Debating About Bill Buckley
At CPAC last February I participated in panel on the life and legacy of William F. Buckley Jr. My copanelists — James Panero of the New Criterion and Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard — and I had three very different takes on this founding father of Cold War conservatism. We mixed it up enjoyably, I thought. Here’s the video and here’s the downloadable audio, courtesy of the event’s sponsor, ISI.
In retrospect, I I think there’s more to be said for Panero’s view than I allowed at the time. Panero had been Buckley’s assistant during the writing of Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton, which like most of Buckley’s novels was written while vacationing in Gstaad. Panero recalled Buckley’s bon vivantlifestyle, symbolized by skiing in the Alps with Roger Moore — that was the Buckley who famous mostly for being famous. In my remarks, I tried to get back to what had made Buckley’s name in the first place, the fact that he forcefully argued for a conservatism rooted in Christianity and the free market — that was the early Buckley of God and Man at Yale and Up From Liberalism. There’s no doubt, though, that over time WFB’s celebrity became at least as his conservatism to his public persona.
Just consider his massive oeuvre: he wrote, edited, or contributed to some 56 books. But 20 of those were novels; not, to say the least, the works for which Buckley will be remembered. Of his 36 nonfiction works, 11 are compilations (mostly of syndicated columns) and six are volumes for which he was an editor or contributor. A majority (10) of his full-length nonfiction books were about himself — four sailing book; two week-in-the-life-life account; memoirs of his experiences as a United Nations delegate and a New York mayoral candidate; his “autobiography of faith,” Nearer, My God; and his recollections of Reagan. All of the books typically considered Buckley’s best — The Unmaking of a Mayor, Cruising Speed, Atlantic High, and the aforementioned Nearer, My God — fit into this category. Several of his other nonfiction works (and much of his fiction) are also near-memoirs, such as his Goldwater volume, Flying High (which is one of my favorites, in fact).
Was it Mark Royden Winchell who first proposed that Buckley is best understood in light of the semi-autobiographical New Journalism of the 1960 and ’70s? I think that’s right: he didn’t pretend to be a theorist of conservatism, and certainly he was not a gumshoe journalist in the mode of Robert Novak. His first three books, those of the Buckley I had in mind in my talk, were heavily influenced by Willmoore Kendall, who did a good deal of editing and a bit of writing for God and Man at Yale and McCarthy and His Enemies. But in his later books, even as he figured prominently in them himself, he was still something more than a jet-set celeb.
I couldn’t agree more that Buckley fits intot he sixties very well.
His run for Mayor fits very nicely into gonzo happenings intended to embarass the liberal respectable establishment.
It is interesting to think of the conservative movement and the counter-culture together. I’m sure you probably know of a good work that does this.
Buckley betrayed the conservative movement on
everything from the 1964 Civil Rights Act to a
non-interventionist foreign policy. He censored
John T. Flynn in 1956 and later attacked McCarthy.
WFB had absolutely savage obituaries on Ayn Rand
and Murray Rothbard after their respective deaths.
He originally endorsed Rockefeller’s draconian drug
laws in NY State. And the other year he fulsomely
endorsed Conrad Black’s massive hagiography
of FDR, as did Tom Wolfe, George Will, Henry
Kissinger and one other so-called conservative,
all this right before Black was sent to prison.
His attack on the John Birch Society was off the
wall. Obviously, he had never bothered to read
The Politician by Robert Welch, which effectively
exposed Eisenhower. WFB was concerned with
respectability to his liberal friends like Mike Wallace
and Steve Allen and J.K. Galbraith much more than
he was ever concerned with the truth. The mindless
neocon blowhards of the AM airwaves are the ones
that paid the most fulsome tributes to him.
With conservatives like this, who needs liberals.
His only substantial work was McCarthy And His
Enemies, co-authored with his brother in law.
And the new work on McCarthy by M. Stanton
Evans, Jr., far surpasses that work and was savagely
attacked in the National Review ! So much for WFB’s
legacy.
“WFB had absolutely savage obituaries on Ayn Rand
and Murray Rothbard after their respective deaths.
So he got a couple things right. And quite a few Libertarians and Paleo’s wrote savage obituaries about Buckley.
No, Jerry, he got it all wrong on Rand and Rothbard, among
many other things that he wrong.
Yes, but he wrote the savage obits first. The others properly retaliated.
Left out “got” between “he” and “wrong” in first sentence.
Buckley was right about those two Free Market Bolsheviks, Rand and Rothbard….what always got me about Buckley was that he was an Irish Catholic, *American* conservative yet he always was all gaga on Tory monarchists like Kirk and Eliot and that one Austrian freak,Erich von Kuenhelt-Leddihn. So much for him being a libertarian conservative for the *Republic*, huh? But he will be missed even by a New Deal socialist such as myself. Buckley was one of the few right-wingers who had any brains plus humor. And he was fun:-)
Buckley was dead wrong about Rand, Rothbard, the Birchers,
the “isolationists,” the “anti-semites” and much more.
The only people who admired him were of the intellectually
shallow leftist stripe. He was not fun but a phony.
Panero’s talk brought to mind images of Moses walking with God on Mt. Sinai – his glory being so bright that a man can only see him passing and survive. I respect Buckley’s place in the conservative firmament, but Panero’s WFB as Sun King talk was a bit much. The exact same account could be written by any assistant of Taki’s for that matter.
Buckley may have been wrong on Rothbard, but he was right and right early in regards to McCarthy. While many anti-Communists were committed to fighting the battles of the Cold War in flea ridden locales across the globe, Buckley, albeit briefly, fought many important battles in the US. That is worth a few kind words.
I bet many here think that Barry Goldwater was a ‘RINO’ too. Non-objectivity, extreme nativism, hyper-paranoid anti-communism, and Free Market uber alles is what it takes to be regarded as a “true conservative” to some. Some of you guys are as bad as Trotskyites. Sheesh!
Well worth reading:
James Panero
All My Sons
Two memoirs of William F. Buckley outline his towering shadow.
McCarthy: Was it Mark Royden Winchell who first proposed that Buckley is best understood in light of the semi-autobiographical New Journalism of the 1960 and ’70s?
The world Buckley helped bring to life and megaphone is seen to best advantage as an echt-American socio-cultural episode inseparable from the broader canvas, its major figures fit for a wide-angle social-panorama novel after Balzac, Dickens or Tolstoy. In 1966, Firing Line hits the world of PBS gentility at a slightly jaunty, rakish right angle of the sort whose visual counter was that of its diagonally-leaning, tongue-darting optically-oscillating host, who came to define the Old Testament decades of that network equally with its apolitically-anodyne marquee pillars Julia Child, Alastair Cooke, Dick Cavett, Carl Sagan, Fred Rogers, and Big Bird. National Review itself was exhibit B in this exchange, serving famously as since as farm team to a whole host of writers who would sight land before long at tonier and/or better-paying venues, the figures of “New Journalist” Joan Didion, political jack-of-all-trades Garry Wills, veteran NYC bookman John Leonard (predecessor by 33 years of Sam Tanenhaus as NYTBR helmsman), New Yorker arts critic Arlene Croce, “organic” Poundian Age-of-McLuhan lit-critics Hugh Kenner and Guy Davenport…Buckley said ruefully that he didn’t realize he was running a “finishing school for apostates”, but, frankly, I don’t see any cause for complaint in that at all: there are hierarchies and progressions thus in any field, and serving thus as talent scout for the majors is nothing to sneeze at; it’s not as if the next Tolstoy is going to be an NR regular, or at all, this side of a parallel galaxy far, far away…
We also gain from looking at WFB in chronological yearbook fashion, arrayed with other babies from the class of ’25 at dear old Maternity High:
Robert Altman Film Director 2006 M*A*S*H
Howard Baker Government Reagan’s Chief of Staff
Russell Baker Author Growing Up
Tony Benn Politician Radical left Labour MP
Yogi Berra Baseball New York Yankee malapropist
Pierre Boulez Composer Modern composer and conductor
Lenny Bruce Comic 1966 Multiply obscene comic
Art Buchwald Columnist 2007 Syndicated columnist/humorist
William F. Buckley Columnist 2008 National Review
Richard Burton Actor 1984 Nineteen Eighty Four
Barbara Bush First Lady Wife of President GHW Bush
Johnny Carson Talk Show Host 2005 Longtime host of Tonight Show
Carlos Castaneda Author 1998 The Teachings of Don Juan
Warren Christopher Government US Secretary of State, 1993-97
Tony Curtis Actor Houdini and Some Like It Hot
Sammy Davis, Jr. Singer 1990 Coolest hepcat in the Rat Pack
Mike Douglas Talk Show Host 2006 Host of 1970s Mike Douglas Show
John Ehrlichman Government 1999 Watergate criminal, served time
Al Feldstein Editor Editor of MAD, 1956-84
Edward Gorey Author 2000 Amphigorey
Merv Griffin Talk Show Host 2007 The Merv Griffin Show, Jeopardy
Bill Haley Musician 1981 Rock Around the Clock
Nat Hentoff Critic The Jazz Life
Hal Holbrook Actor Mark Twain Tonight
Rock Hudson Actor 1985 Ice Station Zebra
George Kennedy Actor Airport, Naked Gun
Robert F. Kennedy Politician 1968 Slain Presidential candidate
B. B. King Musician King of the Blues
Paul Kurtz Philosopher The pope of unbelievers
Angela Lansbury Actor Murder She Wrote
Jack Lemmon Actor 2001 The Odd Couple
Elmore Leonard Novelist Crime novelist, including Swag
June Lockhart Actor Mom on Lassie, Lost in Space
Patrice Lumumba Head of State 1961 First Prime Minister of Congo
Malcolm X Activist 1965 Nation of Islam
Norris McWhirter Author 2004 Guinness Book of World Records
Ross McWhirter Author 1975 Guinness Book of World Records
Yukio Mishima Author 1970 The Sea of Fertility
Paul Newman Actor Salad dressing magnate
Hugh O’Brian Actor The Life and Legend/Wyatt Earp
Donald O’Connor Actor 2003 Singin’ in the Rain
Flannery O’Connor Author 1964 A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Fess Parker Actor Daniel Boone
Sam Peckinpah Film Director 1984 Breakthrough ultraviolent film
Pol Pot Head of State 1998 Leader of the Khmer Rouge
Joe Pyne TV Personality 1970 Father of attack TV
Joyce Randolph Actor Trixie on The Honeymooners
Marty Robbins Country Musician 1982 El Paso
Cliff Robertson Actor Uncle Ben in Spider-Man
Carl Rowan Columnist 2000 Chicago Sun-Times columnist
Pierre Salinger Journalist 2004 Internet conspiracies
Brent Scowcroft Government NatSec Advisor, Ford/GHWB
Peter Sellers Actor 1980 Inspector Clouseau
John Simon Critic Reviewer for New York magazine
Roger Smith Business 2007 CEO of General Motors, 1980-90
Anastasio Somoza Head of State 1980 Dictator of Nicaragua
Maureen Stapleton Actor 2006 Oscar for Emma Goldman role
Rod Steiger Actor 2002 In The Heat of the Night
Elaine Stritch Actor Two’s Company
William Styron Novelist 2006 The Confessions of Nat Turner
Margaret Thatcher Head of State UK Prime Minister, 1979-90
Mel Tormé Singer 1999 The Velvet Fog
John Tower Politician 1991 US Senator from Texas, 1961-85
Lee Van Cleef Actor 1989 The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Dick Van Dyke Actor The Dick Van Dyke Show
Robert Venturi Architect Postmodernist architect
Gwen Verdon Dancer 2000 Damn Yankees
Gore Vidal Author Visit to a Small Planet
Jonathan Winters Comic Mearth, son of Mork
Dougherty: His run for Mayor fits very nicely into gonzo happenings intended to embarass the liberal respectable establishment. It is interesting to think of the conservative movement and the counter-culture together. I’m sure you probably know of a good work that does this.
Try It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille from 1971, which you may already have. Everyone intimate with the events and persons depicted will make the stock truth v. stretchers disclaimers after the publishing and cinematic protocols, but none denies, I should think, the turbo-gonzo period fun to be had within, as I recall from my bliss-was-it-in-that-dawn perusal of it while attending high school 30 years ago just down the road from fellow then-Wiltonian, libertarian elder Henry Hazlitt.
Dear All,
I cannot remember who said this, but in describing the history of the American Right, one author reported that Buckley supported the Establishment and was allowed to remain, albeit with ridicule; but because the Birch Society wanted to dethrone the Establishment, they were attacked and, for practical purposes, were destroyed.
William Buckley was a master of the English language, but we must never forget that it was he who suggested in 1952 that we should accept a “totalitarian bureaucracy” to fight Communism. He was at his best when he poured ridicule on Establishmentarian foolishness, but he rarely said what he favored.
The Birch Society was, and is, not perfect; nobody bats a thousand. Nevertheless, I like to think of them as the grandparents of today’s “Tea Party” movement: patriots who are trying to restore our Constitution and to remove from power those who swear to “preserve, protect, and defend” it, while doing their best to remove it from the political scene.
Sincerely,
Gordon F. Corbett