintainntheir differences—even at the risk of trouble, even atnthe risk of fighting one another.nFrost did more than pay lip service to individual freedom; henloved personal freedom, for himself and other men and nations,nwith an intense and constant passion, and he refused tonsacrifice any part of his independence and self-reliance for thenpromises of security by politicians or ideologues, whether nationalnor international.nWithin a few months after Franklin D. Roosevelt was electednPresident in 1932, the New Deal social welfare programs heninitiated in order to solve the economic problems of the Depressionnconvinced Frost that the Democratic Party had fallenninto the hands of liberal and socialist ideologues whose conceptionnof human nature, society, and politics was totallyncontrary to his own philosophy. Frost rejected the wholenpremise on which a centrally planned economy and regulatednsociety was based, because he believed its assumptions violatednindividual liberty and the constitutional limits placed upon politicalnpower. The numerous alphabetical agencies institutednby Roosevelt’s self-styled “brain trust,” administered by anrapidly growing federal bureaucracy that was neither electednby the people nor responsible to them, resulted in a swift andnenormous growth in arbitrary federal power. This growth wasnjustified legally by appeals to “the general welfare” and interstatencommerce clauses in the Constitution. With NewnDeal liberals. Frost noted, “the test is always how we treat thenpoor.” The liberals violated justice to individuals in favor ofnmass mercy to the poor. According to Frost, mercy was but anothernname for socialism.nThe constant intrusion of the federal government into then