il, 1988

BOOKS &

829

ARTS.

Squire Willie
-

.,

on from time to time through

stories
about
him, or ghosted under his
WILLIAM F.BUCKLEY, JR.: Patron
byline, in such mortuary trade journals
Saint of the Conservatives. By
as
and
&
528pp. $22.95.
f it is truethat the evil mendo lives
As for thetwo-bitactorwhoplays
after them, William Francis Buck- Buckley on
Lord knows he
ley can be assured a certain kind of is a poor imitation, thinking hefills the
immortality. Or perhaps it is going part merelybyutteringunintelligible
too far to say that he did evil. That is gibberish through pursed lips while fidprobably too active a word. Perhaps it dling with pencil and clipboard.
would be more accurate to say that he
Many members ofthe general public,
lived off evil, as mold lives off garbage. less gullible than the literati, are beginThe garbage he is particularly associ- ning to suspect that Buckley is a hoax.
ated with is that which began accumulat- For instance, in
a subscribing in the right-wing alley about forty er writes,Morethananythingelse,
years
McCarthyism, which Buckley Buckleyseems amediacreation. . . .
took part inby writing speechesfor Sen- Buckley is likethe man in the aspirinad
ator Joe and by praising with majesteri- who says, Im not a doctor, but I play
one on TV.
al cliches (McCarthyism is a movement
Im not surethat John B. Judis agrees
around which men of goodwill and stern
morality can close ranks); and the long- with my theory about Buckleys death,
of theYoung
forgottenmanifestoes
but Ithinkhedoes,
for his tone, as
for Freedom, a frenzied cam- Buckley would have urged uponhis biogmovement which he helped found rapher, is De
in
and hispiousdefense of the Of course Judis, being a
reporter,
kooks of the John BirchSociety as covers
the key
of Buckleys
some of themostmorallyenergetic
life in
F.
self-sacrificingand dedicated anti-Comof
Cortaervolives: prep schools,
munistsinAmerica.Inthosedays
Yale University, the Army, the Central
Buckley lenthis name-as adviseror Intelligence Agency, his work in
books,
supporterorofficer - to virtuallyevery
role as apologist for Joe McCarthy,
major crackpot right-wing movement in
the founding and operation of the
America, and his ideological soulmates
race for mayor of
were a group that long ago were banGoldNew York, hisflunkying for
ished to historys padded cell:people
waterandRichardNixon
andRonald
like Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker, the Rev. Reagan, his propagandizing for most of
CarlMcIntire,Dan
Smoot, Dr. Fred the
right-wing
governments
of
the
Schwarz, R e d o P. Oliver, the Rev. Billy world, and so forth.
James Hargis, James Wick and simiGoing that route, agoodreporter
lar names, which, if you are a genteel
simply cant
all the time.
person under the age of 45, have prob- But for my money Judis steps muchtoo
gingerlythrough the deepestputresably never passed your lips.
not seem sufficiently
Today Buckley
does
not live off cence and
right-wing garbage or anything else be- notice theodor of, nor seem sufficiently
cause he is quite dead, and has been for repelled by, the dishonesties and sleaziat least fifteen years. At least thatsmy ness and bullying and ideological rubbishbehind Buckleys dandified pose.
theory. But because the rightwing is
sentimentally attached to its old shills, In that sense, his book hastoo much of
Buckley has been put away in hypother- the spirit of a sanitized obituary.
Perhaps the trouble is that it
mal storage in the hopes that medical
science someday will be able to defrost shouldnt bea book. The true highlights
him andreactivate his brain.Meanof character (especially
of a minor
while, the pretense that Buckley lives is actor)tend to getburiedamidbook1968 Garry Wills
lengthblather.In
of Why They turned down a contract to do a book
Call It Politics:
A Guide to Americas
Gov- about Buckley, explainingthat he didnt
ernment
think
Squire
Willie
was
important

ROBERT SHERRILL

enough
the subject of a book.He
was right. Buckley simply isnt that interesting as a topic.In this Age of
Boesky, for example, one finds it difficult to get very excited over even the
shadiersideof
Buckleys career, as
when the securities and Exchange Commission accused him of fraud in a business
deal.
Naturally,
Judis, having
made the mistakeofwritinga
book
about Buckley,wouldhaveus
think
otherwise about his choice of subject.
He claimsitisimpossible
to understand Americanconservatismwithout
understanding Bill Buckleys extraordinary life,but dont believethat, and
I come no closer to being persuaded by
endorsements Judis offers from such
greatjudges of character as Ronald
Reagan, who called Buckley (at a banquet in his honor) the most influential
journalist and intellectual in our era.
Occasionally Judis, apparently
that the air is going out of his tire,
to pumpitupwith
Empowered by an inexhaustible energy and
driven byan insatiable curiosity, writes
Judis, Bill succeeded at everything he
tried. And of course, more
often than
not, his decisions were brilliant. Even
Buckleys dopeyphysicalmannerisms
are presented as probable winnersin the
SpecialOlympicscategory
for facial
contortions:Hisleft
eye twinkled,
while his rightgauged
and
plotted future sentences. But Billof the
dexterouseyeballs isnt the only wonderful person here. Oh no. Sister Priscilla is enormouslycompetent, wife
Pat is a brilliant hostessand
editorJamesBurnham
had
an encyclopedicknowledgeofworld
events. Why, even Buckleys old buddy Whittaker Chambers, whose public
personality was as somber as the ghost
of Hamlets father, turns out to be, una real

a jolly and very friendly

man, as Judis
describes him, or, in the words ofa
editor, a great corpulent
ho-ho sort of guy. I tell you,
that rightwing flock around Buckley
But, alas, all thepumpingfails.Julabors - and they are admirable in
many ways-cannot overcome the
that Buckley
never very important
and for quite a few yearshas been as irrelevant to the political contest of this
country as hisCavalier
Charles
spaniels are to the WestminsterDog
Show or his two Biisendorfer pianos
are

830

11, 1988

to the Van Cliburn playoffs.

Let us, usingmaterial from Judiss effort and elsewhere, give this unpleasant
fellow an obituary rendered down to the
proper length.

was not inducted until July 1944 because of a sinus problem. And when he
was called up, he asked to be placed in
the infantryrather than in the Navy
cause, as he told
father, there will
more chance for me to land a desk
It was a dull but safe
William F. Buckley Jr. was in every job of some
way the son and the ideological creation little war for our hero. After a totally
of his father,
Sr., an oil man whose undistinguished career in officers trainholdings at the time of hisdeath in 1958 ing school (the justice of his being ala matter of some
were estimated at $110 million. Father lowed to graduate
Will - a third-generation Irish-American controversy among his superiors), he
whose
father had been a prosper- spent the rest of World War training
ous merchant politician in Duval Coun- recruits, teachingsexhygiene and fidty, Texas, a county of notoriously corwith counterintelligence.
rupt politics- held all politicians and
Thoroughly coached by his father
the democratic process in contempt. He in racial matters, Buckley stood fourbelieved NaziGermany much lessharm- square against school integration and
ful than Communist Russia. One of black voting rights. He never used the
Sr.3 favorite authors, Albert Jay term master race, but he looked upon
Nock, becamea personal friend and the white race as the advanced race
was often in the Buckley household and he argued thatthe civilizationit
when Bill was growing up. Along with dominated would be undercut if blacks
being antidemocratic, Nock
was,
at were permitted political equality. Judis
least in his later years, W e n t l y anti- says Buckley movedaway from thatposition late in life, but we are given no
Semitic.YoungBuckleyfellunder
Nocksspell and never quit quoting dramatic evidence of a change of heart.
for Jews, anothergroup father
him. Another of Will Sr.sfriends, Merwin K. Hart, was one ofAmericas
Willdespised and taught his son to
most notorious anti-Semites for three despise, Judis insists that by the time
decades.
Buckley got to Yale he had freed himWill
raised Bill and his other nine self from anti-SemitismAs evidence of
children not merely as
Catholics this purification, Judis says Buckley bebut as divinely touched Catholics -a came a close friend of one Tom Guinzsmall select group of individuals who burg
forced a Yale club to accept
are carrying aloft the flame of civialthough its members were
lization in the face of an encroaching cool to the idea. Sure, Buckley tolerated
Dark Age.
Jews, but hedidnt wanthissister to
From these paternal influences, Bill marry one. Literally. When Guinzburg
Buckley emerged spoiled for life. From and Buckleyssister Jane wanted to
a
early age he believed he had a
old man Buckleysaid no way
straight line to God (I can rely on God would a daughter of his ever marry a
in almost any matter), and it was just Jew, and young Bill took their fathers
as well that he had made friends with side. Later inlifeBuckley
did have
the Almighty because he had
friends many Jewishfriends.But
he never
among hisclassmates,
who, we are seemed tembly unhappy with the proptold, considered himobnoxious. Even agandists who perpetuated some of
others in Buckleys own family, accord- the nastiest anti-Semitism. Judis tells
pubing to
Sr., considered him abrat of us that when
unbearably arrogant and dictatorial lished an editorial endorsing the theory
manner.
of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the
ProThe demands Buckley made of oth- world promulgated by the fraudulent
some friends of Buckley
ers, he nexer made of himself. That was tocols of
urged himto dissociate the
particularly true when the flagwent
Others on the
belligerently abroad. Anyone familiar view from the
board argued thatit
wasnt
with Buckleys teachings knows he was
attack anti-Semitic
heartily in favor of sending Americas Buckleys jobto
youths to fight sillywars.But
as for right-wingpublications.Buckleysided
himself, he was anything but enthusias- with the latter group and kept quiet, altic about getting shot at. When World though he did tell hisstaff they couldnt
and the
at
War came along, his brothers joined write for the
up. Not Billy. In November 1943 he the same time.
In that instance, as in several others,
received his draft notice. He waited. He

n,

of

50

A
IS

$39 00

PIX
804D
05055

802/649-1996

11,1988

.
I

831

one may reasonably assume that when regularly showed the benign qualities
we like to admire as womanly. When
editor Buckley was confronted with a
Buckley
was
in officers
candidate
forcedchoicebetweenfollowinghis
principles or
a cash
school,hestoppedhisplatoonin
the
THE
AND
he opted for the latter. I citein evidence midstofmaneuvers
to pick aflower
another episode well told by Judis.
them demerits)-a gesture, its
CARLO
It scems that at fmt, and for several true, that might be associatedwitha
-,ycars, Buckley had
one hell of a hard Wildean character, but with Buckley it
time keeping distance fromthe John probably just representedhisproper
300
$24.95.
Birch society, which he feared- with its contempt for military authority.
is so
theory that Communists were literally in Buckleys most celebrated marathon
origcharge of the government -would bring quarrel was with Gore Vidal.
is
ridicule to everyone on the right wing. inal falling out came as a
of an
in 1%2.
wanted to break with the J.B.S., evening on
but then he discovered, to his alarm On that occasion Buckley called Vidal
(Judiss word), that national council aphilosophicaldegenerate.(Someincluded fellows like Adolphe Menjou
times, of course, you cant tell Buckleys
its
as
and ClarenceManion whowere exuemely enemies from his friends withouta proNorman Mailer, whomBuckley
to the
plusa
counted as a friend, had been favored
coupleofthemagazines
top
and writers
on
societys editori- with the designation moral pervert.)
of
al board, and
of all, the
That feudsimmeredalonguntil
1968,
chief financial supporter, Roger when Buckley and Vidal were hired by
Milliken,
a J.B.S. member.
allegedly as commentators for the A
Uh oh, he better go slow.
mon- Democratic National Convention but in didly
ey wasinvolved,brerBuckleycould
fact as spiteful clowns who were expectto
all
with the best of them, and he ed to spit on each other. And did. The
did in this case. True, he fearedthat the spitting reached a climax in a famous
J.B.S. might lead the right wing toward exchange, Vidalcalling Buckley a cryptoof
fascism; w e , he thoughtthe J.B.S. was
and Buckley calling Vidal a
of
replete with the kookiest of kooks. But queer. Then, losing his cool entirely
life
fellow
Buckley
too cowardly to try straight and threatening to sockVidalin the
off to purge the right of these
He goddam face and youll stay plastered,
of
that Vidal stop
tempered
his
criticism
of Robert Buckleydemanded
1943
allusions ofNaziism to someWelch, head of the J.B.S., we are told,
and aimed thebrunt of
criticism at body who was in the last war and fought
Welchs philosophy
rather
than at the the
a comical upgrading of his
role
in
the
Army.
Birch society itself . Mustnt irritate
YEZIERSKA:
After the Buckley-Vidal encounter,
Mr. Milliken. Indeed, his criticism was
A
so veddy, veddy temperate that Welch Buckleyswife, Pat, howledinpain,
wrote Buckleyto thank him for
Two hundred million Americans think
honorable.
William F. Buckley is screaming
a
318
$20.95.
homosexual and Ivegot to
some
Buckleys attitude toward homosexu- thing about it. Why did she think
als threw a garish light across some of
And what exactly did she have mind
of
the mostpublicized
of
correcttheimpression-aheteroits
career. Why did he feel the way he did sexual demonstration on the tube?
sive
rts
about them? How exactly
heview
Buckley
Vidal reallystarted
social
it
them?Washeinanywaycompcnrollinginthegutter,
or, to be more
lost
and, if
for what? Judis says precise, in
where charges and recovers for
of
letters.
that Tn theearly
that his implicationsfrombothsideswhirled
be around thegenie of homosexuality, and
parentscommissioned,Billcould
mistaken for a pretty little girl. And
wound up with Buckley suing Vidaland
to
he quotes one ofBuckleyschildhood
But, in Judiss words, fearful
A lot of us thought of a jury trial (why fearful7 did he
friends as
he wasa little bit effeminate. other think hewouldlose?we
arent told),
recollections picturehim as not much Buckley settled withm
rie and dropped
a sissy as just bitchy.
up, he a p his
againstVidal.
paida
parently displayed (according to some piddling $15,000 in cash and agreed to
ads,
friends) noneof the phony macho stuff buy $100,000 in
that might hint at a cover-up. Murray which in itself was a kind of corporate 109
Kanpton, a
friend of Buck- act of perversion.
08901
What are we to makeof all that? New
ley,
noted that the private Buckley

132

That Buckley hated queers? Earlier he ous over the outcome, though, was the
had described Vidal as a pink queer. fact that outfits like
York
Perhaps it was the pinkness that Buckand
discussed the case
just a couple
ley hated. He certainlydidnt hate all as a fight between
queers. He was, as their mountainous of yowling alley cats on the right.
correspondence shows, extremely fondof
When Buckley went to Yale, it
the gray q u e Whittaker chambers.He
was an admirer of the purple queer Royprobably the most conservative of Ivygl
Cohn, and of the yellow queer Bob League schools. But father Will looked
it as the centerpiece of the liberal
Bauman, whom he had considereda
comrade in
since the days when establishment, naturally son Bill enhis
they worked together setting up Y.A.F. tered Yale thinking too. Here
Andspecial mention should be made fvst real training as an exhibitionist: His
Buckleys
of
strange support of stunt was to challenge all things Yalie
the beige queer, AI Lowenstein. In just for the sake of challenge. Buckley
Glve someone you care about a
1976 he endorsed Lowenstein, a liberal
alousy student, but Judis has a
gtft subscrlptlon to The Nation
Democrat,
against
incumbent
Republiready
excuse for that. It wasnt that
In all Ilkellhood, the reclplent wdl
can
Wydler, despite the fact that Buckleys intellect
limited,
no.
get lust as enraged, worked up, and
the
endorsement
gravely
hurt
Buckleys
He
was
just
made
for
livelier
things.
aggravated about the Issues the
brother in
tough fight for re-election Buckley might have excelled as a stumagazlne covers as our regular
subscrlbers do
to theSenate against Daniel Moynihan. dent at Yale, but he was
interested
The Natlon
Buckley endorsed Lowenstein again in scholarship
evenin the playof
covers those Issues wlth a crltlcal
in 1978.
ideas. He liked debating with his prospmt and Independent perspective
Indeed,
as
Judis
notes,
there
was
the
fessors in class, where the response
that set us apart from other publlcanotable presence of several homosexu- immediate, but even during his first two
tlons Whch
als among his closest associates. Sim- and a half
at Yale, before he was
wrttten by such orlgtnal thtnkers as
ply because Buckley proposed that ho- consumed by the
Alexander Cockburn, Chrlstopher
he
Hltchens and Katha Pollltt
mosexualswith
be tattooed on never read beyondwhat wasassigned
And
we cover
upper forearm and ass, does not mean in class.
Our subscribers also enjoy our wrltlng
hedidnt
them. He treated all his
In fact, from earliest manhood Buckon the arts, which IS of such extrafriends
that
way.
Its really surprising ley had the mind of a huckster. And the
ordinary clarlty and mtelltgence that
that he didnt propose having John Ken- only thing he wanted to peddle washimIt alone worth the prlce of a
neth Galbraith and his other liberal self.
he finished at Yale, he asked
subscrlptlon
So maybe you should gweThe
friends tattooedon the forehead, to Archibald MacLeishifhe
thought it
Natron as a glft after all
stop the spread of their plague.
would a good idea to go on tograduJust be sure your relatlonshlp
Buckleys overblown legalbattles had ate school
study politicalscience.
can stand It
a tendency to end on an almost comical MacLeish said yes,becauseitwould
note. In 1980 the weirdos at Liberty help Buckley discover whathe thought.
Lobby sued
for linking Buckleyreplied, NO,IknowwhatI
it to Lyndon LaFfouche. NR counterThe question is whether this will
sued, charging that the Lobby had lihelpful to me as a salesman.
this
beled it by suggesting that the magazine credential help in getting heard?
to
advocated child molestation and was a
Time and again Judis tries, without
close allyof the American
Liber- success, to rescue Buckleys mind from
ty Lobbys lawsuit was thrown out of the obvious measure of its shallowness.
court, but
counter- AI evidenceshowsBuckley
running
OH 43305
suit
went
to
trial.
about an inch deep as student, as jourI THINK MY RELATIONSHIP CAN TAKE IT
24
of
to
folMark Lane, Liberty Lobbys lawyer, nalist, as writer and as lecturer. It is a
lowlng
of
$15
told
thejurythat
trail strewn with gimmickry, little else.
glft
$12 for
gift
since its inception has been a racist, proHis shallownessas a writer was somepro-Fascist publication. It has no thing he settled for gladly, and from
I GIFTTO
good name. That is what this case is
the very start. When he graduated from
about. . . . You must determine what Yale he briefly thought about doing a
ADDRESS
is broad, general study of American colthe good name of
CITY
STATE
ZIP
I
worth. The figure cents keepscoming lege education, butthat would have,:,
GIFT FROM
into my mind.
meant real labor,
he opted instead
1 ADDRESS
Considering the heavy judgments that for a quibbling book focused on theone
I
I
school he knew something about. The
I CITY
STATE
ZIP
I are usually made to the winner in such
cases, it can be assumed that the jury
at
which
result was
0
IS
FOUR FREE ISSUES)
of agreed with Lane about
good was essentially a vanity press
operation.
name. The magazine had demanded
which brought it out,was barely
$7124
$16
million
in
damages;
the
jury
gave
it
solvent;
the
Buckkys paid most publicaSubscrlphons
US
$1,001. What really made Buckley furi- tion and publicity costs. To read

HOW TO

I
1I

1
I
1

I
1
I
I
1
I

1988

at
today is to enter a iel Moynihan and, shudder, Norman
mind-set as outdated and outlandish as Podhoretz. Buckley actually helped
Rohrners. The basic idea of the ganize a luncheon group made up of
book is that the alumni of Yale should some ofthese
dandies. They called
force the school to toe the Christian/ themselves -are you ready for this? capitalist line and fire any professor who The Boys Club. At about the same
doesnt toe it, too. Buckley seemed par- time, Buckley joined the ultimate
d a r l y incensed by a professor who said club, the Bohemian Grove. He was slidreligious sanctions against premarital ing faster down the slippery
sex were antiquated and unrealistic.
In politics, Buckley became a skilled
at
was light- practitioner of
If God
To show his
weight,
admiration for
Kissing-, Buckley
whichBuckleywrotewithhisequally
wouldswallow toadsbythebucketful.
intense and slightly wackier brother-in- Judis excellently details how Nixon and
law L. Brent Bozell, scarcely tipped the Kissinger did some classic co-opting of
scales at all. Having as its goal the ra- Buckley, cuddling up tohim and asking
tionalization ofMcCarthys irrational his advice and taking notes on
his
actions, the book fell upon the market- wise remarks -and then promptly dumpplace, in the words of DwightMacDon- ingthemin the wastebasket.Buckley
ald, as a laborious pieceofspecial
admitted that he was being manipulatpleading which gives
the effect ofa brief ed, and apparently loved it.
by Cadwallader, Wickersham & Taft on
When Buckley complainedabout some
behalfof a pickpocket caught in the of the Administrations policies, Kissinmens room of the subway.
ger would get him aside and say, in efJudis says Buckleys political writings fect, Hey, Im going to prove were
right by letting youin on some R-E-A-L
(except for
of
which he rates as stylistically brilliant) secrets, but you must promise not to
are
That is much too much veal them. It wasKissingers favorite
journalists.
praise. In fact, anyone with the courage way to suckerbig-name
on and
to readback through Buckleys work Others knewwhatwasgoing
will find no bright insights,no generosity Buckley became a joke around the Adof spirit; its best passages are what one ministration. DavidKeene,Vice
critic called verbaltinsel, and its worst dent Spiro Agnews top aide, put it this
was very con-able, partly bewhat another called verbiage swabbed way:
cause he did want to be in, and Kissinin clotted fat.
Example: The conservative has two ger gave everybody that he talked to in
functions, the paradigmatic and the
those days the sense that theywere
diential. It is with reference to the latter indeed in.
function that I tend to prefer the
That desire
Buckleys death. The
han plan to the congeriesof alternatives. irritating brat who once had made a
And: His dalliance withand insecure career of being out now wanted with
instrumentation of interventionist fiscal his frozen heart to be in.
He passed without a
into the
economicsreflects nothing more than
the regnant confusion among economic bowels of the conservative establishment,
theorists, and the acquiescence even by and, along the way, Buckleys morality
disappeared
free market economists in the proposi- as a journalist, never
tion that it is a political necessityto talk altogether. When say never high,
imperiously in the economic seas, even mean you can go back to his days as
though we all know that the President head of the Yale newspaper and find
that even then he was using the journal
sits on the throne of King Canute.
underhis command as a propaganda
By the early
Buckleyscircle
a stooge
device; in that instance, he
was devoid (except for Burnham) of the for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
independent minds that had challenged which was tryingto intimidate left-wing
he
honed him and, within the strange professors. At the
context of his earlier rebelliousness,had continued to stooge for the F.B.I., and
kept himsomewhat honest. Now he was broadened
usefulness to stooge
surrounded by such mushroom egotists the C.I.A. and every tramp actoron the
as John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Clur-right-wing circuit. Friends with integrity
man of
New
editors began to fall away. In 1971 Garry
Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb,
probably the brightest talent ever to
and a vig&tor Osborn Elliott,
Kristol, work at the
John Chancellor, Theodore White, Dan- orous advocate of Catholic morality,

833

.
I
I
I
I

I
I

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I.
I
I
I

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

I
I
1-

I most especially liked the

works of Gary Sot0 and
in Issue 22. They
both managed to capture the
Silk f
a w h c h is, what can
I
a tenderness, openness, w i l h g n e s s - an a m ra of
thats
almost
Such

are daring in ths country at

this time. I dont know how
you find your writers,
I
love them, and you, and what
you are doing.

LorenzoW MLlam
san Dlego, California

I
I
I
W 5 Merwln Ntozake Shange 9
Grlffln Robert Sllverberg Mayuml Oda
Jean Genet Tee Cormne Plerre
Gary Soto
Judy Dater
Marge Plercy
lesslca Hagedorn
WdllarnKotzwmkle
Erlc
Mardyn Hacker Ivan Arguelles
Charlotte Mendez Octavlo Paz

OUTSIDE US

PER

-~
IN U S FUN05

834

11, 1988

becarne so
the magazine's
idsological vulgarities that hewrote
Bucklcy, think the m e ' s standards of vcracity and honor are
ously
The Bu&k!y-wils
friedship,
dose, almpktdy fdl apartwhen

his c ~ s eO f f i m ,
Hunt, of
gatefame. Besause of that friendship,
Buckley at one time knew more about
the Watergate
than any other
journalist in
but he revealed
nothing.
Whether
not Buckley was a lifeon its staff, there long operator for the C.I.A., as some
to wonder if the
think, is a matter of little importance;
wasn't an agency operation.
hemayhave, as he claims, quit soon
on the
for think- after joining. Ifhehadstayed
no more
so
precar- payrollhecouldhavegiven
ious -"
,f
When the magazine was support to the agency,and given it in no
launched i 1955, with $290,000 d
l
%
- more distastefula fashion than he did as
August0 Piedly raised
125 investors, Buckley a "journalist." When
said it
probably lose $210,000 in nochet ousted Chile's President, Salvato
its
in
second, dor Allende, in 1973 and
jail or exile one out of every hunwould
to break even in its third
$100,000 in its dred
year and be
the
fourth. Actually, the trend was exactly played
up as a wonderful develop
maga0
a loss of $252,000 in 1956, ment; moreover,
of
in 1957, and a staggering zine'susual
standard of objectivity,
$388,000 in 1958. As of June 30, 1958, Buckley hireda member ofthe Pinochet
were about govemment as correspondent in Chile.
and its debts
$1 million.
Quite a few
editors
In
Arnold
andwritershad
way paidon
and BenjaminEpsteinnotethese
junkets to Chile by the illegally operated
Chilean lobbyBuckleyhelpedfound
menQuslosscsw~metisnotlmown."It andwhichheserved
as anadviser.
is a point that
does not clear up. (Judis tells us that Buckley himself had
he joined the
in already set the standard by
on
1951,
from expenses-paid tripsto
Kai-shek's
the cover of an export- Taiwan,
and South Afbusn
i ess,served in Mexico City ricaandRhodesia.)
proofof
came
Buckley's quality as a
briefly
bored and quitin
ting. He
friends for life with when he guidedthe

moo0

FROM KOS

At first all you

are the folds
of drapery, hqh grass close together, swaying
you parted as a child, field behind
the house, then river. Sky.
were told finches lived there, redwinged, tipsy, upside down their hold
on the
even
they
trilling over and over
your outstretched hands song
like
from a basket from
a bowl, water.
There was a woman,
young, beautiful-you used to hug her
from behind, closing your hands
over the cry of surprise
she gave out
like perfume. Now here
she is, rising
from the dead
landscape of memory, just this
fragment of her, still
kneeling.

an all-out campaign to discredit OrlanLetelier (a former official of theAllende government assassinated

by
an secret police in Washington in 1976)
by suggesting
and again
Le
telier was a Cuban or
agent,
though he must have known
that
lobby's
investigatorhad
reportedthere was no evidence that
Letelier was any such thing.
When I think of the many years that
Buckley was a fan, if not an agent, of
and when think of the
the
influential
and moderates
whopermitted him to luretheminto
'friendly"relationships,
imaginethe
manyfiledrawers
at theagencythat
may be crammed to the brim with
snitching.BlairClark,oncehead
of
News and
once editor of this
magazine, says Flora Lewis told
him the
following story of "friendship."
Right after World
11, she and her
husband Sydney Gruson were newspaper
correspondents stationed in
Mexico City.
"She said there was a channing young
man living with
newwifein
an
apartment near them. He was fresh out
of Yale, studying there
doing something connected with the family oil business forget which). She said he often
to drop by to talk -about everything under the sun from gossip to philosophy andwhy the world was theway
it was. Many long evenings
of conviviality and chat.
"The Grusons traveled around Central
on theirbeatsandthey
wouldroutinelycheck
at the local
U.S. Embassies to get the
They
began to notice that the security people
in certain embassies were taking anunusual interestin them, and once
or twice
things they had said about political matters(butnotinpublic)werequoted
back to them - on
chances of
democratic development hereand there,
the cold war, etc. They thought it odd
that their thinkingwas well knownto
types, and they finaly f
m out
(and, I think, once were shown
that the source of the paper trail in the
Latino worldwasentirelynone
other
than their charming young buddyf r y
Yale,
Buckley
"Now, the
sincedivorced,
were always extremely upwardly mobile
and have never heard it said that they
ever contemplated
bombs. [ G r u son retired not
ago as vice chair
of the New
Times Corporation.]
Which did not prevent the young C.I.A.
agentBuckley from sending along

fl>

835

11, 1988

.,

intelligence reports on them, through that the very sightof the Senator on TV
gave him a sinking feeling. But with
government channels.
usual cynicism, Buckley gave no inkThe greatest tribute to Judiss honesty ling of hisdoubts in public and was only
is that nearly half ofthis book is devot- too happy to accept the misbegotten
ed to tracing Buckleys visible decayas a populist surge that inflated his journals
Lkght-wing spokesman. There is nothing income.
heroic about his decline, nothing draBut the snarling populism of the right
matic. It doesnt involve a twistof fate. wing that lifted Buckley up eventually
It issimply the resultof two things: brought him down. By the early 197Os,
shallowness (once again) and too many the new rightwaswell
on its way to
soft spots in his character.
deballing him. It had the gutter rebelJudis admits that by 1964 Buckley liousness that Buckley no longer
had said everything he had to say and sessed; now he was soft. When the new
would forever after be nothing but an right accused him of being an intellecideological sideshow,that he had reached tual pansy,he made the mistake of
its spokesthe end of his development as a politi- fightingbackbyaccusing
thinker and he accepted that his man, Kevin Phillips, of being gauche
intellectual role would bethat of a pop- as to try to lure George Wallaceinto the
ularizer and controversialist. By the conservative movement.He should never
mid-1970s. he was growing tired even
of havechallenged Phillips to a literary
that role and, says Judis, seemed to be battle, for Phillips crushed the elitist
losing interest in politics entirely.
piffle out of him with columnar broadmuch for Buckleys shallowness. sides such as this:
Hell, Wallaceisnt going to hook up
As for his lack of character, that was
amply demonstrated in his unwilling- with Squire Willy and his Companions
ness to continue living the hard life of of the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary.
Nor can we expect Alabama truck drivthe outsider.
Snob though he was, Buckley gained ers or Ohio steelworkers to sign on with
his notoriety by riding the ugly crest of a politics captivated by Ivy League fiveright-wing
a
anti-intellectualism that syllablewordpolishers.
. . . Most of
for populismin the
and the New Conservatives I know believe
early 1960s.This was the strength of the that any new politics or coalition has to
Mccarthy movement. At McCarthy ral- surge up from Middle America . . . not
as William Manchester has pointed dribble down from Bill Buckleys wine
rack and favorite philosophers shelf. . . .
out, they
NobodyLoves Joebut
of course, a time when Bill
the People, and politicians
were
con- There
vinced that dark masses oftroubled vot- Buckley was anti-establishment back
in the long-ago days whenhewas an
as
behind them. After Roy
wasdismissed from McCarthys com- Irish nouveau-riche cheer leader for Joe
primed
mittee, a rally in his
support was held in McCarthy. But since then,
magazine with cast-off Hapsburg royNew Yorks Hotel Astor at which Rabbi
their names in
Benjamin Schultz (the kind of Jew alty, Er@shmen who
Buckley liked for sure) declared, The the middle, and others calculated to put
plain people knowthat the lossof Cohn real lace on Buckleys Celtic curtains.
Realizing that he was muchtoo outof
is like the loss of a dozen battleships.
Buckley was there to applaud heartily, shape to fight with this young ideologfor although he detested plain people ical ruffian, Buckleyquickly retreated
he knew that McCarthys strength lay in to his study, explaining to one of his
their fears. The rabble was his army of editors that he would not again respond
the night, armed with piety. Likewise, it to Phillips because I have simply nothwas the populist sweepbehindBarry
ing to say to someone who is proud of
Goldwaters movementthat doubled the his ignorance of Pric] Voegelin [one of
philosophical saints].
>umber of
subscribers
>and
the first time made Buckley a
Since at least the mid-1970s.mere
voice to be noticed. Buckley had con- ownership of the
was
tempt for Goldwater and agreedwith not enough to give Buckley clout (after
editor Burnham that Burnhams death, it became an untendGoldwaterwasasecond-rate
candi- ed garden of weeds, and Buckley himdate surrounded by third- or fourth- self seemed to lose interest in it, if for
no other reason than that, as Hugh
rate persons.PrivatelyBuckleyridiKenner, a closefriend and briefly one of
culed Goldwater as Our Heroand
acknowledged to
editors his editors, once said,

Lwis

5-14

125

50

bdsis.
8

PROMOTING
ENDURING

to

CM

I
I

IS

I4

I
I
-

I
1
I

on

30

50%

IS

10%

both

1. 8

2 16

.~

I-8W243-1236
I

To

(VISA.

I
I
I

Course

I
1

5103,
CT 06460
(203) 878-4769

PO

Try
130

Rm B602,96

In 47

CT 06437

I
I
I
I

I
1

I
I

836

11,1988

has some of the dumbest readers in the

however obvious the advantagesof this
enraptured of
policy may to a large, established
and
right-wing idiociesand more tolerantof
evermoreconsolidatedindustry,
the
liberal mushiness.
equally obvious problemis that the muAndwhy not? Faddish liberals sup- GENE
sicspillsungraciouslyoverevensuch
apparently futed borders as race.
plied the oxygen for his lowering flame.
Given the relative
of t c
As DanWakefieldoncenoted,Buckmusicians share in this marketing game
sing the mongrelized sounds
ley is becoming incorporatedinto the
publicrituals
of the societyheatofrock
and roll,the
key its no surprise that the struggle is usualtacks . . . and increasingly the rebel bequestions LivingColour poses ly not resolved in their favor. If blacks
comes a favorite performer before audion their debut album,
are supposed to play a certain constelences who wholly disagree with what he(Epic), deal with racism in this country.lation ofstyles for theirpreassigned
says, but would defendto the death his Takethepointed, frantic, punkbash
black audiences, and if to get a hearing
right to entertain them by saying it - Which Way to America?, which de- for their music they have to make it fit
and the louder he says it, the louder they
scribes the chasm still dividing Americathepre-existingslots,mosttimesthey
applaud.
intotwounequal
parts ageneration
w
li oblige. Nor should it come
as a surBuckley became like
Carnera, after the assassinationof Martin Luther prise to learn that these racially segrewho,
won the worlds heavyweight King Jr.
look at the T.V./Your gatedarrangements arent
championship by fluke and hav- Americas doingwell/Ilook
out the Whitemusicianscan
appropriate
it through clownish lack of tal- window/My Americas catching hell/I blackstyleslikefunk
as easily as Pat
ent, turned to the wrestling circuit. No just want to know which way do go to Boone
covered
the
hermaphroditic,
a
of any repute, Buck- get to yourAmerica?Then,overa
gospel-driven raunch of Little Richard
stomping drums-only backdrop: Where thirty years ago.
leys wrestling circuit comprised mainly
lectures and
As in is my picket fence?/My
tall glass
The B.R.C. has tried to reformulate
wrestling,muchdepended on hokum, of lemonade?/Whereis my VCR, my ster- the debate about these topics by insisshow?
contrived animosity and opponents
will- eo, my
tently pointing to the racism and ecoto take a fall. He delighted in luring In fact,
poses
levels of ques- nomic inequalities that structure it and
liberals and left-wingers onto
tions, one simply by its existence. Thatsseekingways to escapeitscontradicand, havingthemphysically
because Living Colour is led by
tions. It uses two basic approaches. One
nered, pelting them with ad hominem
ist/songwriter Vernon Reid, whos also is a
program ofmeetingsof
accusations and nasty innuendo, liken- co-founder oftheBlackRock
musicians, writers and anyone else intheir views to those of suspected or tion. The B.R.C.began a couple of terested in music to
the racism
admitted Communists.It little mattered years agoas a cooperativefor black mu- in the industry: how and whether to set
whether
were also
friends. sicians (and also
and oth- up alternative methodsof
and
But suchis the perversity of many estabers) dedicatedto breaking the color-bar promoting black musicians who dont
lishment
liberals
actually
they
that
stereotypes and marketingcategories
keepwithintheacceptedformats,
white dominance of
thoughtitcute ofBuckley to sidle up in imposed bythe recording industry.This how to
a friendly way and piss on their legs.
industry-wide segregation works by or- priced, high-powered, high-profile
As
his campus audiences, he prac- ganizing and describing sound by
thesizer technology.
ticed what he called rhetorical brink- Every major record company
sep
The other
of the B.R.C.s attack
manship in order to gain their atten- arate a&, marketing and publicity deat infiltrating the clubs. In a kind
tion. At Rutgers, he
a Democratic partments to handle r&b
black) of floating guerrilla road show, theyve
think tank a
described Commu- artists. Radio stations, especially in lu- staged performancesat a varietyof venas barbarians. Hey, wow! It all crative urban markets, are categorized ues
over New York City: artsy sites
became ratherpitiful. Bill, afriend
of theiraudi- like the Kitchen,punkhavenslike
by the supposed
once saidof him, has been impersonat- ences, and the music they play is proCBGB, Third World centers like S.O.B.s,
ing himself for thirty years.
grammedbytheirconsultantsaccorddowntown hip-rock pockets like Siberia
wonderwho
isthats imperson- ingly. Retail outlets organize their bins where their last show was a fund-raiser
Buckleynow that hesgone?
17 and departments to follow suit. Publi- for Jesse Jackson. The purposes have
cations that survive largely on industry been several:to raise money,to publicly
support, fromfanzines to trade jour- reevaluate accepted myths about black
nals,follow the industrys
Even and white roles in American pop music
jazz Magazines, covering a field clearly history, to introduce a variety of musidominated by black players, tilt heavily
Arien
to different audiences and- dnif;
towardwhites,especially
inbig fea- ing all theothers - to educate thoseautures. the lock-up is about complete. diences to the racismand politics underFrom the industrys standpoint, this
themusicalcategories
through
in The Graduate
kind of segregation has the obvious ad- which the music they hearis funneled.
2,write call
Faculty,
vantage of neatening the crazy quilt of (To find out more about theB.R.C.,
a Bulletin. Graduate Faculty,
Stasounds
it sells. Black musicians are ex- write to P.O. Box 1054,
New School
Research,
pected
to
follow
one
of
or
four
tion,
New
York,
NY
10276.)
65 Fifth Avenue, NYC 10003
missible prototypes for the music theyre
While the B.R.C.s lineup of bands
(2U)
741-5710
told their audience wantsto hear. But boasts a tremendous diversity, the blaz-

.,