The View From Here . . .

By Bob Morgan, Jr.

The passing of William F. Buckley, Jr. last week at the age of 82 brings back memories of an extraordinary life that can easily be appreciated both inside and out of the precincts of the right.

Before Bill Buckley founded National Review in 1955, there was basically no organized outlet for conservative expression in any way comparable to such liberal vehicles as the New Republican and the Nation. Indeed, conservatives thought, battered by the enormous political success of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, had become splintered between the entreaties of isolationists, anticommunists, religious traditionalists and other assorted groups. In the early 1950's, literary critic Lionel Trilling claimed that there were "no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation."

But Mr. Buckley, who had already become well known with his books, God and Man at Yale (1951) and McCarthy and his Enemies (1954) , was determined to change that situation. Declaring in the first issue of the magazine that it was "standing athwart History, yelling 'Stop,'" he assembled first rate contributors to the magazine like Russell Kirk, James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall, Frank Meyer and (a little later) Whittaker Chambers. Over time, the magazine, in addition to coherently expounding right of center themes, played a role in purging from respectable conservative thought anti-semitism and the views of extremists like the John Birch Society. By the early 1960's the magazine renounced segregation in the South as well.

In the 1960's, Mr. Buckley and National Review became major players in the conservative revolt that led to the nomination of Barry Goldwater. Although Mr. Goldwater was trounced in the 1964 election by Lyndon Johnson, the seeds of the Reagan Revolution were planted.

In 1965, Mr. Buckley engaged in a quixotic campaign for mayor of New York City, which, for better or worse, may have led to the election of liberal John Lindsay. Asked what he would do if he won, he declared, "demand a recount," In truth, he garnered a respectable 13% of the vote as the Conservative Party nominee.

Mr. Buckley became known to a much wider national audience as the host of Firing Line, which started on educational television (now PBS) in 1966 and ran until 1999, with a total of 1429 episodes. On the show, Mr. Buckley, who reveled in his considerable wit and massive vocabulary, was typically pitted against a leading liberal figure, some of whom like historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., he befriended. (On the other hand, he had an ugly televised confrontation with author Gore Vidal.) He also was the author of a nationally syndicated column, On the Right, which appeared in 320 newspapers around the country. And he also became well known as the author of numerous spy novels featuring CIA protagonist Blackford Oakes.

Mr. Buckley certainly left the conservative movement, and indeed national political discourse, in a much better condition than he found it. In polls, for example, far more Americans currently consider themselves conservatives rather than liberals, something that was probably untrue when National Review was founded. New sources of conservative opinion, like many of the commentators on the Fox News Channel, have broadened the reach of conservative ideas in recent decades, following in Mr. Buckley's pioneering footprints. A new generation of talented young writers like Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg have now assumed responsibility for Mr. Buckley's magazine.

Mr. Buckley may not have been able to stand athwart history, as he declared his goal in 1955, but his efforts channeled events much more to the liking of the right than he could have imagined 53 years ago.