William F. Buckley, the preeminent intellectual of American political life, and the father of the Conservative movement died on Wednesday morning February 27th at his home in Stamford, Connecticut aged 82. A Wall Street Journal article on his astounding life summed it up this way;
“Conservatively speaking, the life of William F. Buckley Jr. seems wildly improbable. One man is rarely granted his range of gifts: He was at once an essayist, editor, impresario, controversialist, critic, novelist, sportsman and bon vivant. He was the captain of a publication that, as he once famously put it, stood “athwart History, yelling Stop,” yet he personally lived in relentless forward motion. When liberalism was dominant but hidebound in the second half of the last century, he pioneered a new direction that transformed American politics.”
When I set out to write this personal tribute, I felt not only a sense of immense personal loss, but also a sense of inadequacy. How could I, possessed of – at best – only moderate intellectual skills, possibly comment with authority on a life such as his? The answer took more than a day to infiltrate my consciousness. To explain that process is perhaps the best way to celebrate the life and sadly note the passing of a lion of the “American Conversation” as commentator Charlie Rose once phrased civil political discourse.
Mr. Buckley (or “WFB” as admirers and detractors alike refer to him in the third person) and I became “acquainted” so to say, when, one day in 1973, I bought a TV set, installed it in my apartment, and happened to switch on Channel 13 and discovered his television program Firing Line, and was utterly captivated. It was an attachment that was to affectionately last until the final program. (which aired a total of 1429 episodes between 1966 and 1999 by PBS)The program became the de facto standard for civil discourse.WFB was host of the show, which featured a debate – often heated – between himself and a guest. The show, which grew in syndication, made WFB the man liberals loved to hate. “I think you are finally going to displace me as the most hated man in America,” Mailer wrote Buckley around that time. “And of course the position is bearable only if one is No. 1.”
The program, which won an Emmy in 1968, was as popular with liberals as it was with conservatives. At its peak, no serious public figure, from heads of state to Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, could afford to pass up an invitation to do battle with WFB.
Years later, Frederick C. Klein, writing in the Wall Street Journal, explained the shows’ appeal this way: The spectacle of Buckley “spearing a foe . . . holds much the same fascination as the sight of a cat stalking a bird. If you sympathize with the bird, you can still find it possible to admire the grace and ferocity of its pursuer.”
On learning of his death, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger issued the following statement:
“William F. Buckley Jr. will be remembered for setting the standard for intelligent discourse in broadcasting through his work on ‘Firing Line.’ Mr. Buckley’s eloquence, wit and wisdom made ‘Firing Line’ required viewing, no matter your point of view. The program’s ability to attract loyal viewers from every political persuasion is a tribute to Mr. Buckley’s commitment to open and honest debating. Public television is deeply honored to have been Mr. Buckley’s home for almost 30 years. We will miss him greatly.”
If Ms. Kerger had exercised slightly greater diligence in researching WFB’s tenure at PBS, she would not have committed the chronological faux pas contained in the above press release. In fact, WFB broadcast from PBS Manhattan studios for 33 years in total.
Despite his ritual ideological mauling of some guests, all were treated with his characteristic politeness and respect for their avowed positions, even when he despised their ideas. In speaking of his easy manner and gracious style, he said; “I have always held in high esteem the genial tradition”. His practice of that was in marked contrast to the bare knuckle adversarial style of this current age.
Initially, I instinctively felt that his political position was identical to my own, which encouraged me to read a substantial amount of material he had authored, and also to subscribe to his magazine; National Review (a subscription, incidentally, which would last another 27 years until 2001 when I reluctantly had to cancel it. One of the impacts of moving countries is to force some awkward choices.) My personal politics had always been “somewhat conservative” in that; if it wasn’t socialist, I was for it. It was Mr. Buckley and his robust yet pragmatic philosophy that was responsible for my migration to libertarian conservatism. The more I read of the Conservative movement and their position on various matters, the more firmly I became convinced that this was my ideological home. The act of becoming a registered conservative was a small step in terms of the bureaucracy, yet for me it was a defining moment in my personal political life.
My one and only point of disagreement with his views, was his support of former President Jimmy Carter’s position that the Panama Canal ought to be handed over to the Panamanians. As a national strategic asset, I thought this was a grievous mistake. For the record Bill, neither of us have been proven right or wrong in the intervening space of time. For the sake of the nation, not only would I much rather be proven wrong in this matter, I would be overjoyed if the single issue on which we didn’t concur you will someday be proven correct. In some matters, there is a springtime pleasure in being proven wrong.
I would have the honor of meeting Mr. Buckley in person some years later. It was 1984, and armed with a newly minted MBA, and membership
of the Young Presidents Organization I attended a YPO function at the New York Waldorf Astoria hotel. To my amazement, there was WFB himself, casually sipping a martini and chatting with various people. I walked across the room towards the group, and when a pause in the mingling conversation occurred, introduced myself to him. As best I recall it, almost a quarter century later, the opening moments of the dialog went something like this;
ME: “Mr. Buckley, I’d like to briefly introduce myself to you. My name is [xxxx] and you are the reason I’m a Conservative.”
WFB: “Haha! A moment of minor correction if I may. I am only known as Mr. Buckley to my congressman and officials from the Internal Revenue Service. Do please feel completely free to call me Bill. I think it will most assuredly enhance the mutual conviviality of our conversation.”
At the risk of dramatic oversimplification, I was stunned. Here was the Great Man himself, who genuinely wished to be addressed by his first name. Reluctantly I assented to do so, and for the next 15 minutes or so, enjoyed one of the most fondly remembered conversations of my life. It’s a moment I treasure today, but poignantly so as I write this, because there is a void in the world. A giant has left us. Sorrow aside, there is a staggering amount of material that should be added. The narrative would be empty otherwise, and maudlin reflections accomplish nothing, save that of needless self indulgence.
To say simply that he was an inspiration perhaps most elegantly summarizes my personal view of WFB. His use of the English language, both verbal and written endeared me to him immediately. Once again, to quote the Wall Street Journal;
“His thinking and prose were governed by a critical-deliberative style that emphasized contingency and complexity”
My own writing style at that time was perhaps the exact opposite, lacking depth, expression and occasionally even, continuity of thought. By carefully examining his style in articles, books and Op-Ed pieces, I slowly started to modify my own writing in a direction which was more fluid and less repressive. I don’t claim to have come anywhere close to his level of acuity, but he is directly responsible for the evolution of my writing style to something which could almost be considered lucid, although still occasionally more opaque than I would prefer.
The world was also treated to political conviction, but laced with copious amounts of pure fun. WFB had a rapier wit, and indulged it to its fullest at any opportunity.
At a trial in which he was the defendant, the lawyer for the plaintiff received an excoriation in typical WFB style. He recounts it in an article in National Review in May of 2006;
[...]”The question before the jury was whether I and the magazine I edited were racist. The attorney had one weapon to use in making his point, namely that we had published an editorial about Adam Clayton Powell Jr. when he made a terminally wrong move in his defense against federal prosecutors. The editorial we published was titled, “The Jig Is Up for Adam Clayton Powell Jr.?”
“On the witness stand I argued that the word “jig” could be used other than as animadversion. The feverish lawyer grabbed a book from his table and slammed it down on the arm of my chair.”
“Have you ever heard of a dictionary?” he asked scornfully, as if he had put the smoking gun in my lap.
I examined the American Heritage College Dictionary and said yes, I was familiar with it.
“In fact,” I was able to say, opening the book, “I wrote the introduction to this edition.”
“That was the high moment of my forensic life. And, of course, the dictionary establishes that the word “jig” can be used harmlessly”
Occasionally, a moment of sheer unguarded exuberance punctuated his exchanges with various individuals.
In a famous live exchange with author & playwright Gore Vidal in at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, the exchange began with Vidal saying to WFB:
“As far as I am concerned, the only crypto Nazi I can think of is yourself.”
“Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto Nazi, or I’ll sock you in your goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.”
Years later, in 1985, Buckley said of the incident: “We both acted irresponsibly. I’m not a Nazi, but he is, I suppose, a fag.”
And, inescapably, there was that aurora of pure mischief. In 1985, David Remnick, writing in The Washington Post, said, “He has the eyes of a child who has just displayed a horrid use for the microwave oven and the family cat.”
Humor and grace he had in abundance, but WFB also of course had the foundation of deep conviction, almost messianic in its scope and grandeur. There are some stirring examples of his philosophical view of conservatism, in his “To Preserve What We Have,” essay in 2002 in The Wall Street Journal, he wrote;
“Above all, conservatives tend to intuit that materialist terminology is insufficient to express the depth of American attachments to their ideals. It remains, for some reason, arresting that one speaks of the “sanctity” of life, of our “devotion” to our ideals, of the “holy” causes in which we engage. American conservatives never exclude those who discountenance transcendent perspectives, but we tend to live by them.”
In remarking on the philosophical inflexibility of socialism, he once trenchantly remarked on air;
“Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.”
One of the most important political relationships of WFB’s life was his friendship with Ronald Reagan. The two had met in 1960, when Reagan was chairman of Democrats for Nixon in California, and National Review backed Reagan’s run for governor in 1966. Reagan was in awe of WFB’s intellect and a devout reader of National Review and Buckley’s column.
Reagan’s landslide victory in 1980 was a seminal moment for the conservative movement and the man who had founded it a quarter-century earlier. WFB used his newspaper column to advise and, with rare exception, defend Reagan for most of the next eight years. Reagan’s last two years were tarnished by the Iran Contra scandal, in which Reagan aides diverted Iranian arms sales to buy weapons for the Contras fighting Communist rule in Nicaragua. WFB (rightly) blamed Reagan’s subordinates, but he lamented what he saw as a lost opportunity to expand Reagan’s conservatism.
An example of the enormous regard WFB had for Reagan, and an example of the innate goodness of the man, was his sardonic but incredibly accurate riposte when a reporter commented on the apparent shallow intellect of former actor Ronald Reagan, and his penchant for answering questions with a little story as a preface;
“Well of course, he will always tend to reach first for an anecdote. But then, so does the New Testament.”
President Reagan gave a speech on the occasion of NR’s 30th anniversary in 1985, referring to WFB this way;
“a clipboard-bearing Galahad, ready to take on any challengers in the critical battle of point and counterpoint. And, with grace and humor and passion, to raise a standard to which patriots and lovers of freedom could repair.”
Later in the same remarks, President Regan went on to add;
“that he picked up his first issue of the magazine in a plain brown wrapper and still anxiously awaited his copy every two weeks — “without the wrapper.”
“You didn’t 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. And then, as if that weren’t enough,” the president continued, “you 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.”
The joining of the “New Right” and “Neoconservatives”, itself a masterpiece of political engineering accomplished by Ronald Reagan, assured him two resounding (some would say overwhelming) electoral victories, but showed signs of becoming somewhat unraveled. Towards the end of his life, WFB mourned the fact that conservatism had itself acquired a hitherto unknown degree of inflexibility, and neoconservatism threatened the national interest. He opposed the war in Iraq, and took the opportunity to point out in typical style where the fault lay;
“The neoconservative hubris, which sort of assigns to America some kind of geostrategic responsibility for maximizing democracy, overstretches the resources of a free country.”
William Frank Buckley Jr. 6th of 10 children, died at his desk, probably writing a column or adding chapters to a book. It’s appropriate really. As his son Christopher said when called by President George W. Bush;
“Mr President, you’re a Texan so you’ll understand this; he died with his boots on. He was doing what he loved best, and I don’t suppose any of us could ask for a better departure”
Finally, a few personal and deeply felt reflections;
The world had the benefit of witnessing a fundamental change in the American political landscape. This initially, driven by the ideas and convictions of just one man. The world had the pleasure of observing 33 years of political discourse on a TV program which defined what the exchange of ideas should sound like. 50 years of magnificently written material from a razor sharp philosophical, political and literary mind. 50 books; fiction, philosophy, travelogues, reflection, political science and commentaries. An average of 70 speeches a year that would leave the attendee either thoughtful and reflective, or with sore sides from laughter, and most frequently both. For these things, thanks Bill.
In addition to myself, there are many others, a considerable number with whom I am personally acquainted, that experienced a political rebirth and redefinition as a result of WFB’s thinking and literary output. We watched as Goldwater crashed and burned in 1964, but the roots were planted for the eventual election of Ronald Reagan some 16 years later as the Conservative movement grew in size and assumed an independent political identity. For your gigantic role in these things too, thanks Bill.
For the impact you had upon the development of my analytic abilities and marked improvement of my own written style, even though you were quite naturally oblivious to the effect you had, I send you a warm quiet and deeply affectionate “thanks Bill”
For the analytical skills and reflective ability to metamorphosize feelings of sorrow and sadness on learning of your passing, into those of quiet of happiness and gratitude for what you gave to the world, thanks Bill.
You cannot possibly be replaced, but know that you will be endlessly revered by those students of meaning like me, who along with 180 million of our fellow citizens in November of 1980, cast our votes in accordance with the spirit and letter of the Founding Fathers, and brought a candidate to the Office of President of the United States who did make the world a better place. For a time, and perhaps in some lasting ways, for all time.
Oh yes, and lest I forget…..
For insisting on one memorable evening a quarter of a century ago, that it was perfectly OK that I call you Bill.
