Mr. Buckley’s name has become synonymous with the “conservative" label. But most of the record he left behind indicates that his politics were more eclectic than anything else. It is also observed that ‘conservative" now means so many different things to different people that perhaps the label is now obsolete.

      William F. Buckley, Jr., a magazine publisher, TV host, author of over 40 books and syndicated columnist was, first and foremost, loyal to his class. He was born into the plutocracy of extremely wealthy people that own and control much of the world's wealth. He grew up in a Connecticut mansion that his biographer, John Judis, described as "teaming with tutors and governesses." * Educated at prestigious and demanding schools in Europe as well as at Yale, Mr. Buckley's command of the English language and his ability to network among his fellow plutocrats made his name a household word.

       Bill Buckley spent much of his youth in Mexico. His father was an expatriate lawyer in Tampico, representing American oil companies. He eventually began investing in oil exploration, striking it really, really rich. Serious about his Catholic faith, and preachy about the virtues of capitalism over "Godless" communism, the older Buckley imparted to his son ideas and values that would be evangelized through books, a magazine and a television program.

        Buckley's “conservatism " at times, however, appears to have been influenced by a script that the wrong people wrote for him. He was thought of as a rebel against the liberal establishment. Nevertheless, that liberal establishment wanted Buckley to write for them, to appear on the ultra-liberal Public Broadcasting System, and to be their token conservative.  Some speculated that this was a way of the ‘Eastern liberal establishment" spawning their own controlled opposition". Others on the right often felt that Buckley was anointed a conservative leader by the left wing media for the purpose of misdirecting the right.
 
        Buckley, as revealed in the aftermath of Watergate, began his career working as a CIA agent in Mexico working with one E. Howard Hunt who much later had an involvement with the famous break in. Buckley was said to have been described on the famous Nixon White House tapes as somebody who could be counted on to do the President's bidding and to build public support for his old CIA boss through his syndicated column. His close friendships with Nixon, Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller and others in the halls of power eventually led to the justification of ties with China, wage and price controls, and detente with those very Russians whom Buckley had always railed against. (1). Shockingly, it is revealed that Buckley had  actually recommended Kissinger to the Nixon White House, which resulted in policies that grossly mishandled the war in Vietnam and resulting in 50,000 American deaths and  the genocide of over a million Cambodians, and normalization of relations with the mass murderers and slave masters  who rule China. (2).

            Some conservatives were hostile because Buckley was an advocate of legalizing such things as marijuana, pornography and prostitution. Buckley was also among those who were in the vanguard of urging tolerance for homosexuals. For these enlightened positions, this observer has always appreciated Buckley as an advocate, for his wit, intellect and spirited advocacy was truly admirable. To have these positions advanced by such a gifted intellectual was splendid. Buckley's support for some social libertarian ideas was  used  to suggest  that he was a" libertarian conservative" But other, just as significant, evidence, regrettably  points in other directions.

        Studying  his earlier writings, we learn that Buckley believed a" totalitarian bureaucracy" (his words) was actually needed to win the Cold War, to build up the military , and to contain or overthrow the Communists.(3) One can not recall his ever saying that ‘small government is beautiful' or anything remotely similar. As preposterous as the concept of a “big government conservative” does sounds, Buckley appears to have been one.

       He was, like most of us on the right, a critic of John F. Kennedy. Buckley's key reason as described by Judis was that Kenendy favored promoting an end to the era of European colonialism in Africa.

        Buckley on the other hand maintained that Africa’s Blacks were not ready for self government, remained savages and cannibals and had no concept of political and economic responsibility sufficient to build modern nations. When Pope John XXIII took a contrary view, Buckley took the painful step of criticizing the Pope’s position. (4)

        Despite his apparent love of empire, Buckley later annoyed those on the right when he supported the return of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. His days of “taking up the white man's burden”, at least in that instance, had faded.

       Buckley at times displayed a fondness for the now defunct ,racially oppressive  white minority republics of Rhodesia and South Africa and took trips there at the expense of those governments. Similar sympathy was evoked by the Portuguese control of colonies in Africa by the fascistic Salazaar government, the fascist government of Franco in Spain, and the Kuo Min Tang government of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek on the island of Taiwan. (5)

      Nothing is libertarian about racism and imperialism (one country dominating another country for the former country's benefit), or support for foreign dictators who rule by intimidation and terror against their own people. Buckley’s position was that there was a Cold War and these were allies America needed. Another view is, of course, that brutal one party states where wealth is held by a tiny minority, or are otherwise repressive, can provoke encourage communist rebellions by their disenfranchised citizens. Today the former nation of Rhodesia is led by a Marxist, South Africa is led by a Marxist, and communist movements have been in and out of power in the former Portugese colonies, because rebels in those countries found popular support.

        In 1998, when exiled Chilean dictator Augustus Pinochet was indicted for crimes against humanity, indeed on a level almost approaching Saddam Hussein's with torture and summary executions of dissidents, Buckley railed against the prosecution and cried out for mercy for the aging tyrant.(6)  This showed neither libertarian values nor an understanding that people in other countries deserve such rights as due process of law and the right to be free from torture as Americans enjoy.

       When voting rights in the South were debated, Buckley opined that the White race was more advanced and could be entrusted with the vote while blacks could not be.(7) Eventually he took so much flack for this nauseating position that he changed his stated opinion. He later said that there should be a test to qualify voters.

     One senses these sentiments mellowed with time.  Buckley later supported the establishment of a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, and took flack from some on the right for so doing.

Buckley, to his enduring credit, strongly rejected anti-Jewish prejudice.. While his father bemoaned the Jews of America as interlopers in a nation that he believed should belong to Christians only, Bill Buckley was revulsed by anti-Semitism and was known to leave a room when anything anti-Jewish was said. He purged anti-Semites such as Joseph Sobran from his magazine, and when the rantings of Patrick Buchanan began to sound more and more like those of a Nazi, condemned the bigotry that the drunken hatemonger spewed.  He also wrote extensively on the topic, publishing a book “In Search of Anti Semitism"(8)

      In response, anti-semites pointed to his mother's maiden name, Steiner, and raised as of yet unsubstantiated claims that she was of Jewish heritage.

     What were Buckley's true feelings as to the economic system that had enabled him to lead a life of privilege and comfort?

     While his magazine National Review certainly always gave lip service to supporting private enterprise, the rationale seemed to be something like " We're for private enterprise because we're not atheist communists' rather than the philosophic arguments that pure, minimally regulated, laissez faire capitalism allows the most human freedom, the realization of an individual's potential for full development as a human being, and eventually will lead to the highest standard of living for society as a whole.

     As a case in point to demonstrate how shallow and shaky Buckley's ideological support for true capitalism was, again, he even supported the wage and price controls imposed by President Nixon during his administration, considered the ultimate betrayal of conservative economics.

       Among these who figured Buckley as a "poser" was Ayn Rand, whose novel Atlas Shrugged, was reviewed in National Review by Whittaker Chambers. Chambers disagreed with Rand's elevation of capitalism and selfishness and her view that religious beliefs were essentially primitive superstitions of the weak and gullible. When it became  clear that the Buckley circle generally held the Catholic religion's belief that man's spiritual nature rather than Rand's belief that human self interest demands  of us that we practice  capitalism, Rand wrote Buckley off. When she met Buckley in person her first words apparently were “I can't believe that somebody as intelligent as you actually believes in God."(9)

      Mr. Buckley suffered considerable torment and persecution at the hands of the Securities and Exchange Commission as a result of his involvement with some publicly held media companies.

With accusations based on apparent violation of highly technical rules rather than any deliberate wrong doing, he became perilously close to being accused of fraud. He was also required to disgorge a significant amount of money to investors.

     Yet after the miserable episode ended, Buckley never used his magazine or his vast ability to get a public forum to really critique the Securities and Exchange Commission for the damage it is doing to capitalism by over regulation. This highly political, heavy handed vestige of the socialist New Deal is to blame for numerous companies that were never financed, jobs that were never created and inventions never brought to market.

       Perhaps this silence was due to his friendship with William Casey, the lawyer who organized National Review for Buckley and then became Director of Central Intelligence as well as of the SEC under Reagan.

      Buckley was naturally friends with many of the power elite. As a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Skull and Bones, he fit into all kinds of conspiracy theories, and many abound. After all, he attended meetings of the Bilderberg Society, which might well be the world's most aristocratic organization. The Bilderberg meetings are where the highest level financiers meet with the leading statesmen and policy makers (10). Rebels are not invited. Buckley was not a rebel. If one was true  to the principles that would guide a real conservative or libertarian who believed in laissez faire capitalism, really limited government and the kind of human rights our founding fathers dreamed of, they'd never let you play in the corridors of power where Bill Buckley was always a welcome guest.

        Buckley and the very, very rich usually see things differently from the rest of us. Barrack Obama was right when he spoke of the resentment of small town Americans who are bitter and resentful and cling to things like guns, religion and xenophobia. The shrinking middle class and working class increasingly are different kinds of conservatives from William Buckley whose politics seemed essentially shaped by his role as the  son of a tycoon, and the obvious comfort of family wealth that allowed him to be who he was.

     It was a kind of smugness that suggested to his audience “I’ve got mine, now go get yours."

     While the Republican party is led by corporate power brokers from Wall Street more akin to the Buckleys of this world, its soul, so to speak, is shaped by Main Street. The kind of conservatism that will eventually dominate the party is still evolving. The fact is that libertarians, traditionalists and Establishment country club Republicans co-exist in a much vaunted "Big tent" but nobody is entirely satisfied with the arrangement.

      Whether we should continue to trust the "Establishment" to define who we are and who speaks for us will no doubt be much in debate in the future.


Footnotes
(1) William F. Buckley, Jr.  Patron Saint of the Conservatives by John Judis, Simon & Schuster, NY (1988); William F. Buckley, Pied Piper For the Establishment by John F. Mc Manus , Appleton, WI (2002)
(2) Mc Manus, ibid.
(3) Mc Manus , ibid
(4) Judis, ibid
(5) Judis, ibid
(6) William F. Buckley, Universal Features Syndicate October 20, 1998
(7) Mc Manus,ibid
(8) In Search of Antisemitism by William F. Buckley Continuum NY 1993
(9) Ayn Rand v Whittaker Chambers and National Review by Al Chambers, Blog Critics Magazine Jan. 07, 2005
(10)Mc Manus, ibid

The author, a Newton lawyer, is Chairman of the Hull Republican Town Committee. He is General Counsel of the National Writers Syndicate.

 

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