Continuing my section-by-section notes on Tanenhaus's new and excellent biography of William F. Buckley, Jr.:
(1) Tracking down a reference, I discovered that John Judis, author of the 1988 book that up until now has been the most thorough biography of Buckley, granted Tanenhaus access to his archive of interviews. This had to have been an invaluable resource--for one thing, I imagine at least some of the people Judis interviewed died before Tanenhaus would have had a chance to talk to them.
What a generous thing to do. Judis must have known that Tanenhaus's book would replace his own as the go-to on Buckley, but still shared what he could have hoarded, in the interest of a truer, more comprehensive history. As someone who spent a career in academia, where a lot of policing of territory occurs, I was impressed at Judis's selflessness.
(2) Like a lot of promising Ivy grads right after World War II, Buckley was invited to work for CIA, and yes, he did, for a while, in Mexico. Not surprising, really, but the real twist in the story is that during Buckley's brief stint as a spook, he met and befriended E. Howard Hunt, later one of the (ahem) masterminds of the fateful Watergate break-in.
(3) Buckley's emergence was well-timed. American conservatism was on the ropes in the thirties and forties, what with (a) the popularity of New Deal innovations like Social Security, collective bargaining, and the 40-hour week, (b) the fascist overtones of the "America First" movement, and (c) the Republican party's embrace of relatively moderate presidential candidates like Willkie, Dewey, and Eisenhower. The campaign against Communism perked things up a bit, but the tawdriness of McCarthyism soon clogged the wheels of that effort.
American conservatism needed an advocate who was young, intelligent, articulate, and energetic--and lo, one appeared.
(4) Buckley's energy was prodigious. A lot of Part 2 is about the launching of the National Review, a daunting undertaking, but one Buckley was equal to and that in a short time rearranged the landscape of American political commentary. That alone was a breathtaking accomplishment. But he also found time to found Young Americans for Freedom, a nationwide association of young conservatives, and (along with great friend and brother-in-law Brent Bozell, who ghost-wrote The Conscience of a Conservative) to get off the ground a campaign to elect Barry Goldwater President.
(5) National Review placed its marker firmly on the pro-segregation side of the civil rights question, most (in)famously in Buckley's editorial "Why the South Must Prevail." This we knew. But Tanenhaus has made the further and truly eye-opening discovery that the Buckley family also funded a segregationist newspaper in Camden, SC, its hometown-away-from-hometown. The first issue carried a "Statement of Principle" by the newly-formed White Citizens Council.
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