Posted on 10/02/2008 6:09:15 AM PDT by publius1
NOT ONE 'BUCK'LEY FOR YOU! WILL'S WILL: GRANDSON, 8, DEAD TO ME
Before he died, William F. Buckley Jr. put his young grandson on the firing line.
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The National Review founder and notable New Yorker instead left his entire estate - estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars - to his only child, Christopher Buckley, and Christopher's two older kids, Caitlin and William.
Jonathan, now 8, is the product of an Christopher's affair with book publicist Irina Woelfle.
Caitlin, 20, and William, 17, are the author and former presidential speechwriter's children with his now-estranged wife, Lucy.
Woelfle currently works as a publicist in Florida, where she filed suit against Christopher, seeking more child-support money.
Christopher, 56, author of the satiric novel "Thank You for Smoking," pays $3,000 a month. But Woelfle's petition says their son has special needs, and she's looking to put him into a private school near her Coral Gables home.
"The father is notably absent from the minor child's life," despite the mom's efforts to try to get him involved, the suit says.
The Courant estimated the value of William Buckley's estate at more than $30 million.
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In his original settlement agreement with Woelfle, Christopher did not want visitation rights. The deal prohibited Woelfle from contacting Christopher directly about Jonathan, and said all communication should go through their attorneys.
Christopher currently lives in Washington. It is unclear when his father, who died in February at age 82, wrote his will.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Sometimes the sons of hard-working smart guys turn out to be real dorks. It has been a pattern throughout history.
His dad was great though - even when I disagreed with him, he was a good old growling tiger, right out of Jungle book - he could charm you right within reach of his claws, then WHAM!
It sounds terrible but it’s really not. That’s just the language you use to disinherit a descendant. It doesn’t mean that “the kid was dead in his eyes”.
Tell that to the kid. He’ll never look at it that way.
Uh, in case you missed it, the father already pays $3000 per month. That is sufficient to provide half of any child's upkeep. No, what we have here is an opportunistic bitch trying to glom onto part of WHB's money.
According to the article, WFB:
He specifically excluded his youngest grandchild from his will. I don't care whether a common legal term was used to do it.
I don't know that we can draw that conclusion from this fiasco. People like Buckley do not write a will in a whimsical fashion; they put it together with the input of skilled attorneys, trust officers, investment advisors, etc. Everyone works on it. We do not know whether it was written more than eight years ago--that is, before the child was born.
But think of this: if a large sum of money had been left to the little boy, that money would immediately go into the control of his mother, who could then use it against Christopher Buckley. William Buckley would then in a sense be giving this woman ammunition to use against his own son. Would that make sense?
The course of wisdom would normally be to leave the money to Christopher and trust that Christopher would find the best way to take care of his son, presumably when the boy reaches 18 or 21, and Mom is no longer an issue. But giving money outright to very young children is rarely a good idea. The best thing for this child would be a trust to be administered by a disinterested person, perhaps the trust officer at the Buckleys' bank.
By all accounts this unfortunate child's mother is a grasping harpy. Until I hear otherwise I'll assume the best of both fathers, since our society is generally so anti-father.
WB specifically disinherited the child and said that he considered the "so-called" Jonathan to have predeceased him (in other words, WB regarded him as dead). How would you feel if your grandfather said that about you? And how would you feel, as this child's father, if your own father - your child's grandfather - had said that? No wonder CB is screwed up on this one.
“The best thing for this child would be a trust to be administered by a disinterested person, perhaps the trust officer at the Buckleys’ bank.”
Why didn’t WFB go ahead and set up a trust for this grandchild that he would inherit when he was 25 or so? That would have been the decent thing to do.
Ummm, $36,000 a year will get him a 1st class private school, and if deemed by the judge, it will take some more jack to help him. The fact remains that Junior has shirked his duty to his son, and just sending cash ain’t the answer, but only a small part of the total quotient of being a DAD !! We don’t need to know the whole story of this kid’s parents, and quite frankly I don’t care to, but to deny any child his birthright and his support as a father is to deny the child a happy and healthy childhood. Junior remains a jerk in my book.
Common legal term or not...with an estate valued at 30 million, a trust fund of 100k (for his college education) would be the proverbial drop in the bucket.
WFB was in the media...and should have been aware how ugly this would look to outsiders...but I always got such a sense of WFB being ‘better’ than the masses so I guess this keeps with his persona.
Lets hope the 3k will cover braces as well. WFB had awful (dare I say British) teeth. Don’t the uber riche believe in orthodontia?
Three thousand dollars a month for 18 (or 21?, or 25?) years is a lot more than $100K. The child support was set and agreed to based on Christopher Buckley's means at the time the agreement was reached. Subsequent to this time Christopher Buckley came into some more money because his father, Wm. Buckley, chose to bequeath it to him. What Chris Buckley now chooses to do with his money is his business. $3K per month is what was agreed to for the kid and that is that.
Cute kid. Supposing he turned out to be a better Buckley than his missing in action Dad. This is so sad.
I did not know that, and I find it horrifying. It does change my view of WFB.
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