STRICTLY RIGHT: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. AND THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT (book review)

Washington Times ^ | WILLIAM F. GAVIN

[Valin]

How do you solve a problem like Bill Buckley? He has always been easy to caricature -- the eloquent eyebrows and the aristocratic drawl, with its lord-of-the-manor tone -- but difficult to analyze. Prolific writer, great editor, nonpareil debater, television celebrity, expert skier, gifted harpsichord player, ready wit (rapier or stiletto style, take your choice), popular lecturer, political guru, an ideological warrior who distrusts ideology: Just who, and what, is this guy? A brilliant dilettante with Attention Deficit Disorder or a Renaissance man overflowing with talent and ideas?

His obvious delight in debate, his knack for writing entertaining escapist fiction, his defense of religious orthodoxy and his gifts as an intellectual gadfly have always reminded me of G.K. Chesterton. But in "Strictly Right," co-authors Linda Bridges and John R. Coyne, Jr. make a strong case that Mr. Buckley may well be the single most influential non-elected American political figure in the last half of the 20th century.

He was a necessary, if not sufficient, cause of the political rebirth of conservatism, and his insistence on the moral and cultural importance of traditional conservatism, from the very beginning of National Review magazine in 1955, laid the groundwork for the defense of conservative values when the culture wars began.

Mr. Coyne (my friend for many years) and Ms. Bridges, former National Review colleagues, give us an insiders' look at the Buckley phenomenon. For conservatives, reading "Strictly Right" is like being present at a family reunion where two informed and articulate relatives regale us with anecdotes about family lore, and gossip about family feuds.

[Always Right]

Prolific writer, great editor, nonpareil debater...

I don't know. I saw then governor Ronald Reagan mop the floor with Buckley on a debate over giving away the Panama Canal.

[Always Right]

 

June 08, 2004, 12:50 p.m.
Little Memories
Remembering Ronald Reagan.
 

Q.: You knew him well, right? Even back when he was still a Democrat?

A: Yes. It happened one night. It was his job to introduce me, as the evening's speaker, to a group of California doctors. He acted like a gymnast out of Barnum and Bailey. The control room for the loudspeakers had been left locked. Nobody could find the janitor. So he cat-walked above the traffic to the window of the control room and smashed it open with his elbow, turning on the juice, the show must go on. Nice preview of Reagan, policymaker.

Q: You became friends and stayed friends, right?

A: Right again. He befriended people, as his volume of letters attests, all the time, and kept up with his friends through letters and other communications. Last week I heard from Mrs. Alistair Cooke, the widow of the British Mr. America, that she really "hated" Reagan until she read those letters. And that volume came out only a couple of years ago.

Q: How was it when there was disagreement?

A: It was sometimes vigorous, but never sundering. For instance, he was opposed to ratifying the Panama Canal Treaty, and we debated the subject for two hours on television, each of us with illustrious assistants. We punched each other pretty hard. A couple of months later I was scheduled for dinner at his home in Bel Air. He got me on the telephone: "Drive slowly up the drive, real slow." I did — and came upon, every twenty yards, huge hand-drawn signs: "WE BUILT IT." "WE PAID FOR IT." "IT'S OURS!"

Q: Did he offer you a job when he became president?

A: Yes/No. I had written him during the campaign that I didn't want a job. He answered back that he was disappointed: "I've had it in mind to appoint you ambassador to Afghanistan."

[Valin]

Page 201
“On the buckley team were James Burnham and George Will as debaters and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former CNO, as military expert. On the Reagan team were Pat Buchanan...Rodger Fontaine, a Latin American scholar, and Admiral John McCain...
The debate dissappointed no one, from the opening question to the rebuttals. Reagan began with this: “Well Bill my firdt question is why haven’t you already rushed across the room here to tell me that you’ve seen the light?”
Buckley’s responce: “I’m afraid if I came any closer to you the force of my illumination would blind you.”

(For what it’s worth) I didn’t have a real problem with the treaty.

[Always Right]

That was a rather witty line by Buckley, but that had little to do with the meat of the debate. I have looked for a transcript online, but did not find one. I remember that it was rebroadcasted several years back and was amazed how Reagan as a governor had superior knowledge of the facts on international issues than such an intellect as Buckley. I am probably bias as I like Reagan more than Buckley and agreed with Reagan on this issue, but Reagan more than held his own.

[Rightfootforward]

“....Mr. Buckley may well be the single most influential non-elected American political figure in the last half of the 20th century.”

Let us not kid ourselves. The modern conservative movement didn’t begin with Goldwater, it began with Buckley. His first book, God and Man at Yale, was published in 1951. In 1955 he launched National Review magazine, which remains in publication to this day.

I have no problem with any of those facts. I simply wish they were more commonly and honestly acknowledged.