PREFACE
1. George Weigel, “Remembering Bill Buckley,” posted on “The Catholic Difference” at eppc.org, April 9, 2008.
2. Reverend George W. Rutler, “Bethany Was Near Jerusalem,” homily at the Memorial of William F. Buckley Jr., St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City, April 4, 2008.
3. A contribution by Nicholas Lemann to a retrospective in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Before Goldwater or Reagan, There Was Buckley,” February 27, 2008.
4. Christopher Buckley, “A Eulogy for My Father,” St. Patrick’s Cathedral, April 4, 2008.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Michael Barone, “Buckley: A History Changer,” U.S. News & World Report, February 28, 2008.
8. Henry A. Kissinger, “Last Voyage,” St. Patrick’s Cathedral, April 4, 2008.
9. Ibid.
10. Rush Limbaugh, “Buckley Was My Greatest Inspiration,” Newsmax.com, February 27, 2008; also, “Rush Accepts Media Research Center’s ‘William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence,’” RushLimbaugh. com, March 30, 2007.
11. William Kristol, “The Indispensable Man,” New York Times, March 3, 2008.
12. Michael Kinsley, “Kinsley on Intellectual Honesty,” Slate, February 28, 2008.
13. “William F. Buckley Jr., Champion of Conservatism, Dies at 82,” International Herald Tribune, February 27, 2008.
14. Christopher Hitchens, “A Man of Incessant Labor,” Weekly Standard, March 10, 2008.
15. Tim Russert, “A Singular Force in American Life,” from a lecture at Notre Dame University, April 14, 2008, quoted at phibetacons.nationalreview.com.
16. Christopher Westley, “William Buckley’s Permanent Thing,” LewRockwell.com, February 28, 2008; Lew Rockwell, “William F. Buckley, Jr., RIP,” LewRockwell.com/blog, February 27, 2008.
17. Paul Gottfried, “Marvels and Missed Opportunities,” takimag.com, March 5, 2008.
18. “William F. Buckley Jr., Champion of Conservatism, Dies at 82,” International Herald Tribune.
CHAPTER 1
1. Linda Bridges and John R. Coyne Jr., Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), 10.
2. John B. Judis, William F. Buckley Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 31.
3. Ibid., 31–32.
4. William F. Buckley Jr., Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004), 6.
5. Bridges and Coyne, 10.
6. Ibid., 12.
7. Judis, 40.
8. Buckley, Miles Gone By, 28, 35.
9. Judis, 36; William F. Buckley Jr., Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith (New York: Doubleday, 1997), xx.
10. Priscilla L. Buckley and William F. Buckley Jr., eds., W. F. B.—An Appreciation by His Family and Friends (New York: Privately Printed, 1950), 243.
11. Ibid., 244.
12. Lee Edwards, Reading the Right Books: A Guide for the Intelligent Conservative (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2007), 14.
13. Ibid.
14. WFB Jr. to Henry Regnery, July 8, 1963, Henry Regnery Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California.
15. Bridges and Coyne, 13.
16. Judis, 48.
17. Ibid., 50.
18. Ibid., 51.
19. Ibid., 54.
20. “Mr. Truman’s Complex,” editorial, Yale Daily News, May 14, 1949.
21. “For the Republican Conclave,” Yale Daily News, April 30, 1949.
22. Judis, 71.
23. “A Call for an Indigenous Communist Party,” Yale Daily News, March 23, 1948.
24. “An Easy Out,” Yale Daily News, November 21, 1949.
25. “The Problems at Hand,” Yale Daily News, September 24, 1949; “Needed: A Little Intolerance.” Yale Daily News, October 12, 1949; editor’s note, Yale Daily News, December 12, 1949.
26. Judis, 67.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid, 68.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 75.
31. “Exit,” Yale Daily News, January 20, 1950.
32. Judis, 66.
33. Buckley, Miles Gone By, 105.
34. Bridges and Coyne, 16.
35. Judis, 57.
36. Bridges and Coyne, 16.
37. George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1996), 212.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 214.
40. George W. Carey, “Willmoore Kendall,” American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), 464.
41. Ibid., 465.
42. Ibid.
43. Judis, 61–62.
44. WFB Jr. to Henry Regnery, September 1950, Regnery Papers, Hoover Institution.
45. Carey, 465.
46. Nash, 217.
47. Buckley, Miles Gone By, 58.
48. Judis, 64.
49. John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1938), 25.
50. Bridges and Coyne, 18.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Judis, 69.
54. William F. Buckley Jr., “Patricia Taylor Buckley, R. I. P.,” National Review, May 14, 2007.
55. Ibid, 80.
56. Arthur Koestler in Andre Gide, Richard Wright, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, and Louis Fischer, The God That Failed (New York: Bantam Books, 1959), 54.
57. WFB to James Burnham, undated circa 1970, James Burnham Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California.
58. Ibid.
59. Henry Regnery to WFB Jr., October 26, 1951, Regnery Papers, Hoover Institution.
60. Buckley, Miles Gone By, 74.
61. Bridges and Coyne, 23.
62. William F. Buckley Jr., God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1951), 113.
63. Judis, 86.
64. William F. Buckley Jr., “Harvard Hogs the Headlines,” Human Events, May 16, 1951.
65. William F. Buckley Jr. to E. Victor Milione, June 6, 1960, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
66. Frank Chodorov to WFB, December 5, 1951, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale.
67. Judis, 92.
68. Ibid., 98.
69. Lee Edwards, Educating for Liberty: The First Half-Century of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003), 11–12, 14.
70. Nash, 133.
71. Judis, 114.
72. Ibid., 112.
73. Ibid., 117.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid., 118.
76. WFB Jr. to James Burnham, memorandum undated, circa 1957, James Burnham Papers, Hoover Institution.
77. Nash, 98–99.
78. Lee Edwards, The Conservative Revolution: The Movement That Remade America (New York: The Free Press, 1999), 36.
79. William F. Buckley Jr. and L. Brent Bozell, McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1954), 335.
80. Judis, 110.
81. Ibid.
82. William F. Buckley Jr., “Tail Gunner Joe,” A Hymnal: The Controversial Arts (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978), 156.
83. Sam Tanenhaus, “W. F. Buckley’s Auto-Revisionism,” Fortune, June 7, 1999.
84. William F. Buckley Jr., “Tailgunner Ann,” Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2003.
85. William F. Buckley Jr., “The Party and the Deep Blue Sea,” Commonweal, January 25, 1952, 392–93.
CHAPTER 2
1. Nash, 142.
2. Robert H. W. Welch Jr. to Victor Lasky, October 26, 1955, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale. Lasky, a prominent anti-Communist author, wrote Welch asking for a statement supporting National Review.
3. J. Howard Pew to WFB, November 7, 1955, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
4. Judis, 129.
5. Nash, 146.
6. WFB to Russell Kirk, September 14, 1955, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale.
7. Judis, 126.
8. Jeffrey Hart, The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2005), 12–13.
9. Buckley, Miles Gone By, 317.
10. Whittaker Chambers, Witness (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1987), 11–12.
11. Nash, 134.
12. Ibid., 135.
13. William F. Buckley Jr., “Memorandum Re: A New Magazine,” circa 1954, Regnery Papers, Hoover Institution.
14. Ibid.
15. Bridges and Coyne, 41.
16. Ibid.
17. The National Review Reader, edited by John Chamberlain (New York: The Bookmailer, 1975), 24; Judis, 141; Bridges and Coyne, 43.
18. Nash, 138.
19. Ibid., 140.
20. Ibid., 139.
21. Linda Bridges to the author via email, December 1, 2008.
22. Jeffrey Hart, “Dazzler,” National Review, March 24, 2008, 34.
23. Jameson Campaigne Jr. to the author, March 23, 1998.
24. Nicole Hoplin and Ron Robinson, Funding Fathers: The Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2008), 79.
25. Dom Damian Kearney, “Some Recollections of William F. Buckley at Yale and Portsmouth,” Portsmouth Abbey School Bulletin, Summer 2008, 41.
26. William F. Buckley Jr., Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches (Roseville, CA: Forum, 2000), xxvii.
27. Zachary Cook, “Buckley Brings Wit to Conservatism, to Chapin,” Williams Record, April 23, 1993.
28. Willliam F. Buckley Jr., Up from Liberalism (New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1959), 5, 197.
29. Ibid., 202–3.
30. Bridges and Coyne, 45.
31. Ibid., 46.
32. Ibid., 47.
33. Frank S. Meyer to William F. Buckley Jr., and other senior NR editors, May 10, 1960, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
34. James Burnham to William F. Buckley Jr., October 9, 1960, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
35. “National Review and the 1960 Elections,” National Review, October 22, 1960, 234.
36. Judis, 175.
37. For an extended discussion of the Sharon Conference, see John A. Andrew III, The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 53–74.
38. Ibid., 190.
39. Memorandum of William F. Buckley Jr., January 21, 1957, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
40. Ibid.
41. William F. Buckley Jr., “Ayn Rand, R. I. P.,” Right Reason (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1985), 410.
42. Whittaker Chambers, “Big Sister Is Watching You,” National Review, December 28, 1957, 594–596.
43. Nash, 144–45.
44. William F. Buckley Jr., “Notes Toward an Empirical Definition of Conservatism,” in William F. Buckley Jr., The Jeweler’s Eye: A Book of Irresistible Political Reflections (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968), 18–19, 21–22.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., 27, 30.
47. William A. Rusher, The Rise of the Right (New York: Morrow, 1984), 117.
48. “John Birch Society,” American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, edited by Bruce Frohnen, Jeremy Beer, and Jeffrey O. Nelson (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2006), 456; William F. Buckley Jr., “Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me,” Commentary, March 2008.
49. “The Question of Robert Welch,” National Review, February 13, 1962, 83–88.
50. Bridges and Coyne, 75.
51. Judis, 173.
52. Hart, 321; Nash, 338.
53. Introduction by John O’Sullivan in William F. Buckley Jr., In Search of Anti-Semitism (New York: Continuum, 1992), xi–xii.
54. Bridges and Coyne, 271, 324. .
55. Joseph Sobran, “How I Was Fired by Bill Buckley,” mecfilms.com/universe c 1994; “The Real Bill Buckley,” Griffin Internet Syndicate, May 30, 2006.
56. Jonathan Tobin, “Bill Buckley and the Jews,” Jewish World Review, March 3, 2008.
57. Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 194.
58. Bridges and Coyne, 81.
59. Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 107.
60. See L. Brent Bozell, “Freedom or Virtue?” National Review, September 11, 1962, 181.
61. John Adams, letter to Mercy Warren, April 16, 1776, as quoted in The Founders’ Almanac, ed. Matthew Spalding (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2002), 207–8.
62. Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 108.
63. Nash, 161.
64. William F. Buckley Jr., “Notes Toward an Empirical Definition of Conservatism,” What Is Conservatism? edited by Frank S. Meyer (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 226.
65. William F. Buckley Jr., “Who Won? They Did,” November 4, 1962.
66. Bridges and Coyne, 74.
67. Judis, 208.
68. Ibid., 209.
69. William F. Buckley Jr., Rumbles Left and Right: A Book About Troublesome People and Ideas (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963), 68
70. Ibid., 59.
71. Ibid., 86.
72. Judis, 179.
CHAPTER 3
1. As recounted by Buckley biographer Linda Bridges to the author, December 15, 2008.
2. WFB interview with the author, November 15, 1994, New York City.
3. Bridges and Coyne, 79.
4. Ibid., 80.
5. Judis, 218.
6. “The Sniper,” Time, November 3, 1967, 71.
7. Bridges and Coyne, 83.
8. Nash, 273.
9. See Judis, 228, regarding Buckley’s intention to ask Goldwater to withdraw if he lost the California primary; and Lee Edwards, Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1995), 228, for F. Clifton White’s evaluation of the Goldwater delegates.
10. Judis, 228.
11. Ibid., 230–31.
12. Ibid., 232.
13. Ibid.
14. WFB to Barry Goldwater, November 4, 1964, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
15. According to Henry Regnery in his letter to WFB, November 24, 1975, Regnery Papers, Hoover Archives, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.
16. Judis, 234.
17. John O’Sullivan, “Man of Thought, Man of Action,” National Review, March 24, 2008, 24.
18. Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 146.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 147.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 148.
23. Ibid., 149.
24. Bridges and Coyne, 96.
25. “The Sniper,” 70.
26. See WFB’s summary of these “interviews” in William F. Buckley Jr., On the Firing Line: The Public Life of Our Public Figures (New York: Random House, 1989), xxxii.
27. Ibid., xxx.
28. Ibid., 448.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 449–50.
31. Ibid., 464–65.
32. Judis, 259.
33. Hart, 171.
34. Judis, 268–70.
35. Hart, 176.
36. Bridges and Coyne, 111–12.
37. Judis, 293–94.
38. Hart, 181.
39. Judis, 279.
40. Bill Rusher Memo to WFB and other NR editors, October 26, 1965, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
41. Ibid., 283–85.
42. Bridges and Coyne, 138.
43. Ibid., 143.
44. William F. Buckley Jr., United Nations Journal: A Delegate’s Odyssey (New York: Anchor Books, 1977), xxv.
45. Ibid., 237.
46. Bridges and Coyne, 147.
47. Judis, 360.
48. WFB to Ronald Reagan, October 24, 1973; WFB to Reagan, July 29, 1974, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
49. Ronald Reagan to WFB, February 6, 1974, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
50. Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 179.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid., 183.
53. Ibid., 188.
54. Judis, 369.
55. Ibid., 379.
56. Ibid.
57. Richard A. Viguerie, The New Right: We’re Ready to Lead (Falls Church, VA: The Viguerie Company, 1980), 41–42.
58. Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 193.
59. Judis, 326–27.
60. William F. Buckley Jr., Four Reforms: A Guide for the Seventies (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973), 16, 31.
61. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Prescription from a Man Who Doesn’t Trust Government,” New York Times Book Review, January 13, 1974.
62. Ibid.
63. Buckley, Four Reforms, 85.
64. Ibid., 104.
65. Ibid., Inside Back Cover.
66. Linda Bridges, “The Irrepressible,” National Review, March 24, 2008, 48.
67. Brian Domitrovic, “A Time for Action: William F. Buckley, National Review, and the Defeat of Stagflation,” Intercollegiate Review, Fall 2008, 34–43; Buckley, On the Firing Line, 286.
68. Buckley, Miles Gone By, 344.
69. Ibid., 346–347.
70. Christopher Buckley, “My Old Man and the Sea,” Portsmouth Abbey School, Summer Bulletin 2008, 42.
71. Ibid., 45.
72. Ibid.
CHAPTER 4
1. William F. Buckley Jr., The Reagan I Knew (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 5.
2. Ibid.
3. See the appendix of Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Rockville, MD: Arc Manor, 2008), 71.
4. Judis, 382.
5. William F. Buckley Jr., “Remarks (Excerpted) at the Anniversary Dinner,” National Review, December 5, 1975.
6. Judis, 283–84.
7. Edwards, The Conservative Revolution, 189.
8. Alfred S. Regnery, Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism (New York: Threshold Editions, 2008), 266–67.
9. Lee Edwards, A Brief History of the Modern American Conservative Movement (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2004), 67.
10. Bridges and Coyne, 192.
11. Austin Ranney, The American Elections of 1980 (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1981), 31.
12. Bridges and Coyne, 207.
13. Ibid., 210.
14. Judis, 416–17.
15. Ibid., 421.
16. William F. Buckley Jr., “The Animating Indiscretions of Ronald Reagan,” excerpted from Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches (Roseville, CA: Forum, 2000), 457–64.
17. Buckley, Rumbles Left and Right, 134.
18. “Start of a New Era,” U.S. News & World Report, November 17, 1980, 21–66, 90–110; “That Winning Smile,” Time, November 17, 1980, 20–24ff; “Election Special,” Newsweek, November 17, 1980, 27–34ff.
19. Judis, 425.
20. Ibid., 431.
21. Ibid., 435.
22. Hart, 263–64.
23. Ibid., 272–73.
24. Ibid., 281.
25. Ibid., 282.
26. Geoffrey Smith, Reagan and Thatcher (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 146; Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 739.
27. Buckley, “The Courage of Friedrich Hayek,” Let Us Talk of Many Things, 233.
28. “Moral Distinctions and Modern Warfare,” in ibid., 298.
29. Bridges and Coyne, 233.
30. Ibid., 235.
31. Judis, 432.
32. Bridges and Coyne, 236.
33. Judis, 445.
34. Ibid., 452.
35. Bridges and Coyne, 248.
36. Lee Edwards, The Essential Ronald Reagan: A Profile in Courage, Justice, and Wisdom (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 123.
37. William F. Buckley Jr., “Nice Try,” Universal Press Syndicate, September 15, 1987.
38. Lee Edwards, To Preserve and Protect: The Life of Edwin Meese III (Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, 2005), 86.
39. William F. Buckley Jr., “Understanding Meese,” Universal Press Syndicate, October 28, 1986.
40. Buckley, The Reagan I Knew, 205–6.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., 209.
43. WFB notes of a telephone conversation between President Ronald Reagan and Buckley, September 1987, Buckley-Reagan Correspondence, Offices of National Review.
44. Bridges and Coyne, 257–58.
45. Edwards, The Essential Ronald Reagan, 147.
46. As confirmed in an email from Mal Kline to the author, January 4, 2010. Kline is an unofficial Boswell to Evans, who has used the cesspool/ hot-tub analogy for years.
47. For a detailed examination of the breakup, see Richard Brookhiser, Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement (New York: Basic Books, 2009).
48. Buckley, “Time to Go to Bed,” Let Us Talk of Many Things, 362.
49. Bridges and Coyne, 272.
50. Ibid, 278.
51. O’Sullivan, “Man of Thought, Man of Action,” 26.
52. Buckley, “The Greatness of James Burnham,” Let Us Talk of Many Things, 271.
53. William F. Buckley Jr., “Russell Kirk, RIP,” National Review, May 30, 1994.
54. William F. Buckley Jr, “Standing Athwart,” National Review, December 11, 1995.
55. Ibid.
56. Bridges and Coyne, 299–300.
57. Interview with Rich Lowry, November 19, 2008, Washington, DC.
58. Rich Lowry, “A Personal Retrospective: NR and Its Founder,” National Review Online, November 17, 2005.
59. Rich Lowry, Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003), 164.
60. Bridges and Coyne, 300.
61. William J. Bennett quote, inside flap, and Charles W. Colson quote, back cover, Buckley, Nearer, My God.
62. Ibid., 159–60.
63. Ibid., 276.
64. William F. Buckley Jr., “Barry Goldwater, RIP,” National Review, June 22, 1998.
65. Barry Goldwater to WFB, February 24, 1983; WFB to Goldwater, March 17, 1983, Buckley Papers, Sterling Library, Yale University.
66. Buckley, “Preserving the Heritage,” Let Us Talk of Many Things, 465–66.
67. Buckley, “The Genesis of Blackford Oakes,” Let Us Talk of Many Things, 315.
68. William F. Buckley Jr., “Ronald Reagan: 1911–2004,” National Review, June 28, 2004.
69. Buckley, The Reagan I Knew, 241.
70. Bridges and Coyne, 3.
CHAPTER 5
1. Buckley first used the formulation publicly in late 2005 in a Wall Street Journal interview but had privately used it before. Email from Linda Bridges to the author, January 4, 2010.
2. William F. Buckley Jr., “War on Hussein,” Universal Press Syndicate, September 14, 2001.
3. William F. Buckley Jr., “Killing Bin Laden Won’t Do,” Universal Press Syndicate, October 5, 2001.
4. William F. Buckley Jr., “Evidence Against Iraq?” Universal Press Syndicate, October 9, 2001.
5. Rich Lowry, “A New Middle East,” National Review Online, June 25, 2002.
6. William F. Buckley Jr., “Bush at the UN: Thoughts Said and UN Said,” Universal Press Syndicate, October 13, 2002.
7. Buckley, “War on Hussein.”
8. William F. Buckley Jr., “Great Words from W,” Universal Press Syndicate, October 2, 2003.
9. David Frum, “Unpatriotic Conservatives: A War Against America,” National Review, April 7, 2003, 40; David Keene, “Big Tent Needed for Conservatives of Every Stripe,” Hill, June 3, 2003.
10. Owen Harries, “What Conservative Means,” American Conservative, November 17, 2003.
11. William F. Buckley Jr., “‘Lessons to Take,’” Universal Press Syndicate, July 2, 2004.
12. Editorial, “An End to Illusion,” National Review, April 16, 2004.
13. William F. Buckley Jr., “Should We Have Gone to War?” Universal Press Syndicate, July 13, 2004; David D. Kirkpatrick, “National Review Founder Says It’s Time to Leave Stage,” New York Times, June 29, 2004.
14. Buckley, “Should We Have Gone to War?”
15. Lew Rockwell, “The Great Conservative Hoax,” May 8, 2006 (as reprinted in the Huffington Post, December 30, 2009).
16. For the Buckley-Podhoretz exchange, see Josh Marshall, talking-pointsmemo.com, June 25, 2007.
17. Editorial, “The Day That Binds,” National Review, June 29, 2005.
18. “George Will and William F. Buckley,” This Week, ABC News, October 9, 2005.
19. Joseph Rago, “Old School: William F. Buckley Explains Why He Thinks Conservatism Has Become ‘a Little Bit Slothful,’” Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2005.
20. Ibid.
21. Jeffrey Hart, “Right at the End: William F. Buckley’s Last Gift to Conservatism May Have Been His Opposition to the Iraq War,” American Conservative, March 24, 2008.
22. WFB’s statement to Evan Galbraith is from the author’s interview with Rich Lowry, November 19, 2008. For the quotation about the surge, see William F. Buckley Jr., “Yes or No to Bush?” National Review Online, January 15, 2007.
23. Rich Lowry, “The End of Illusion, Part II,” King Features Syndicate, September 19, 2008.
24. Bridges and Coyne, 323.
25. William F. Buckley Jr., Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country (New York: Random House, 1990), 155.
26. William F. Buckley, Jr., “Patricia Taylor Buckley, R. I. P.,” National Review, May 14, 2007.
27. William F. Buckley Jr., “My Smoking Confessional,” Universal Press Syndicate, December 3, 2007.
28. William F. Buckley Jr., remarks at the awards banquet of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Washington, DC, June 12, 2007.
29. Lee Edwards, “Catholic Maverick,” Crisis, February 1995, 40–41.
30. Interview with Rich Lowry, November 19, 2008.
31. Terry Eastland, “The Gift of Friendship,” Weekly Standard, March 10, 2008.
32. Bill Steigerwald, “William F. Buckley—A Nov. 14, 2007 Interview,” Townhall.com.
33. William F. Buckley Jr., “Fowlerspeak—Goodspeak,” Universal Press Syndicate, February 1, 2008.
34. George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” Horizon, April 1946.
35. Lee Edwards, “Principled and Pilloried,” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2008.
36. William F. Buckley Jr., Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 121.
37. Anthony Dick, “Apolitico,” National Review, March 24, 2008, 60.
38. Ronald Reagan to WFB, November 24, 1994, Buckley-Reagan Correspondence, Offices of National Review, New York City.
39. Buckley, The Reagan I Knew, 111.
CODA
1. Interview with William A. Rusher, September 11, 2008.
2. Interview with Rich Lowry, November 19, 2008.
3. Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Gratitude,” National Review Online, November 26, 2008.
4. Interviews with Thomas L. (Dusty) Rhodes, November 6, 2008, and Frances Bronson, November 6, 2008.
5. Interview with Jay Nordlinger, November 6, 2008.
6. Interview with Kate O’Beirne, October 27, 2008.
7. Daniel Oliver, “Bill Buckley: A Life ‘On the Right,’” from remarks delivered at the Heritage Foundation’s thirty-first annual Resource Bank, Atlanta, Georgia, April 24, 2008, and reprinted in the Summer 2008 issue of Insider, a Heritage publication.