WFB “retired” from the CIA.
It was only when I got older and wiser that I realized that he never really retired....
William F. Buckley was the champion of Neoconservative ideology. That means an interventionist foreign policy which was needed for the Cold War.
The need for neoconservatives ended with the Cold War.
Now is the time for true conservatives, also called Paleoconservatives. Chronicles magazine is a good start for a subscription list.
CIA people never actually retire except for disability reasons like dementia and such.