William F.  Buckley}’s portrait

William F. Buckley

  • 82 years old
  • Born Nov 24, 1925
  • Died Feb 27, 2008
  • United States
This page is for everyone affected by the life and works of William F. Buckley, the American author and conservative commentator. Pay your tribute here.
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William F. Buckley Jr., who as author, journalist, and polysyllabic television personality did more to popularize conservatism in post-New Deal America than anyone other than Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, died early today at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82 and had been ill with emphysema, said his assistant, Linda Bridges.

    Mr. Buckley’s political importance has long been acknowledged across the political spectrum. Pat Buchanan, the three-time presidential candidate, once called him “the spiritual father of the movement,” while the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called Mr. Buckley “the scourge of American liberalism.” Although Schlesinger, very much a man of the left, did not mean it as a compliment, Mr. Buckley cheerily took it as such.

    Good cheer was a key element in Mr. Buckley’s success. Not only did it sustain him during the ’50s and ’60s, when his brand of conservatism claimed few adherents. It also helped earn him an audience — and grudging acceptance — among the liberal elite. Indeed, Schlesinger became a friend of Mr. Buckley’s, as did such other eminent liberals as the activist Allard Lowenstein, the columnist Murray Kempton, and the Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
    Mr. Buckley’s personal charm was one of several sources from which he derived so large an influence. He was also the author of more than 40 books. Although many were not about politics, all his early ones were, and they tended to attract wide attention.

    In 1955, Mr. Buckley founded National Review, which he edited for the next 35 years. “It was a pretty sclerotic situation [on the right] when National Review started out,” he recalled in a 2001 Globe interview. “Our launch reflected a pent-up appetite.”

    The columnist George F. Will (the magazine’s onetime Washington editor) said at a 25th anniversary celebration, “Before Ronald Reagan, there was Barry Goldwater, and before Barry Goldwater there was National Review, and before there was National Review, there was Bill Buckley, with a spark in his mind.” That spark, Will noted, eventually became “a conflagration.” One sign of that conflagration was circulation: The magazine is America’s most widely read political journal.



From the Boston Globe
Article by Mark Feeney

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My Memory

Vincent Giannotti Feb 27, 2008

So long to a great conservative and a great American.

The Man Who Gave Us Conservatism

Martin Gladwell Feb 27, 2008

He was always vocal and never without his own opinion. The man was certainly born into prestige -- the Skull and Bones membership says enough. But he did take some controversial opinions, like his statements made on the Iraq war most recently, as well as his earlier statements on the Panama Canal ...I don't know if I feel comfortable in all his remarks on women's liberation or the civil rights. Sometimes he was downright wrong. But he laid out crucial elements of American conservatism today and it is important for the current administration to remember the limits (and the failures) of power, past and present.

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