I first read Garry Wills when he wrote pieces printed by what was then called the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (now the Intercollegiate Studies Institute), whose president at one time was William F. Buckley, Jr. One could say that Buckley discovered Wills (as he discovered David Brooks). Those two discoveries do offer serious evidence that maybe Buckley was, in Wills's singularly ungrateful phrase, only "semi-deep." The Buckley I knew (only slightly) came across to me as perhaps the one true classic gentleman I have ever met. Maybe, as Will suggests, he was only semi-deep. But he was never, as I suspect Wills long has been, mauvaise foi.
Dave also sends along this:
Dave also sends along this:
LAMB: This [Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events] is "For William F. Buckley, genius at friendships of the kind that passes all understanding. And for the whole army of those gone to be unforgotten and those still here to be thankful for." Why William F. Buckley?
KEMPTON: The most generous person I've ever known.
LAMB: In what way? Did you ever work for him?
KEMPTON: I used to write one or two things for the National Review, but they didn't work out terribly well and they were very sweet about them, but -- no, I've just known for a long time. He wasn't the first person to teach me that asking a man his political views is not necessarily the soundest way to find out about his character, and I've always just found Buckley remarkably generous. I once told him, because of his capacity to overrate people, that I wished he were president of the United States because if he were, every unemployable person in America would have a job. He took that with a certain amount of grace, but he's addicted to generosity the way a junkie is to heroin, and I do like him. I mean, I just wasn't being perverse.
Bill Buckley was the Godfather of nearly all young political conservatives in the 1960s. He was hugely influencial..
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager in Philadelphia in the 1960s, I read Buckley's books, his newspaper column and his pieces in Playboy, Esquire and other national magazines.
I also read his own magazine, National Review, and watched him every week on PBS TV in "Firing Line." I later read his spy thrillers, as well.
In the 1960s there were not a lot of conservative voices to be heard in Philadelphia - pre-cable TV and the Internet - and Bill Buckley was the conservative voice for me and many others who went on to become conservatives.
I'm thankful that I was able to favorably review a Buckley spy thriller and a political book for the Philadelphia Inquirer.