[Infowarrior] - William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82

[Richard Forno]

February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/media/27cnd-buckley.html?hp=&page
wanted=print

William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously
arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to
the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in
Stamford, Conn.

Mr Buckley, 82, suffered from diabetes and emphysema, his son Christopher
said, although the exact cause of death was not immediately known. He was
found at his desk in the study of his home, his son said. ³He might have
been working on a column,² Mr. Buckley said.

Mr. Buckley¹s winningly capricious personality, replete with ten-dollar
words and a darting tongue writers loved to compare with an anteater¹s,
hosted one of television¹s longest-running programs, ³Firing Line,² and
founded and shepherded the influential conservative magazine, ³National
Review.²

He also found time to write at least 55 books, ranging from sailing odysseys
to spy novels to celebrations of his own dashing daily life, and to edit
five more. His political novel ³The Rake² was published last August, and a
book looking back at the National Review¹s history in November; a personal
memoir of Barry Goldwater is due to be publication in April, and Mr. Buckley
was working on a similar book about Ronald Reagan for release in the fall.

The more than 4.5 million words of his 5,600 biweekly newspaper columns, ³On
the Right,² would fill 45 more medium-sized books.

Mr. Buckley¹s greatest achievement was making conservatism ‹ not just
electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas ‹ respectable
in liberal post-World War II America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who
helped nominate Barry Goldwater in 1964, and saw his dreams fulfilled when
Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office.

To Mr. Buckley¹s enormous delight, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the
historian, termed him ³the scourge of liberalism.²

In remarks at National Review¹s 30th anniversary in 1985, President Reagan
joked that he picked up his first issue of the magazine in a plain brown
wrapper and still anxiously awaited his biweekly edition ‹ ³without the
wrapper.²

³You didn¹t just part the Red Sea ‹ you rolled it back, dried it up and left
exposed, for all the world to see, the naked desert that is statism,² Mr.
Reagan said.

³And then, as if that weren¹t enough,² the president continued, ³you gave
the world something different, something in its weariness it desperately
needed, the sound of laughter and the sight of the rich, green uplands of
freedom.²

The liberal advance had begun with the New Deal, and so accelerated in the
next generation that Lionel Trilling, one of America¹s leading
intellectuals, wrote in 1950: ³In the United States at this time liberalism
is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is
the plain fact that there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in
general circulation.²

Mr. Buckley declared war on this liberal order, beginning with his
blistering assault on Yale as a traitorous den of atheistic collectivism
immediately after his graduation (with honors) from the university.

³All great biblical stories begin with Genesis,² George Will wrote in the
National Review in 1980. ³And before there was Ronald Reagan, there was
Barry Goldwater, and before there was Barry Goldwater there was National
Review, and before there was National Review there was Bill Buckley with a
spark in his mind, and the spark in 1980 has become a conflagration.²

Mr. Buckley weaved the tapestry of what became the new American conservatism
from libertarian writers like Max Eastman, free market economists like
Milton Friedman, traditionalist scholars like Russell Kirk and
anti-Communist writers like Whittaker Chambers. But the persuasiveness of
his argument hinged not on these perhaps arcane sources, but on his own
tightly argued case for a conservatism based on the national interest and a
higher morality.

His most receptive audience became young conservatives first energized by
Barry Goldwater¹s emergence at the Republican convention in 1960 as the
right-wing alternative to Nixon. Some met in Sept., 1960, at Mr. Buckley¹s
Connecticut estate to form Young Americans for Freedom. Their numbers ‹ and
influence ‹ grew.

Nicholas Lemann observed in Washington Monthly in 1988 that during the
Reagan administration ³the 5,000 middle-level officials, journalists and
policy intellectuals that it takes to run a government² were ³deeply
influenced by Buckley¹s example.² He suggested that neither moderate
Washington insiders nor ³Ed Meese-style provincial conservatives² could have
pulled off the Reagan tax cut and other reforms.

Speaking of the true believers, Mr. Lemann continued, ³Some of these people
had been personally groomed by Buckley, and most of the rest saw him as a
role model.²

Mr. Buckley rose to prominence with a generation of talented writers
fascinated by political themes, names like Mailer, Capote, Vidal, Styron and
Baldwin. Like the others, he attracted controversy like a magnet. Even
conservatives ‹ from members of the John Birch Society to disciples of
conservative author Ayn Rand to George Wallace to moderate Republicans ‹
frequently pounced on him.

Many of varied political stripes came to see his life as something of an art
form ‹ from racing through city streets on a motorcycle to a quixotic
campaign for mayor of New York in 1965 to startling opinions like favoring
the decriminalization of marijuana. He was often described as liberals¹
favorite conservative, particularly after suavely hosting an adaptation of
Evelyn Waugh¹s ³Brideshead Revisited² on public television in 1982.

Norman Mailer may indeed have dismissed Mr. Buckley as a ³second-rate
intellect incapable of entertaining two serious thoughts in a row,² but he
could not help admiring his stage presence.

³No other act can project simultaneous hints that he is in the act of
playing Commodore of the Yacht Club, Joseph Goebbels, Robert Mitchum,
Maverick, Savonarola, the nice prep school kid next door, and the snows of
yesteryear,² Mr. Mailer said in an interview with Harpers in 1967.

Mr. Buckley¹s vocabulary, sparkling with phrases from distant eras and
described in newspaper and magazine profiles as sesquipedalian
(characterized by the use of long words) became the stuff of legend. Less
kind commentators called him ³pleonastic² (use of more words than
necessary).

And, inescapably, there was that aurora of pure mischief. In 1985, David
Remnick, writing in The Washington Post, said, ³He has the eyes of a child
who has just displayed a horrid use for the microwave oven and the family
cat.²

William Francis Buckley Jr., was born in Manhattan on Nov. 24, 1925, the
sixth of the 10 children of Aloise Steiner Buckley and William Frank Buckley
Jr. (John B. Judis relates in his 1988 biography, ³William F. Buckley, Jr.:
Patron Saint Of the Conservative,² that he was christened with the middle
name Francis instead of Frank, according to his sister, Patricia, because
there was no saint named Frank. Later, in ³Who¹s Who² entries and elsewhere,
he used Frank.)

The elder Mr. Buckley made a fortune in the oil fields of Mexico, and
educated his children with personal tutors at Great Elm, the family estate
in Sharon, Conn. They also attended exclusive Roman Catholic schools in
England and France.

Young William absorbed his family¹s conservatism along with its deep
Catholicism. At 6, he wrote the King of England demanding he repay his
country¹s war debt. At 14, he followed his brothers to the Millbrook School,
a preparatory school 15 miles across the New York state line from Sharon.

In his spare time at Millbrook, young Bill typed schoolmates¹ papers for
them, charging $1 a paper, with a 25-cent surcharge for correcting the
grammar.

He did not neglect politics, showing up uninvited to a faculty meeting to
complain about a teacher abridging his right to free speech and ardently
opposing United States¹ involvement in World War II. His father wrote him to
suggest he ³learn to be more moderate in the expression of your views.²

He graduated from Millbrook in 1943, then spent a half a year at the
University of Mexico studying Spanish, which had been his first language. He
served in the Army from 1944 to 1946, and managed to make second lieutenant
after first putting colleagues off with his mannerisms.

³I think the army experience did something to Bill,² his sister, Patricia,
told Mr. Judis. ³He got to understand people more.²

Mr. Buckley then entered Yale where he studied political science, economics
and history; established himself as a fearsome debater; was elected chairman
of the Yale Daily News, and joined Skull and Bones, the most prestigious
secret society.

As a senior, he was given the honor of delivering the speech for Yale¹s
Alumni Day celebration, but was replaced after the university¹s
administration objected to his strong attacks on the university. He
responded by writing his critique in the book that brought him to national
attention, in part because he gave the publisher, Regnery, $10,000 to
advertise it.

Published in 1951, ³God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ŒAcademic
Freedom,¹² charged the powers at Yale with having an atheistic and
collectivist bent and called for the firing of faculty members who advocated
values not in accord with those that the institution should be upholding ‹
which was to say, his own.

Among the avalanche of negative reviews, the one in Atlantic by McGeorge
Bundy, a Yale graduate, was conspicuous. He found the book ³dishonest in its
use of facts, false in its theory, and a discredit to its author.²

But Peter Viereck, writing in The New York Times Sunday Book Review viewed
the book as ³a necessary counterbalance.²

After a year in the Central Intelligence Agency in Mexico City (his case
officer was E. Howard Hunt, who went on to win celebrity for his part in the
Watergate break-in), Mr. Buckley went to work for the American Mercury
magazine, but resigned after spotting anti-Semitic tendencies in the
magazine.

Over the next few years, Mr. Buckley worked as a freelance writer and
lecturer, and wrote a second book with L. Brent Bozell, his brother-in-law.
Published in 1954, ³McCarthy and His Enemies² was a sturdy defense of the
senator from Wisconsin who was then in the throes of his campaign against
communists, liberals and the Democratic Party.

In 1955, Mr. Buckley started National Review as voice for ³the disciples of
truth, who defend the organic moral order² with a $100,000 gift from his
father. The first issue, which came out in November, claimed the publication
³stands athwart history yelling Stop.²

It proved it by lining up squarely behind Southern segregationists, saying
blacks should be denied the vote. After some conservatives objected, Mr.
Buckley suggested instead that both uneducated whites and blacks should not
be allowed to vote.

Mr. Buckley did not accord automatic support to Republicans, starting with
Eisenhower¹s campaign for re-election in 1956. National Review¹s tepid
endorsement: ³We prefer Ike.²

Circulation increased from 16,000 in 1957 to 125,000 at the time of
Goldwater¹s candidacy in 1964, and leveled off to around 100,000 in 1980. It
is now 155,000. The magazine has always had to be subsidized by readers¹
donations.

Along with offering a forum to big-gun conservatives like Russell Kirk,
James Burnham and Robert Nisbet, National Review cultivated the career of
several younger writers, including Garry Wills, Joan Didion and John
Leonard, who would shake off the conservative attachment and go their
leftward ways.

National Review also helped define the conservative movement by isolating
cranks from Mr. Buckley¹s chosen mainstream.

³Bill was responsible or rejecting the John Birch Society and the other
kooks who passed off anti-Semitism or some such as conservatism,² Hugh
Kenner, a biographer of Ezra Pound and a frequent contributor to National
Review told The Washington Post. ³Without Bill ‹ if he had decided to become
an academic or a businessman or something else ‹ without him, there probably
would be no respectable conservative movement in this country.²

Mr. Buckley¹s personal visibility was magnified by his ³Firing Line² program
which ran from 1966 to 1999. First carried on WOR-TV and then on the Public
Broadcasting Service, it became the longest running show hosted by a single
host ‹ beating out Johnny Carson by three years. He led the conservative
team in 1,504 debates on topics like ³Resolved: The women¹s movement has
been disastrous.²

There were exchanges on foreign policy with the likes of Norman Thomas;
feminism with Germaine Greer and race relations with James Baldwin. Not a
few viewers thought Mr. Buckley¹s toothy grin before he scored a point
resembled nothing so much as a switchblade.

To New York City politician Mark Green, he purred, ³You¹ve been on the show
close to 100 times over the years. Tell me, Mark, have you learned anything
yet.²

But Harold Macmillan, former prime minister of Britain, flummoxed the
master. ³Isn¹t this show over yet?² he asked.

At age 50, Mr. Buckley added two pursuits to his repertoire ‹ he took up the
harpsichord and became novelist. Some 10 of the novels are spy tales
starring Blackford Oakes, who fights for the American way and bedded the
Queen of England in the first book.

Others of his books included a historical novel with Elvis Presley as a
significant character, another starring Fidel Castro, a reasoned critique of
anti-Semitism, and journals that more than succeeded dramatizing a life of
taste and wealth ‹ his own. For example, in ³Cruising Speed: A Documentary,²
published in 1971, he discussed the kind of meals he liked to eat.

³Rawle could give us anything, beginning with lobster Newburgh and ending
with Baked Alaska,² he wrote. ³We settle on a fish chowder, of which he is
surely the supreme practitioner, and cheese and bacon sandwiches, grilled,
with a most prickly Riesling picked up at St. Barts for peanuts,² he wrote.

Mr. Buckley¹s spirit of fun was apparent in his 1965 campaign for mayor of
New York on the ticket of the Conservative Party. When asked what he would
do if he won, he answered, ³Demand a recount.² He got 13.4 percent of the
vote.

For Murray Kempton, one of his many friends on the left, the Buckley press
conference style called up ³an Edwardian resident commissioner reading aloud
the 39 articles of the Anglican establishment to a conscript of assembled
Zulus.²

Unlike his brother James who served as a United States senator from New
York, Mr. Buckley generally avoided official government posts. He did serve
from 1969 to 1972 as a presidential appointee to the National Advisory
Commission on Information, and as a member of the United States delegation
to the United Nations in 1973.

The merits of the argument aside, Mr. Buckley irrevocably proved that his
brand of candor did not lend itself to public life when an Op-Ed article he
wrote for The New York Times offered a partial cure for the AIDS epidemic:
³Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm to
prevent common needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the
victimization of homosexuals,² he wrote.

In his last years, as honors like the Presidential Medal of Freedom came his
way, Mr. Buckley gradually loosened his grip on his intellectual empire. In
1998, he ended his frenetic schedule of public speeches (some 70 a year over
40 years, he once estimated). In 1999, he stopped ³Firing Line,² and in
2004, he relinquished his voting stock in National Review. He wrote his last
spy novel the 11th in his series), sold his sailboat and stopped playing the
harpsichord publicly.

But he began a new historical novel and kept up his columns, including one
on the ³bewitching power² of ³The Sopranos² television series. He commanded
wide attention by criticizing the Iraq war as a failure.

On April 15, 2007, his wife, the former Patricia Alden Austin Taylor, who
had carved out a formidable reputation as a socialite and philanthropist but
considered her role as a homemaker, mother and wife most important, died.
Mr. and Mrs. Buckley called each other ³Ducky.²

He is survived by his son, Christopher, of Washington, D.C.; his sisters
Priscilla L. Buckley, of Sharon, Conn., Patricia Buckley Bozell, of
Washington, D.C., and Carol Buckley, of Columbia, S.C.; his brothers James
L., of Sharon, and F. Reid, of Camden, S.C., a granddaughter and a grandson

In the end it was Mr. Buckley¹s graceful, often self-deprecating wit that
endeared him to others. In his spy novel ³Who¹s on First,² he described the
possible impact of his National Review through his character Boris Bolgin.

³ ŒDo you ever read the National Review, Jozsef?¹ asks Boris Bolgin, the
chief of KGB counter intelligence for Western Europe, Œit is edited by this
young bourgeois fanatic.¹ ²

An earlier version of this article included an outdated reference to books
Mr. Buckley published in 2007 and to the total number of books he