 A number of controversies surround Strauss and his work. First, in recent years, Strauss has been accused of being the intellectual godfather of the neo-conservative political movement and thus of being the intellectual force behind the Bush administration’s plan to invade of Iraq. Second, no aspect of Strauss’s work is as hotly contested as his claims about esotericism. Interpretations of Strauss’s view of esotericism include: that Strauss advocates clandestine cabals with secrets imparted from teacher to disciple; that Strauss’s writings are themselves esoteric documents; that Strauss thinks that all thinkers write esoterically; that Strauss claims to know a secret; that, Strauss promoted mass deception and perpetual war; and that, in one particularly crude rendering, Strauss used his esoteric methods to hide his fascist sympathies, if not his secret Nazism. After exploring the broad themes and context of Strauss’s work, this article will return to reconsider these varying claims about Strauss.