Born: 24 November, 1925, in New York. Died: 27 February, 2008, in Stamford, Connecticut, aged 82. WILLIAM Buckley marshalled polysyllabic exuberance, arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to
the centre of American political discourse.
Buckley, with his winningly capricious personality, his unashamed verbosity and darting tongue, was the popular host of one of US television's longest-running programmes, Firing Line, and founded and shepherded the influential conservative magazine National Review.
He also wrote more than 50 books, from sailing odysseys to spy novels to dissertations on harpsichord fingering to celebrations of his own dashing life. He edited at least five more.
In 2007, he published a history of the magazine called Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription and a political novel, The Rake.
The more than 4.5 million words of his 5,600 newspaper columns, titled "On the Right", would fill 45 more medium-size books. His collected papers, which were donated to Yale, weigh seven tonnes.
Buckley's greatest achievement was making conservatism respectable in liberal post-war United States. He mobilised the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Senator Barry Goldwater as Republican candidate in the 1964 elections and saw his dreams fulfilled when Ronald Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office.
The liberal primacy Buckley challenged had begun with the New Deal in the 1930s and accelerated in the next generation
Buckley declared war on this liberal order, beginning with his blistering assault on Yale, from which he graduated with honours in 1950, as a den of atheistic collectivism.
Buckley wove the tapestry of what became the new American conservatism from libertarian writers, "free market" economists, traditionalist scholars and anti-Communist writers. He argued for a conservatism based on the national interest and a higher morality.
He found his most receptive audience in young conservatives energised by Barry Goldwater's emergence at the Republican convention in 1960 as the right-wing alternative to Richard Nixon. Some met in September 1960 at the Buckley family home to form Young Americans for Freedom. Their numbers – and influence – grew.
Writer and journalist Nicholas Lemann observed in 1988 that during the Reagan administration "the 5,000 middle-level officials, journalists and policy intellectuals that it takes to run a government" were "deeply influenced by Buckley's example". He suggested that neither moderate Washington insiders nor "provincial conservatives" could have pulled off the Reagan tax cut and other policy transformations.
Buckley rose to prominence with a generation of talented writers fascinated by political themes – people with names like Mailer, Capote, Vidal, Styron and Baldwin. Like the others, he was a magnet for controversy. Even people on the right frequently pounced on him.
People of many political stripes came to see his life as something of an art form – from racing through city streets on a motorcycle to a quixotic 1965 campaign for mayor of New York to voicing startling opinions such as decriminalising marijuana. He was often described as liberals' favourite conservative.
Buckley's vocabulary, sparkling with phrases from distant eras and described in newspaper and magazine profiles as sesquipedalian (characterised by the use of long words), became the stuff of legend. Less kind commentators preferred the adjective "pleonastic" (using more words than necessary).
And there was an air of pure mischief. In 1985, a Washington Post columnist wrote: "He has the eyes of a child who has just displayed a horrid use for the microwave oven and the family cat."
William Francis Buckley was the sixth of ten children of Aloise Steiner Buckley and William Frank Buckley.
The elder Buckley made a small fortune in the oil fields of Mexico and Venezuela and educated his children with personal tutors. They also attended exclusive Roman Catholic schools in England and France.
At 14, he followed his brothers to a preparatory school 15 miles across the New York line from the family home.
In his spare time at Millbrook, young Bill typed schoolmates' papers for them, charging $1 a paper, with a 25-cent surcharge for correcting the grammar.
He graduated from Millbrook in 1943, then spent half a year at the University of Mexico studying Spanish, which had been his first language. He served in the army from 1944-6 and managed to make second lieutenant.
Buckley then entered Yale, where he studied political science, economics and history; established himself as a fearsome debater; was elected chairman of the Yale Daily News; and joined Skull and Bones, the university's most prestigious secret society.
As a senior, he was given the honour of delivering the speech for Yale's Alumni Day celebration, but was replaced after Yale's administration objected to his strong attacks on the university. He responded by writing his critique in the book that brought him to national attention, in part because he gave the publisher, Regnery, $10,000 to advertise it.
Published in 1951, God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of "Academic Freedom" charged the powers at Yale with being atheistic and collectivist and called for the firing of faculty members who advocated values out of line with what he saw as Yale's traditional values.
After a year in the Central Intelligence Agency in Mexico City, Buckley went to work for the American Mercury magazine, but resigned to write on his own.
Over the next few years, he worked as a freelance writer and lecturer and wrote a second book with his brother-in-law Brent Bozell. Published in 1954, McCarthy and His Enemies was a sturdy defence of the Wisconsin senator who was then at the height of his campaign against communists, liberals and the Democratic Party. The book made the New York Times best-seller list.
In 1955, Buckley started National Review as a voice for "the disciples of truth, who defend the organic moral order". The first issue claimed the publication "stands athwart history yelling Stop".
Buckley's personal visibility was magnified by his Firing Line programme, which ran from 1966-99. There were exchanges on foreign policy with Norman Thomas, on feminism with Germaine Greer and on race relations with James Baldwin. Not a few viewers thought Buckley's toothy grin before he scored a point resembled nothing so much as a switchblade.
At 50, Buckley sailed the Atlantic and became a novelist. Eleven of his novels are spy tales featuring Blackford Oakes, who fights for the American way and beds the Queen in the first book.
Others of his books included a historical novel with Elvis Presley as a significant character, another about the Nuremberg trials, a reasoned critique of antisemitism and journals dramatising a life of taste and wealth – his own.
Buckley's spirit of fun was apparent in his 1965 campaign for mayor of New York on the ticket of the Conservative Party. When asked what he would do if he won, he answered: "Demand a recount." He got 13.4 per cent of the vote.
In his last years, Buckley loosened his grip on his intellectual empire. In 1998, he ended his frenetic schedule of public speeches, about 70 a year over 40 years, he once estimated. In 1999, he stopped Firing Line, and in 2004 he relinquished his voting stock in National Review. He wrote his last spy novel, sold his yacht and stopped playing the harpsichord publicly.
His wife, Patricia, died in 2007. He is survived by their son, three sisters, two brothers and two grandchildren.
The full article contains 1230 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
