William F. Buckley Jr.
1925 – 2008, Rest In Peace

Bill Buckley was there at the beginning. In fact in many ways he was the beginning of the modern conservative movement. His God and Man at Yale was the first real assault on the liberal secularist domination of American Academe and the founding of National Review in 1955 is the event from which all else flows.

In those days there was, as Lionel Trilling and other liberals almost exuberantly observed, no respectable conservative tradition or movement in the United States, but in a few short years Bill Buckley changed that by bringing together anti-Communists like Whittaker Chambers, iconoclastic libertarians like Frank Meyer and traditionalist followers of Russell Kirk, creating an incubator in which they could argue, mix and bond and created the movement that would in short order lead to the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Bill not only provided an incubator to the young movement, but took it upon himself to travel the country popularizing its core ideas with whit, humor and a willingness to take on all comers. He was an inspiration to the young conservatives of my generation and he will be missed by those who knew him personally as well as by all who value freedom, tradition and the dry good humor he displayed in battle after battle.

Bill was not himself a politician, though his willingness to enter New York City’s mayoral contest in the very belly of the liberal beast at a time when few conservatives anywhere were taken very seriously helped encourage others begin the process not just of popularizing the ideas underpinning the new movement, but forging those ideas into a political movement that would change history.

Those of us who knew him were constantly impressed not simply by his brilliance, but by the breadth of his thinking and interests, his humanity and perhaps most of all by the energy that propelled him to deliver at least a speech a week, produce a column that ran for decades while editing a profoundly influential journal of opinion and hosting the longest running public affairs program in the history of broadcast television.

To think that he did all this in between transatlantic sailing expeditions, long and not to be interrupted skiing adventures in the Swiss Alps and while writing best selling novels on the side made those of us possessed of less energy—which is to say all of us—look on in wonder.

To say that Bill Buckley was important is an understatement. His life reminds us of what one man can accomplish, but few even attempt. He will be mourned and he will be missed and, most of all, he will be remembered.

David Keene

What did I think on meeting Bill Buckley? My first impression, to be candid, was that he must be the guy standing next to Patsy Buckley, the luminiferous Mrs. Buckley, six feet of young womanhood so astonishing as to make your lungs walk off the job. For the balance of that first evening and for some decades thereafter I fixed her with what your tabloid press might call a stalker’s stare. My second impression was that Bill Buckley was speaking a language with which I was familiar but somewhat insecurely so. Things seemed to approach other things only asymptotically. Grammatical barbarians, loosed on the streets, were apparently committing a wave of litotes. Certain things could be properly compared to other things only after checking with someone named Mutatis Mutandis.

My further impression was that Willmoore had been right. (Willmoore Kendall had pounded me into ideological shape at Yale a generation after he had done the same favor for Buckley.) It was Willmoore’s opinion, rendered with the finality of Mosaic proscription, that among Buckley’s many talents one was pre-eminent. He was the world’s finest conversationalist. That’s a heavy reputation to lug to any dinner table but Buckley flipped it around like a poker chip. He knew about art and boats and cities and history and Scripture and music. I was then working at Doubleday and he seemed to know more about the books I was working on than I did. He was plainly supercallifragilistic (okay, not a Buckley word but a gratifying eight syllables, nonetheless) and I soon slipped into full-engagement mode. I don’t know how late I stayed but it quickly became NR lore that Bill had offered the kid a job as the only way to get him out of the house.

I consulted two people on Bill’s offer. The first was Jim MacFadden, who had become NR’s indispensable business-side executive after leaving a job in mainstream publishing. Mac’s words stick with me: “Bill says he’s going to change the world. I think he might do it and I’d like to help.” I know, that sounds like rhetorical bump-and-tickle, just a wee bit of four-beer talk. All I can tell you is that the young Buckley was capable of making words like those sound plausible, almost modulated. The second consultant was my father. He had invested heavily in my white-shoe education and had been left unmoved by the ecumenical spirit of the day. He summed up the career move with a question: “You’re going to leave one of the world’s great publishing houses for an Irish Catholic rag?” Yes, sir!

What did the job entail, being Bill Buckley’s right-hand man? Some of this, some of that, all of it in the Buckley style aimed at high purpose and pursued in high spirit. I was the political reporter and the Washington correspondent. (Now that Mark Felt has talked it can be revealed that, yes, I was Cato). I ran the mayoralty campaign office and started his TV show. (It’s true. Bill never forgave me for calling it Firing Line.) The most fun was selling his newspaper column city to city: for several seasons he was the hot cross bun of the syndicate business. But it was years before I realized that the most important part of the job may have been what I then regarded as a tiresome chore: handling Bill’s correspondence. In those early days, at the dawn of the conservative era, he emboldened and guided and connected them all – from Ronnie and Barry to Phyllis and Brent to Clare and Roger to Dan and Kieran to almost three hundred others. The first generation of the conservative movement can be identified neatly. They were the people who corresponded with Bill Buckley, a committee of correspondence that he built into a national political force. And along the way – it must have been either inter alia or pari passu or in medias res -- he changed the world. Nice going, boss.

Neal B. Freeman (This piece is from National Review’s 50 th)

I first met Bill Buckley during the 1958-59 school year when he spoke at Yale. He frequently came back to Yale and was most gracious to the students. More so than anyone else. Frank Meyer would be happy to talk to us until 5:00 AM and Strom Thurmond would sit around a table with us while we bought him drinks, but Bill could outdo them all. The night Krushev broke up the Paris summit, Bill had made a speech at Yale. Afterwards he took about twenty of us as his guests to The Fence Club (in those days still a more or less fraternity) where we sat together in the bar, watched Krushev on television, exchanged comments on it and drank beer on Bill's tab.

Charles Mills

In 1959-60 I lived in Rasdorf /Hünfeld within sight of the “Iron Curtain,” the ten meters of plowed earth separating East Germany from West Germany (East from West) in the Fulda Gap. When I returned from my year abroad as an International Christian Youth Exchange student to start college, a wise friend handed me Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative,” which immediately gave focus and substance to my experiences and convictions that America was build on worthy and honorable principles worth defending and that the Soviet Union and communism were both enemies. Defending those views first at Bakersfield College then the University of California at Berkeley in the mid sixties was not easy. I did not accept that I was the Luddite my classmates and professors accused me of being, but it was often a lonely time. Before leaving for Berkeley, another wise friend gave me an issue of The National Review and I instantly become an avid reader and fan. Buckley and his National Review did far more than sharpen my understanding of America’s founding principles and the values and institutions I wanted to defend. He provided an intelligent, witty, and insightful persona I could proudly identify myself with. He, through his magazine, not only kept me informed and deepened my understanding of my own views, but he made it respectable to be “conservative.” He instantly became my HERO. May his honorable soul rest in peace.

Warren Coats

We were saddened to hear the news that our good friend, William F. Buckley, Jr. has passed. He was truly the father of modern conservatism, and an inspiration to all of us who had the pleasure of working with him and learning from him.NCPA Chairman Pete du Pont and I joined Bill in numerous two-hour Firing Line Debate specials, taking on the leaders of liberal thought on such issues as Social Security privatization, school vouchers and the flat tax. His quick wit and keen insight were consistently on display. He left an indelible mark on our nation's political discourse, andproved that ideas truly can change the world. He will be missed.

John Goodman

How should we who felt and benefited from his influence measure the importance of this great man, intellectual giant and skilled combatant in just causes? Bill Buckley was not only a pioneer of the Modern Mainstream Conservative Movement, but becamea household word without ever trying, or for a moment basking in the light he helped create. To time-tested values and ideas, he gave renewed credibility and new life. A splendid speaker, he was also a careful listener, and helped all who asked. Send him a message, get one swiftly in return. Bill earned the respect and admiration that are properly his. What a tremendous loss!

Dick Allen

I would not know where to begin about Bill, so I will not, for now, except simply to say that he was a friend and mentor who always had time to stay in touch. He would always respond promptly to email -- and in the most personal way. Many do not realize just how gracious he was, how he would stay in touch, and what a kind and good-natured man. He was very giving of his time, his spirit, his wisdom. He was a very warm person.

Arnold Steinberg

Like so many of us, Bill Buckley inspired us in our late teens and early 20’s to seek the truth. He motivated us to commit our lives to helping our nation make the right decisions based upon sound market economics and the highest of ethical standards. He helped us understand the international challenges facing our nation and the need for a strong national defense. I remember meeting Bill for the first time at the 1962 National YAF Convention at the old Commodore Hotel in New York City when he took the time sit down with “us kids.” Many of us will remember the 10 year YAF Anniversary when he welcomed us to his family compound in Sharon Connecticut even pouring us a cool beer out on the back porch. Such a great time that none of us will forget. Most of us had moved on from our college years at that time but I am sure Bill was happy to see his impact on our lives. He leaves a legacy that few will ever achieve. He changed our world. His ideas influenced this nation but also other leaders around the world. We know that this great Man of Yale is now with his GOD and our creator. God Bless Bill Buckley.

Jack Cox, Los Angeles, California

In my sophomore year, I became aware of "that William Buckley crowd" as a professor dismissed my assertion of individual right over well-intentioned state action. Thankfully this critique sent me to the library where I discovered National Review, and who this Buckley guy was. This led to being more receptive to reading the Goldwater "Conscience of a Conservative" for a debating team project. By Nov. 22, 1963, a classmate would turn to me (after the announcement of the President being shot) with: "Your Goldwater people did this".

Later still, following a Buckley for Mayor rally, Bill allowed me to photograph him with that triumphant smile that George Will characterizes ("A Life Athwart History" Washington Post, 2/29/08) as able to "light up an auditorium". Promptly, and really unexpectedly, he sent a thank you note for the photographs that included a candid profile of Pat, and one of Christopher scrambling into the back of a station wagon after the rally. There was even with this gracious note an example of his self-deprecating humor when he referred to his "horse teeth" smile.

Just thinking back to that particular "mayoralty" part of the Buckley life tapestry recalls many memories. Like when Bill, on the phone with brother James, was so exercised about some campaign information that he emphasized his comment with a "Goddam!" On hanging up the phone, noticing he was observed by a now agape collegiate campaign worker, Bill quipped: "I say f___ too!" Knowing his charm and wit, it was not shocking when he penned that playful title: "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes & Asides from National Review".

Today, there's comfort in taking Bill's "Right Reason" down from the bookshelf, and reading some favorite pieces. Perhaps I may adapt his remarks [p.402] at a 1981 testimonial dinner for Russell Kirk to redound to Bill.

"Except that we are here to honor [William Buckley], by this time in the proceedings it would have been, however inappropriate to say, nevertheless true to say---that, really, there is nothing left to say. But a dozen tributes, in the case of [William Buckley], do not even skirt redundancy, let alone comprehensiveness. ...achievements will several times have been mentioned, the evening having ignored, entirely, many others."

John Sainsbury

The life of William F. Buckley was full of joy. Permit me to remember him with something that may amuse you. Bill's death was front-page news yesterday in the Chicago Tribune.

Early yesterday morning I retrieved thepaper on my doorstep and saw, above the fold, a huge photograph of WFB taken in Chicago backin 1971. He had come to this city under the auspices of Students for Capitalism and Freedom (which held the campus charters of, among other groups, Young Americans for Freedom and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute at The University of Chicago) to tape an episode of "Firing Line" with Jesse Jackson, Jr.

You can imagine my shock when I saw the picture. Looming Zelig-like above Mr. Buckley is the then-19-year-old Chairman of Students for Capitalism and Freedom. (I was still occasionally wearing neckties; it would be five years before I became exclusively a bowtie man.)

Joseph Morris

Like Marty McFly, William F. Buckley Jr. was an unwilling but resourceful time traveler. Buckley belonged in Cardinal Wolsey's London, dining, drinking and discoursing with Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam. But Buckley merrily endured his dizzy DeLorean ride through Cardinal Spellman's city and century, and he made the best of the events and companions of his circumstances.

He launched and nurtured a host of writers in their careers, and he offered kind gestures of encouragement to countless others. He was unfailingly generous in his patronage for R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., when Tyrrell sought to make his Buckley-inspired student publication at Indiana University a national magazine, The American Spectator. Tyrrell for his part gave me my first job on graduation from college. For an aspiring writer it was like walking on clouds to find myself, barely 21 years old, in tow with Tyrrell as a luncheon guest at Buckley's Manhattan town house. One of my memories of the occasion is that Buckley informed us that Lauren Bacall had been his dinner guest the evening before. For the longest time afterwards, I had trouble deciding whether to take the trousers I had worn on the same seat as la Bacall to the cleaners or to shrink-wrap them for posterity.

My parents introduced me to Buckley's National Review when I was nine years old - the year that Goldwater shattered his lance against LBJ's stout Potomac windmill. I could not understand Buckley's writing but I loved the music of it. I resolved to try to crack the code. Twelve years later, and with a college degree in Latin and Greek, I had roared around a few laps but was nowhere near the checkered flag.

If Buckley had any 20th century counterpart it would be G.K. Chesterton - genially tolerant of his own time and place but madly in love with the bygone unity of Catholic Europe, master of English prose, controversialist, composer of detective stories and spy novels, merry lover of wine and song.

Much more than a conservative, Buckley was in his marrow a Catholic. He climbed and stayed aboard the Church as a chariot, as Chesterton described it, "thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect." Now at last he sits elbow to elbow with Erasmus and Sir Thomas, at the festive table with Aquinas and Chrysostom and Chaucer and Cervantes and Chesterton and other worthy companions, at the endless sacrum convivium, where mens impletur gratia et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.

Bill Buckley was my hero long before I met him. I had been converted to the cause of individual freedom and anti-communism, quite literally overnight, when I read John T. Flynn’s The Road Ahead while in junior high school. In high school I survived attempted brainwashing by devouring the pamphlets of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI) and the two publications they sent me as student gift subscriptions—Human Events, at that time an eight-page Washington newsletter, and a fortnightly magazine, The Freeman. Those two publications exposed me to a wide variety of exciting right-wing dissidents—including Bill Buckley in The Freeman.

I was circulating petitions, writing letters-to-the-editor of the Houston Chronicle (and having them published—quite exciting for a high school student!), and communicating by snail mail (no email back then) with a vast nationwide network of fellow McCarthyites—Joe, not Gene, of course. Somehow one of my student petitions got published in The Freeman, and in the mail soon afterwards came a letter postmarked Sharon, Connecticut, with my name and address typed out in red ink.

I asked myself, who do I know in Sharon, Connecticut? Well, the masthead of the letter inside read “Libertarians for…” something or another, or perhaps it was “The Libertarian International.” Whatever, this “organization” apparently was run by two brothers, Reid and William F. Buckley. They exhorted me, in red ink again, to keep up the fight, while warning me, “You will be called a fascist, a hate mongerer,” etc. etc. with lots of exclamation points.

(I really do have to find that letter somewhere in my boxes of “files,” frame it, and place it above my desk.)

I went off to a college by the beach in South Texas as a music major. But then, in my freshman year, Bill Buckley launches National Review. I had an ISI gift subscription and was so excited I changed my line of studies to history and political science, and became editor of my campus newspaper in my sophomore year. So Bill Buckley, long before I met him personally, was largely responsible for my becoming a professional writer rather than a professional musician.

Under my editorship, The Foghorn of Del Mar College may have been the second conservative campus publication in America, though I have to admit that the Yale Daily News under Bill Buckley’s tutelage had more cachet (this is called understatement). We didn’t use the word “networking” back then, but that’s what I was doing, sending my editorials to Bill and the folks at Human Events and anyone else who wouldn’t send me a bomb in return.

A year later, Human Events offered me a work-scholarship, and I became the first student in the very first Human Events journalism class led by M. Stanton Evans (Doug Caddy and Bill Schulz were the other students). It was during these years in Washington (1957-1960) that we first began hearing and sometimes using the term “conservative.” And this was when roommate Doug Caddy and I started the first nationwide conservative activist organization, the National Student Committee for the Loyalty Oath. Thanks to publicity in Human Events and National Review, we were amazed to hear from hundreds of conservative students across the country when we thought we were pretty much alone in the liberal wilderness. The National Student Committee begat Students for Goldwater for Vice President which begat Young Americans for Freedom…but I digress.

Also during these years, Bill Buckley was launching his public persona as the scourge of the Liberal Establishment. The prototype conservative movement had plenty of good people doing good work, but none caught the public’s eye like Bill Buckley, with his wit and charm and eloquence. In him we finally had someone who could stand up at the lecture podium to the likes of John Kenneth Galbraith and make him look like the intellectual inferior he was! So I was elated beyond words when I was offered the position of Editorial Assistant to THE Man.

You can imagine—no, you cannot imagine—how nervous I was to enter the inner sanctum of National Review and work directly for the Most Important Man in the Conservative Universe. Remember, I was only 21 and just a few years out of the sagebrush, plopped into the very heart of Gotham. But if anyone could put you at ease, it was Bill and his sister Priscilla, the managing editor of National Review.

I was surprised when they introduced me to my work quarters. It would be an exaggeration to call it an office—more a cubbyhole, barely big enough for a small desk table with typewriter and some shelves. Any apprehension evaporated when I learned that my predecessor occupying these quarters was Whittaker Chambers. And I was a poster boy at that time for the World Hunger Campaign, so if rotund Chambers could work in there I should have no problem. As they soon told me, both Whittaker Chambers and I had an ability to pack more newspapers and assorted “files” into that cubbyhole than anyone thought possible.

When a groundbreaking magazine makes history, as National Review in retrospect did, it’s a natural tendency to think you worked there during its Golden Age. And I do. Certainly it would have been exciting to work there at launch, but the early 60s were the buildup to the Goldwater campaign, when the new conservative movement was first beginning to think big and dream big. Bill Buckley’s National Review was the epicenter for both the intellectual side of the movement and the political strategy side of the movement.

An editorial table in Bill’s office suite served as our gathering spot for handing out the next issue’s assignments, evaluating them before deadline, and engaging in general discussion during our weekly editorial luncheons. We were all equal in having our say, but naturally some were more equal than others in having their ideas accepted, and Bill was The Decider at that table.

The intellectual giant at the table was James Burnham, really one of the three great political philosophers of that era, the others being Sidney Hook and George Orwell. (Frank Meyer’s editorial power was diminished by his being a nonresident, ensconced in the Catskills.) If there was divided opinion on an editorial matter, Bill would usually—but not always—side with Burnham. If you’re a fan of “The McLaughlin Group,” you know the routine. John McLoughlin will make the rounds of his TV panel, seeking their responses, and then pronounce, “The answer is…”

And you never knew who might join us for lunch. One week I’d sit down and the person to my right, passing the sandwich platter, would be the comedian and TV host Steve Allen, making his case for disarmament. (Not accepted.) Another time it would be a couple of scientists employed by the tobacco industry, trying to convince us that our editorial position was wrong and there was no scientific evidence that nicotine was harmful. (This was a time when cigarette ads featured M.D.’s assuring you that one brand was better than the others.) Burnham carried the ball on that one, since he was the only one of us with a good scientific understanding, while Bill just sat at the head of the table, twirling his pencil, grinning his Cheshire cat grin, and enjoying the spectacle of the cancer-shrills being intellectually dismembered.

The fun together didn’t always stop when the work was finished. We would often repair to The Brasserie or some other eatery after an issue was put to bed. At some point toward the end of my formal employment at National Review, Nicola Paone on 34th Street became “the National Review restaurant.” I last ate there two years ago with Priscilla Buckley and my dear friend Tim Wheeler, another one-time editorial assistant at National Review, while Bill Buckley was celebrating his 80th birthday at the next table with friends. Now both Tim and Bill are gone, and I’m thinking I may want that to be my last memory of Paone’s.

All in all, Bill was one of the most easygoing bosses I’ve ever had. But that made it all the more crushing when you weren’t doing your job and were reminded of that in his sonorous tones. He was also a demanding editor. In this pre-computer age, you could readily see all the changes he had made in your copy by the markings of his red pen. Sometimes there seemed to be more red ink than black typewriter copy on the pages I had submitted, but eventually that decreased some. Either I was becoming a better writer or he was giving up.

Of course, when you work for someone as famous as Buckley, what you cherish most are the personal moments together, away from the crowd. I always thought he felt guilty about the peon’s pay I got from National Review, because so often he would go out of his way to augment my pay—but there probably was no guilt involved, just generous Bill. One time he asked me to walk with him to the small apartment he rented a couple of blocks away from the office. He opened the door to the foyer closet and asked me to try on one of his suits. Perfect fit—yes, I was that skinny back then. Bill had developed a wool allergy, and soon I was the new owner of five or six handsome Savile Row suits.

Best of all were the times spent on his boat. Mind you, he was a world-class sailor and I only learned which side was which, starboard and port, by remembering that both “port” and “left” have four characters. So taking me aboard, instead of picking someone who could help him battle the elements in a raging sea, was an act of pure generosity on his part.

Bill’s nautical generosity knew its sensible bounds, though, and I was never invited to join one of his cross-Atlantic sails. Instead, I would be invited on board to ply the calm waters of Long Island Sound.

At night we’d anchor and, with the lights of some Long Island harbor village turning on, Bill would cook dinner and the two of us would consume several bottles of wine, of which he was most fond for as far back as I can remember. We’d have hours of lively talk before the wine took its toll—talk about politics and the conservative movement, to be sure, but mostly about everything else that interested us, which is to say, a lot.

One time we were bringing his boat back from Stamford, Connecticut, where he had his home, to Manhattan. We pulled up at the East River pier on the East River where he normally docked, noticing some strange, rather large ship on the opposite side of the pier. No sooner had we hurled out our ropes than we were overtaken by Secret Service agents. We had forgotten that some Evil Empire potentate was in town, probably Khrushchev if I remember correctly, and no way were they going to allow America’s Mr. Anti-Communist to share that pier.

That had a happy ending for me, though. Bill’s backup was a pier on the Hudson near the George Washington Bridge. He graciously let me take the helm as we sailed under the Brooklyn Bridge, then quickly took it back before I could capsize us. What a memory for a landlubber!

You will notice a recurrent theme in the eulogies coming forth: his personal generosity. It really was his most prominent trait.

When I get to know a man of power and influence, I judge his personal character by the way he treats those with less power, or no power, who depend on him for their well-being in some way. And I know that those people in Bill’s life worshipped him.

I also look at how he handles a crisis in a friend’s life, a crisis of that friend’s making. Does he cut and run to avoid embarrassment by association, or does he stand with his friend even as he tries to set him on the right path? There never was any question which path Bill would take.

He was generous of himself, of his time, and, yes, of his money. And all of this was with no publicity, no accolades, no expected payback. No wonder he died with thousands mourning him.

Bill Buckley was no saint, and he made mistakes, but above all he was a man of character and endless energy and generosity. He taught me that you can have a goal-filled life full of accomplishment while enjoying the journey to the fullest.

David Franke