William F. Buckley and the Assassination of JFK

[Kathleen Collins]

Now how could I possibly have known all that info about or any of that info about you including that as

a kid you were star struck? Wow.

Perhaps you were on some sort of free form associative, paranoid delusional inner directed rant? Or something else.

It is NOT all about YOU... Kathy. And all because I substituted a K for a C? Wow. Heavvvy...

Listen, don't mention my name again. Use the name of the person you are referring to. There are people who have in the past on JFK websites, known things I never told them about myself, so I'm a bit reactionary. I've also had some nasty comments written on my blog from someone who knows personal things about me. I thought you were continuing the tradition.

That's it, Bub.

Kathy Collins

[John Bevilaqua]

Buckley on himself.

FWIW.

James

Thanks, James, for this great submission. Very revealing. I would agree that the tagline

"...who was a member of YAF and very active there." or "...who had been a constant

companion of public figures well known to be influential in Right Wing activities and publications."

should in fact be part of a discussion and articles about persons who qualify for this

distinction. But does that mean we are editorializing about their motivations? And is

that part of the verboten list of rules on this Forum? I would think that accusing someone

of making libelous or slanderous statements should also be forbidden when the level

of legal knowledge on this forum is patently weak. The concept that saying someone

is supporting or promulgating a right wing position or coming "from the Right" is a

libelous/slanderous statement in and of itself is on its face preposterous. And someone

who calls themselves a lawyer actually made that statement. Take that back and

apologize, she said. Chatty Kathy is not from the Right. Well in fact if Chatty Kathy

is promulgating Right Wing writers or repeating Right Wing themes, and she is,

relative to my position, to the Right of Center, then she is coming from the Right.

She may not even know that she is parroting Right Wing themes or supporting Right

Wingers who were dedicated and vitriolic McCarthyites like Otepka for instance but

after performing a public service and fixing the record on Otepka one would expect

thanks for pointing out the obvious. I also think that to quote or to be associated with

writers or speakers who use coded Right Wing phraseology which is anti-Semitic,

racist or otherwise subrosa and discriminatory is patently ridiculous. And yes it COULD

be that it is naivete, raw ignorance or just plain enthusiasm to find someone who agrees

with you on anything and can advance YOUR thesis, even though their thesis originates

from the Right and dovetails with yours. It could also be a case of being a celebrity

groupie because it makes you feel better to get an audience with someone who is

a Full Professor and a real author regardless of his usage of coded anti-Semitic words

his history as a dedicated right winger. Is it possible to have their "celebrity status"

rub off on you and your theories? I have seen many attempts of this type over the

years. And what is the difference between "celebrity statics" and "celebrity status"

anyway, can someone explain? Maybe "celebrity statics" is only obtained by close

contact or close proximity to someone with "celebrity status"? I can't say for sure.

And does removal of some "celebrity statics" from one person necessarily diminish

the amout of "celebrity status" remaining with that person? Can it all be rubbed off

and can it be replenished? Or can it be reduced to nothing? Or is it like the number

of "eggs in the ovum"? That's it all gone, your account is depleted. Just wondering.

Just because you believe that, let's say, the Star Bellied Sneeches did in JFK and so

does a McCarthyite, should you ignore the fact that this person was and still is a

McCarthyite and should you put on Rose colored glasses and ignore or minimize

their minor political transgressions and history just to be able to cite them and puff

up your thesis about the Star Bellied Sneeches? That is hypocrisy beyond the pale.

And just because you find nothing but phrases like this in the dominant historical

record, should you believe them and accept them on face value? That is exactly

how Hiss was framed and exactly how Otepka was "exonerated" but only by

the Right. It is sort of Orwellian TruthSpeak at its worst. If this type of garbage

is written often enough, and you read it often enough, a tear will come to your

eye and you will jump to his defense...

"Otepka is an American Patriot and an American hero."

"Otepka was finally exonerated and given a position of higher status after JFK was dead."

"Otepka was not a McCarthyite, he just provided lists to McCarthy for consideration and

he complained vigorously that McCarthy was overdoing it in some cases."

"Otepka's first line of defenders included Robert J. Morris, his lawyer, Senator Strom

Thurmond from SC, Rep James B. Utt, head of the California right wing contingent of

the John Birch Society. And that is a short list of Patriotic God-fearing family men."

"Richard Gill from The American Security Council wrote an entire book which was made

into a not ready for prime time film starring the trio above and it was called The Ordeal

of Otto Otepka. (sniff, sniff) Does THAT bring a tear to your eye.?"

So you see whether the drumbeat of propaganda is directed towards framing Alger

Hiss, or exonerating Otto Otepka or scapegoating JFK's killers, the result is the same.

It gets into the historical record, it drowns out most info which is contrary to the truth

or obfuscates it beyond the pale, and voila, Revisionist History has been accomplished.

And your mind has been washed of the Truth and replaced with their version of Facts.

Because short term memory is the first to be wiped out, before it is written to brain disk.

And after a while... the world will come to believe that Hiss was guilty, that Otepka

was innocent and that Right Wing Extremists had NOTHING to do with the JFK hit.

OK, next Century, let's start all over again.

And then Chatty Kathy will be left mumbling to herself... Well, I thought I was a

left winger. I didn't even know how bad Otto Otepka was with McCarthyism. It

NEVER occurred to me that Otepka and Frances Knight were a tag team and

served as Oswald's Travel Agents. Wow, how did you figure that out? Can I

get some "celebrity statics" from hanging with you, dude? You mean to say

they somehow brainwashed me into writing a puff piece and defending that

S.O.B. Otepka. But Prouty said he was OK. And Gibson said he was a

great American Hero. And Otepka stood up for Willis Carto, another great

American Patriot... Huh, he wasn't either? Oh God what a fool I was.

But how can they brainwash me? I am too smart for that... Guess not.

See: Right Woos Left by Chip Berlet in your internet browser today about

The Liberty Lobby and the Institute for Historical or Hysterical Revisionism

which is sometimes known as the Institute for Historical Review. IHR owned

by that great American Patriot Willis Carto... Oh never mind.

Can anyone find a copy of the Condon article from The Nation around 12/63 near

the end of the month? Thanks.

----------------

John,

I agree that Webster Tarpley has to be read very cautiously. In my opinion THESE DAYS he mixes seven parts accurate historical analysis, with one part dangerously vague generalization, that might be ACCURATELY labeled "conspiracy theory". This is usually the ratio of the best well-posners er poisoners, but I still think there is much to learn in his 9/11 book..

There is someone I think needs to be read even more carefully and sceptically than Tarpley: Chip Berlet. I have found him one of the least convincing and most prolific of the foundation-funded left gatekeepers. I know this accusation that isn't original. I have read his arguments and find them mostly middle class namecalling tailor made for the professional academic-- like yellow police tape warning associate professors of bad career moves.

If you are basing your labeling of someone as "right" or left based on this kind of strategic disinformation--likely practived by both Tarpley and Berlet-- then it would seem to be J'accusing on thin ice.

I only quoted Tarpley once in my entire lifetime and now regret bringing up this whole Prouty issue FWIW.

And the fact that Berlet was close with Kram Diaz makes him totally suspect IMHO. Diaz used ghost writers

for his Dallas speech and was drummed out of the JFK Community for that reason. And Berlet wants to drive

a stake through the heart of the Far Right but lacks the guts or the courage to do it using political assassination

conspiracy theories. Wait, I take that back. Maybe he is more like Guyatt, what with the yellow journalism

for a buck and all that stuff. If Berlet ever killed The Far Reich he would be out on the street with nowhere

to go and nothing to do. Now I get it. Stoke the fires, pump the pen, cash the checks. Berlet is just a

left wing version of Guyatt? Could be. Nice work if you can get it. One of these days I will tell you how

The Liberty Lobby was done in by a "dirty tricks" campaign I suggested in an offhand manner and it was not

meant to be run against The Liberty Lobby specifically. But it worked. They were flat broke and busted

within 18 months that's how good the idea was in fact.

[James Richards]

Buckley's views on some topics of interest.

James

[John Dolva]

Yale, Skull and Bones:

(Bush George Herbert Walker 1948)

Breen J. Gerald 1950

Buckley, Jr. William Frank 1950

Draper III William H. 1950 (Draper Arthur Joy 1937)

Frank, Jr. Victor H. 1950

Galbraith Evan Griffith 1950

Guinzburg Thomas Henry 1950

Henningsen, Jr. Victor William 1950

Kemp Philip Sperry 1950

Lambert Paul Christopher 1950

Lovett Sidney 1950

Luckey Charles Pinckney 1950

MacLeish William H. 1950

McLean III Robert 1950

Pionzio Dino John 1950

Shepard Donald Carrington 1950

Clay Green 1859

Clay Cassius Marcellus 1918

Clay Lowell Melcher 1939

Clay Jesse Loring 1963

Clay Alexander Stephens 1964

Clay Timothy J. 1965

[John Bevilaqua]

Yale, Skull and Bones:

(Bush George Herbert Walker 1948)

Breen J. Gerald 1950

Buckley, Jr. William Frank 1950

Draper III William H. 1950 (Draper Arthur Joy 1937)

Frank, Jr. Victor H. 1950

Galbraith Evan Griffith 1950

Guinzburg Thomas Henry 1950

Henningsen, Jr. Victor William 1950

Kemp Philip Sperry 1950

Lambert Paul Christopher 1950

Lovett Sidney 1950

Luckey Charles Pinckney 1950

MacLeish William H. 1950

McLean III Robert 1950

Pionzio Dino John 1950

Shepard Donald Carrington 1950

Clay Green 1859

Clay Cassius Marcellus 1918

Clay Lowell Melcher 1939

Clay Jesse Loring 1963

Clay Alexander Stephens 1964

Clay Timothy J. 1965

The more recent dates would indicate that these guys were about 21 to 22 years old and just pledging into

Skull and Bones, but check out Morehead Patterson who was also Yale Skull and Bones. He was involved

in the 1958-59 plot to kill JFK discovered by Richard Condon but those guys were such incompetent klutzes

that Ray S. Cline took over and led the 1963 plot against JFK with almost the same crew. Patterson died

in 1962 and he never lived to find out if AMF was going to enjoy a financial resurgence. Their customers

were involved with Tobacco, Textiles, Tomahawk Missiles and Transportation in the North Carolina nexus

of characters... mostly all losing industries in those days.

See Troubling Trends in Textiles, Tobacco, Transportation and Tomahawks... in another posting. I think you

will enjoy it. But remember this is the first plot against JFK the Senator and its cover was blown by Condon.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Buckley stopped.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business...amp;oref=slogin

[John Simkin]

Another criminal who went to his grave without being punished by the law.

One member of the forum, Doug Caddy, knew Buckley very well. Maybe he would like to make a post on what he thought of this man.

This article is also worth reading:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3700.htm

Buckley’s decision to launch the National Review was a watershed event on the right by any measure. As Buckley’s admiring social-democratic biographer John Judis notes, "Except for Chodorov, who was a Buckley family friend, none of the right-wing isolationists were included on National Review’s masthead. While this point of view had been welcome in the Freeman, it would not be welcome, even as a dissenting view, in National Review."

As Judis notes, Schlamm, who envisioned himself as the guiding light behind NR, was not even a conservative. He "had more in common with Dwight MacDonald or Daniel Bell than with Robert McCormick; Buckley was turning his back on much of the isolationist...Old Right that had applauded his earlier books and that his father had been politically close to."

Buckley, by 1955, had already been in deep cover for the CIA. While there is some confusion as to the actual duration of Buckley’s service as an agent, Judis notes that he served under E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame in Mexico City in 1951. Buckley was directed to the CIA by Yale Professor Wilmoore Kendall, who passed Buckley along to James Burnham, then a consultant to the Office Of Policy Coordination, the CIA’s covert-action wing.

Buckley apparently had a knack for spying: before his stint with the Agency, he had served as an on-campus informant for the FBI, feeding God only knows what to Hoover’s political police. In any case, it is known that Buckley continued to participate at least indirectly in CIA covert activities through the 60s.

The founding circle of National Review was composed largely of former agents or men otherwise in the pay of the CIA, including Buckley, Kendall, and Burnham. Wall Street lawyer William Casey, rooted in OSS activities and later to be named director of the CIA, drew up the legal documents for the new magazine. (He also helped transfer Human Events from isolationist to interventionist hands.)

NR required nearly half a million to get off the ground; the only substantial contribution known was from Will Buckley, Senior: $100,000. It’s long been rumored that CIA black funds were used to start the magazine, but no hard evidence exists to establish it. It may also be relevant that the National Review was organized as a nonprofit venture, as covert funding was typically channeled through foundations.

By the 70s, it was known that Buckley had been an agent. More imaginative right-wingers accused Buckley of complicity in everything from the assassination of JFK to the Watergate break-in, undoubtedly owing to his relationship with the mysterious Hunt.

But sober minds also believed that something was suspicious about the National Review. In a syndicated column, Gary Wills wondered, "Was National Review, with four ex-agents of the CIA on its staff, a CIA operation? If so, the CIA was stingy, and I doubt it – but even some on the editorial board raised the question. And the magazine supported Buckley’s old CIA boss, Howard Hunt, and publicized a fund drive for him." In reply, Buckley denounced Wills for being a classicist. But others close to the founding circle of National Review nurtured similar suspicions. Libertarian "fusionist" Frank Meyer, for example, confided privately that he believed that the National Review was a CIA front.

If it was, then it was the federal government that finally broke the back of the populist and isolationist right, the mass-based movement with its roots in the America First anti-war movement. What FDR tried and failed to do when he sought to shut down the Chicago Tribune, when his attorney general held mass sedition trials of his critics on the right, and when he orchestrated one of the worst smear campaigns in US history against his conservative opponents, the CIA accomplished. That in itself ought to lead conservatives to oppose the existence of executive agencies engaged in covert operations.

Today, the war-mongering right is self-sustaining. Money flows like milk and honey to neoconservative activists from the major conservative foundations. Irving’s son Bill Kristol has his sugar daddy in the form of media tycoon and alien Rupert Murdoch. National Review is boring, but in no danger of going under financially.

But the cozy relationship with the federal government is the same. Neocons Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan now insist on massive extensions of the warfare state. The Weekly Standard demands a ground war to topple the head of a foreign government unfriendly to Israel, while denouncing right-wing isolationism, libertarianism, and Murray Rothbard.

This time, the right-wing War Hawks face a potentially insurmountable challenge. The pro-war propaganda directed at the domestic population is failing badly. It is ineffective for two principle reasons: mounting intellectual opposition to the warfare state and the return of grassroots isolationism. Both trends have come to the fore. And not only with the collapse of communism. Widespread public disillusionment exists over the Gulf War of 1991. Sold to the public as a high-tech "virtual" war, the consequences have been harder to hide than the execution of the attack. With over a million Iraqis dead, Hussein still in power, US soldiers apparently poisoned by their own government and a not so far-fetched feeling that the public was duped into supporting an unjust slaughter, people are starting to regard the Gulf War as an outrage. And they are right.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Aside from not liking his political views and what secret govenmental things he did or knew about and covered-up, I remember him well on his TV show and found him an arrogant SOB who looked down on everyone as his intellectual inferior, even more so, if their politics were not his. His affected neo-British-upperclass annunciation was another snobbery/put-down artifact.

Editorial from today's Washington Post:

Mr. Buckley himself never posed as a heavyweight, though he loved to use words of many syllables and wrote incessantly -- books, columns, articles -- right up to his death yesterday at 82. His defining characteristic was that he was a man of good cheer who rarely got nasty in print or in person and who cultivated friends across the political spectrum, listened to them, and delighted in engaging one and all in civilized discourse, of which he was something of a master -- one who will be missed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I am still waiting for someone to supply even a shred of credible EVIDENCE that the late William Buckley had anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK

[Christopher Hall]

Aside from not liking his political views and what secret govenmental things he did or knew about and covered-up, I remember him well on his TV show and found him an arrogant SOB who looked down on everyone as his intellectual inferior, even more so, if their politics were not his. His affected neo-British-upperclass annunciation was another snobbery/put-down artifact.

Editorial from today's Washington Post:

Mr. Buckley himself never posed as a heavyweight, though he loved to use words of many syllables and wrote incessantly -- books, columns, articles -- right up to his death yesterday at 82. His defining characteristic was that he was a man of good cheer who rarely got nasty in print or in person and who cultivated friends across the political spectrum, listened to them, and delighted in engaging one and all in civilized discourse, of which he was something of a master -- one who will be missed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I am still waiting for someone to supply even a shred of credible EVIDENCE that the late William Buckley had anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK

Or, for that matter, that he committed a crime.

[Douglas Caddy]

Another criminal who went to his grave without being punished by the law.

One member of the forum, Doug Caddy, knew Buckley very well. Maybe he would like to make a post on what he thought of this man.

This article is also worth reading:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3700.htm

Buckley’s decision to launch the National Review was a watershed event on the right by any measure. As Buckley’s admiring social-democratic biographer John Judis notes, "Except for Chodorov, who was a Buckley family friend, none of the right-wing isolationists were included on National Review’s masthead. While this point of view had been welcome in the Freeman, it would not be welcome, even as a dissenting view, in National Review."

As Judis notes, Schlamm, who envisioned himself as the guiding light behind NR, was not even a conservative. He "had more in common with Dwight MacDonald or Daniel Bell than with Robert McCormick; Buckley was turning his back on much of the isolationist...Old Right that had applauded his earlier books and that his father had been politically close to."

Buckley, by 1955, had already been in deep cover for the CIA. While there is some confusion as to the actual duration of Buckley’s service as an agent, Judis notes that he served under E. Howard Hunt of Watergate fame in Mexico City in 1951. Buckley was directed to the CIA by Yale Professor Wilmoore Kendall, who passed Buckley along to James Burnham, then a consultant to the Office Of Policy Coordination, the CIA’s covert-action wing.

Buckley apparently had a knack for spying: before his stint with the Agency, he had served as an on-campus informant for the FBI, feeding God only knows what to Hoover’s political police. In any case, it is known that Buckley continued to participate at least indirectly in CIA covert activities through the 60s.

The founding circle of National Review was composed largely of former agents or men otherwise in the pay of the CIA, including Buckley, Kendall, and Burnham. Wall Street lawyer William Casey, rooted in OSS activities and later to be named director of the CIA, drew up the legal documents for the new magazine. (He also helped transfer Human Events from isolationist to interventionist hands.)

NR required nearly half a million to get off the ground; the only substantial contribution known was from Will Buckley, Senior: $100,000. It’s long been rumored that CIA black funds were used to start the magazine, but no hard evidence exists to establish it. It may also be relevant that the National Review was organized as a nonprofit venture, as covert funding was typically channeled through foundations.

By the 70s, it was known that Buckley had been an agent. More imaginative right-wingers accused Buckley of complicity in everything from the assassination of JFK to the Watergate break-in, undoubtedly owing to his relationship with the mysterious Hunt.

But sober minds also believed that something was suspicious about the National Review. In a syndicated column, Gary Wills wondered, "Was National Review, with four ex-agents of the CIA on its staff, a CIA operation? If so, the CIA was stingy, and I doubt it – but even some on the editorial board raised the question. And the magazine supported Buckley’s old CIA boss, Howard Hunt, and publicized a fund drive for him." In reply, Buckley denounced Wills for being a classicist. But others close to the founding circle of National Review nurtured similar suspicions. Libertarian "fusionist" Frank Meyer, for example, confided privately that he believed that the National Review was a CIA front.

If it was, then it was the federal government that finally broke the back of the populist and isolationist right, the mass-based movement with its roots in the America First anti-war movement. What FDR tried and failed to do when he sought to shut down the Chicago Tribune, when his attorney general held mass sedition trials of his critics on the right, and when he orchestrated one of the worst smear campaigns in US history against his conservative opponents, the CIA accomplished. That in itself ought to lead conservatives to oppose the existence of executive agencies engaged in covert operations.

Today, the war-mongering right is self-sustaining. Money flows like milk and honey to neoconservative activists from the major conservative foundations. Irving’s son Bill Kristol has his sugar daddy in the form of media tycoon and alien Rupert Murdoch. National Review is boring, but in no danger of going under financially.

But the cozy relationship with the federal government is the same. Neocons Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan now insist on massive extensions of the warfare state. The Weekly Standard demands a ground war to topple the head of a foreign government unfriendly to Israel, while denouncing right-wing isolationism, libertarianism, and Murray Rothbard.

This time, the right-wing War Hawks face a potentially insurmountable challenge. The pro-war propaganda directed at the domestic population is failing badly. It is ineffective for two principle reasons: mounting intellectual opposition to the warfare state and the return of grassroots isolationism. Both trends have come to the fore. And not only with the collapse of communism. Widespread public disillusionment exists over the Gulf War of 1991. Sold to the public as a high-tech "virtual" war, the consequences have been harder to hide than the execution of the attack. With over a million Iraqis dead, Hussein still in power, US soldiers apparently poisoned by their own government and a not so far-fetched feeling that the public was duped into supporting an unjust slaughter, people are starting to regard the Gulf War as an outrage. And they are right.

I believe that the Appreciation published on the editorial page of The New York Times strikes the right note concerning the life of William F. Buckley, Jr.

That said, I cannot help but also believe that in his heart of hearts as his life drew to an end he was appalled that his/our conservative movement had been captured by sociopaths and opportunists whose evil actions have adversely affected to an degree beyond measurement the citizens in every country in the world.

APPRECIATIONS

William F. Buckley Jr.

By ROBERT B. SEMPLE Jr.

Editorial Page

The New York Times

February 28, 2008

When William F. Buckley Jr.’s “God and Man at Yale” appeared in 1951, the critic and conservative sage Peter Viereck dismissed it as jejune, a word much favored by Mr. Buckley in his later years to describe views he regarded as uninformed by experience. Mr. Buckley’s fierce denunciation of collectivism and atheism on the Yale faculty was all to the good, Mr. Viereck said, but it fell far short of the “profound” conservative manifesto that needed to be written.

To do that, Mr. Buckley — who was one year out of Yale, where he had thundered away on the editorial pages of the Yale Daily News — would have to marinate in the paradoxes of the human condition and endure “the dark night of the soul.” Only then could he aspire to parity with great conservative thinkers like Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill.

When the news arrived Wednesday of Mr. Buckley’s death at the age of 82, the image that jumped to mind was not of dark nights of the soul (though for all I know he may have endured them) but of a witty and gracious man who enjoyed sailing, skiing, writing, good food and drink, Latinate constructions and strenuous debate. He had a mischievous sense of humor and must surely have laughed when he heard himself mentioned in the same sentence as Burke or Disraeli.

His views — an amalgam of Friedrich Hayek’s free-market economics, Russell Kirk’s cultural conservatism and Whittaker Chambers’s anti-Communism — were hardly original. What was pioneering was his insistence on giving conservatism as he saw it a voice and a forum. That was National Review, the magazine that Mr. Buckley founded in 1955. There he fanned a very small flame that, over time, gave the country the Young Americans for Freedom, who gave it Barry Goldwater, who in turn laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan.

There are not many issues on which Mr. Buckley and this page agreed or would agree — except, perhaps, the war in Iraq, which Mr. Buckley regretted as “unrealistic” and “anything but conservative.” Yet despite his uncompromising beliefs, Mr. Buckley was firmly committed to civil discourse and showed little appetite for the shrillness that plagues far too much of today’s political discourse.

For a time back in the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Buckley and the liberal columnist Murray Kempton were something of a traveling road show. And they were friends. Yale’s angry young man turned out to be not so angry after all. He hated most of what the liberals stood for. He didn’t hate them. ROBERT B. SEMPLE JR.

[John Simkin]

When the news arrived Wednesday of Mr. Buckley’s death at the age of 82, the image that jumped to mind was not of dark nights of the soul (though for all I know he may have endured them) but of a witty and gracious man who enjoyed sailing, skiing, writing, good food and drink, Latinate constructions and strenuous debate....

There are not many issues on which Mr. Buckley and this page agreed or would agree — except, perhaps, the war in Iraq, which Mr. Buckley regretted as “unrealistic” and “anything but conservative.” Yet despite his uncompromising beliefs, Mr. Buckley was firmly committed to civil discourse and showed little appetite for the shrillness that plagues far too much of today’s political discourse.

One only has to read his letters to understand the real Buckley. It is true that in public he usually played the role of the polite gentleman. However, sometimes, the mask slipped and the real Buckley was revealed. For example, this is from the Guardian's obituary yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/usa.television

Buckley could be sarcastic and cruel in defence of his beliefs. His gladiatorial contests on air reached a climax in an infamous row with Gore Vidal in 1968. When Vidal persisted in suggesting that Buckley's views made him something close to a fascist, Buckley burst out: "Now, listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I'll sock you in the face!" Buckley was ashamed of himself for losing control, and developed a gentler style.

He loved to shock those he regarded as wimpish liberals, but it was important to him to present himself as a gentleman. He was a man of culture, a gifted writer and brilliant debater, and a sincere Catholic. He was also an accomplished pianist, and from 1976 onwards wrote a series of popular novels about CIA agent Blackford Oakes. In all, he produced more than 40 books and 5,600 of his biweekly newspaper columns, On the Right. A keen sailor, Buckley made a number of voyages, across the Atlantic and the Pacific, in large yachts loaded with friends, vintage wine, hundreds of hours of taped Mozart and Motown, word processors (for captain and crew to write their books on) and a piano for the captain's Bach.

At the same time, he freely expressed views most people would regard as oafish. For a long time he approved of racial segregation, though later he seems to have come to understand that this would conflict with his stylish image. He continued to write with gross insensitivity about Africans. He was openly homophobic, and when Aids first appeared, he suggested that gay men should be tattooed on the buttocks. As a young man, when asked about his beliefs, he replied: "I have God and my father, and that's all I need."

[Douglas Caddy]

Aside from not liking his political views and what secret govenmental things he did or knew about and covered-up, I remember him well on his TV show and found him an arrogant SOB who looked down on everyone as his intellectual inferior, even more so, if their politics were not his. His affected neo-British-upperclass annunciation was another snobbery/put-down artifact.

Editorial from today's Washington Post:

Mr. Buckley himself never posed as a heavyweight, though he loved to use words of many syllables and wrote incessantly -- books, columns, articles -- right up to his death yesterday at 82. His defining characteristic was that he was a man of good cheer who rarely got nasty in print or in person and who cultivated friends across the political spectrum, listened to them, and delighted in engaging one and all in civilized discourse, of which he was something of a master -- one who will be missed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I am still waiting for someone to supply even a shred of credible EVIDENCE that the late William Buckley had anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK

Or, for that matter, that he committed a crime.

[Note: David Franke was one of the founders of the modern conservative movement. He helped organize the National Student Committee for the Loyalty Oath and Youth for Goldwater in 1959 and Young Americans for Freedom in 1960. His Appreciation of William F. Buckley, Jr. provides an insight into those early years of the movement.]

Thanks, Bill, for the memories--and for so much more

02-29-2008

By David Franke

Editor

UltimateRonPaul.com

Friday, February 29, 2008

Bill Buckley died Wednesday, but his legacy lives on and thousands of his admirers are voicing their sorrow in eulogies and emails to their friends. This is also a time for refreshing our memories of how the founder of the conservative movement impacted our lives.

I was one of the lucky few who worked for WFB, or WFB Jr., depending on which shorthand you preferred for William F. Buckley Jr. (And note, no comma before “Jr.”) If you are too young to have been present at the creation of the conservative movement—and most of you are—you may wonder what all the fuss is about. I invite you to go to www.ConservativeHQ.com and find out.

You will find plenty there about Bill’s founding of National Review, his early books on Yale and Joe McCarthy, his unsurpassed (to this day) television show, “Firing Line”—all of which scandalized the Liberal Establishment, even as it gave a home to the thousands, then millions of Americans whose concerns and aspirations he was voicing. I also urge you to read Chapter 5, “The Birth of a Movement,” in America’s Right Turn (by Richard A. Viguerie and yours truly).

I won’t duplicate that history here. Rather, I’d like to tell you how he affected the life of a 21-year-old Texas kid who reported for duty one day in 1960 to his office at 150 East 35th Street in Manhattan. Thousands of us have stories about our encounters with Bill Buckley. This is mine.

Present at the creation

Bill Buckley was my hero long before I met him. I had been converted to the cause of individual freedom and anti-communism, quite literally overnight, when I read John T. Flynn’s The Road Ahead while in junior high school. In high school I survived attempted brainwashing by devouring the pamphlets of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI) and the two publications they sent me as student gift subscriptions—Human Events, at that time an eight-page Washington newsletter, and a fortnightly magazine, The Freeman. Those two publications exposed me to a wide variety of exciting right-wing dissidents—including Bill Buckley in The Freeman.

I was circulating petitions, writing letters-to-the-editor of the Houston Chronicle (and having them published—quite exciting for a high school student!), and communicating by snail mail (no email back then) with a vast nationwide network of fellow McCarthyites—Joe, not Gene, of course. Somehow one of my student petitions got published in The Freeman, and in the mail soon afterwards came a letter postmarked Sharon, Connecticut, with my name and address typed out in red ink.

I asked myself, who do I know in Sharon, Connecticut? Well, the masthead of the letter inside read “Libertarians for…” something or another, or perhaps it was “The Libertarian International.” Whatever, this “organization” apparently was run by two brothers, Reid and William F. Buckley. They exhorted me, in red ink again, to keep up the fight, while warning me, “You will be called a fascist, a hate mongerer,” etc. etc. with lots of exclamation points.

(I really do have to find that letter somewhere in my boxes of “files,” frame it, and place it above my desk.)

I went off to a college by the beach in South Texas as a music major. But then, in my freshman year, Bill Buckley launches National Review. I had an ISI gift subscription and was so excited I changed my line of studies to history and political science, and became editor of my campus newspaper in my sophomore year. So Bill Buckley, long before I met him personally, was largely responsible for my becoming a professional writer rather than a professional musician.

Under my editorship, The Foghorn of Del Mar College may have been the second conservative campus publication in America, though I have to admit that the Yale Daily News under Bill Buckley’s tutelage had more cachet (this is called understatement). We didn’t use the word “networking” back then, but that’s what I was doing, sending my editorials to Bill and the folks at Human Events and anyone else who wouldn’t send me a bomb in return.

A year later, Human Events offered me a work-scholarship, and I became the first student in the very first Human Events journalism class led by M. Stanton Evans (Doug Caddy and Bill Schulz were the other students). It was during these years in Washington (1957-1960) that we first began hearing and sometimes using the term “conservative.” And this was when roommate Doug Caddy and I started the first nationwide conservative activist organization, the National Student Committee for the Loyalty Oath. Thanks to publicity in Human Events and National Review, we were amazed to hear from hundreds of conservative students across the country when we thought we were pretty much alone in the liberal wilderness. The National Student Committee begat Students for Goldwater for Vice President which begat Young Americans for Freedom…but I digress.

Also during these years, Bill Buckley was launching his public persona as the scourge of the Liberal Establishment. The prototype conservative movement had plenty of good people doing good work, but none caught the public’s eye like Bill Buckley, with his wit and charm and eloquence. In him we finally had someone who could stand up at the lecture podium to the likes of John Kenneth Galbraith and make him look like the intellectual inferior he was! So I was elated beyond words when I was offered the position of Editorial Assistant to THE Man.

At the center of the conservative universe

You can imagine—no, you cannot imagine—how nervous I was to enter the inner sanctum of National Review and work directly for the Most Important Man in the Conservative Universe. Remember, I was only 21 and just a few years out of the sagebrush, plopped into the very heart of Gotham. But if anyone could put you at ease, it was Bill and his sister Priscilla, the managing editor of National Review.

I was surprised when they introduced me to my work quarters. It would be an exaggeration to call it an office—more a cubbyhole, barely big enough for a small desk table with typewriter and some shelves. Any apprehension evaporated when I learned that my predecessor occupying these quarters was Whittaker Chambers. And I was a poster boy at that time for the World Hunger Campaign, so if rotund Chambers could work in there I should have no problem. As they soon told me, both Whittaker Chambers and I had an ability to pack more newspapers and assorted “files” into that cubbyhole than anyone thought possible.

When a groundbreaking magazine makes history, as National Review in retrospect did, it’s a natural tendency to think you worked there during its Golden Age. And I do. Certainly it would have been exciting to work there at launch, but the early 60s were the buildup to the Goldwater campaign, when the new conservative movement was first beginning to think big and dream big. Bill Buckley’s National Review was the epicenter for both the intellectual side of the movement and the political strategy side of the movement.

An editorial table in Bill’s office suite served as our gathering spot for handing out the next issue’s assignments, evaluating them before deadline, and engaging in general discussion during our weekly editorial luncheons. We were all equal in having our say, but naturally some were more equal than others in having their ideas accepted, and Bill was The Decider at that table.

The intellectual giant at the table was James Burnham, really one of the three great political philosophers of that era, the others being Sidney Hook and George Orwell. (Frank Meyer’s editorial power was diminished by his being a nonresident, ensconced in the Catskills.) If there was divided opinion on an editorial matter, Bill would usually—but not always—side with Burnham. If you’re a fan of “The McLaughlin Group,” you know the routine. John McLoughlin will make the rounds of his TV panel, seeking their responses, and then pronounce, “The answer is…”

And you never knew who might join us for lunch. One week I’d sit down and the person to my right, passing the sandwich platter, would be the comedian and TV host Steve Allen, making his case for disarmament. (Not accepted.) Another time it would be a couple of scientists employed by the tobacco industry, trying to convince us that our editorial position was wrong and there was no scientific evidence that nicotine was harmful. (This was a time when cigarette ads featured M.D.’s assuring you that one brand was better than the others.) Burnham carried the ball on that one, since he was the only one of us with a good scientific understanding, while Bill just sat at the head of the table, twirling his pencil, grinning his Cheshire cat grin, and enjoying the spectacle of the cancer-shrills being intellectually dismembered.

The fun together didn’t always stop when the work was finished. We would often repair to The Brasserie or some other eatery after an issue was put to bed. At some point toward the end of my formal employment at National Review, Nicola Paone on 34th Street became “the National Review restaurant.” I last ate there two years ago with Priscilla Buckley and my dear friend Tim Wheeler, another one-time editorial assistant at National Review, while Bill Buckley was celebrating his 80th birthday at the next table with friends. Now both Tim and Bill are gone, and I’m thinking I may want that to be my last memory of Paone’s.

All in all, Bill was one of the most easygoing bosses I’ve ever had. But that made it all the more crushing when you weren’t doing your job and were reminded of that in his sonorous tones. He was also a demanding editor. In this pre-computer age, you could readily see all the changes he had made in your copy by the markings of his red pen. Sometimes there seemed to be more red ink than black typewriter copy on the pages I had submitted, but eventually that decreased some. Either I was becoming a better writer or he was giving up.

Of course, when you work for someone as famous as Buckley, what you cherish most are the personal moments together, away from the crowd. I always thought he felt guilty about the peon’s pay I got from National Review, because so often he would go out of his way to augment my pay—but there probably was no guilt involved, just generous Bill. One time he asked me to walk with him to the small apartment he rented a couple of blocks away from the office. He opened the door to the foyer closet and asked me to try on one of his suits. Perfect fit—yes, I was that skinny back then. Bill had developed a wool allergy, and soon I was the new owner of five or six handsome Savile Row suits.

Best of all were the times spent on his boat. Mind you, he was a world-class sailor and I only learned which side was which, starboard and port, by remembering that both “port” and “left” have four characters. So taking me aboard, instead of picking someone who could help him battle the elements in a raging sea, was an act of pure generosity on his part.

Bill’s nautical generosity knew its sensible bounds, though, and I was never invited to join one of his cross-Atlantic sails. Instead, I would be invited on board to ply the calm waters of Long Island Sound.

At night we’d anchor and, with the lights of some Long Island harbor village turning on, Bill would cook dinner and the two of us would consume several bottles of wine, of which he was most fond for as far back as I can remember. We’d have hours of lively talk before the wine took its toll—talk about politics and the conservative movement, to be sure, but mostly about everything else that interested us, which is to say, a lot.

One time we were bringing his boat back from Stamford, Connecticut, where he had his home, to Manhattan. We pulled up at the East River pier on the East River where he normally docked, noticing some strange, rather large ship on the opposite side of the pier. No sooner had we hurled out our ropes than we were overtaken by Secret Service agents. We had forgotten that some Evil Empire potentate was in town, probably Khrushchev if I remember correctly, and no way were they going to allow America’s Mr. Anti-Communist to share that pier.

That had a happy ending for me, though. Bill’s backup was a pier on the Hudson near the George Washington Bridge. He graciously let me take the helm as we sailed under the Brooklyn Bridge, then quickly took it back before I could capsize us. What a memory for a landlubber!

The greatest memory of all

You will notice a recurrent theme in the eulogies coming forth: his personal generosity. It really was his most prominent trait.

When I get to know a man of power and influence, I judge his personal character by the way he treats those with less power, or no power, who depend on him for their well-being in some way. And I know that those people in Bill’s life worshipped him.

I also look at how he handles a crisis in a friend’s life, a crisis of that friend’s making. Does he cut and run to avoid embarrassment by association, or does he stand with his friend even as he tries to set him on the right path? There never was any question which path Bill would take.

He was generous of himself, of his time, and, yes, of his money. And all of this was with no publicity, no accolades, no expected payback. No wonder he died with thousands mourning him.

Bill Buckley was no saint, and he made mistakes, but above all he was a man of character and endless energy and generosity. He taught me that you can have a goal-filled life full of accomplishment while enjoying the journey to the fullest.

David Franke was Editorial Assistant to William F. Buckley Jr. (1960-1962), Washington editor (“Cato”) of National Review (1965-1967), and the compiler of Quotations from Chairman Bill: The Best of William F. Buckley Jr. (Arlington House).

http://www.ultimateronpaul.com/blog/thanks...r_so_much_more/

[Harry J.Dean]

Aside from not liking his political views and what secret govenmental things he did or knew about and covered-up, I remember him well on his TV show and found him an arrogant SOB who looked down on everyone as his intellectual inferior, even more so, if their politics were not his. His affected neo-British-upperclass annunciation was another snobbery/put-down artifact.

Editorial from today's Washington Post:

Mr. Buckley himself never posed as a heavyweight, though he loved to use words of many syllables and wrote incessantly -- books, columns, articles -- right up to his death yesterday at 82. His defining characteristic was that he was a man of good cheer who rarely got nasty in print or in person and who cultivated friends across the political spectrum, listened to them, and delighted in engaging one and all in civilized discourse, of which he was something of a master -- one who will be missed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1

I am still waiting for someone to supply even a shred of credible EVIDENCE that the late William Buckley had anything whatsoever to do with the assassination of JFK

Or, for that matter, that he committed a crime.

The crime by Mr. Buckley, his earlier and later associates and friends of the ultra-brand,

was/is in the 1960's subversion and seizure of our beloved {GOP} Grand Old Republican

Party, with his followers turning that once good name into a by-word of totalitarian greed

and war-making.

H.J.Dean

[John Simkin]

Interesting article in the American Free Press about the possible links between Buckley and the assassination of JFK:

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/bill_buckley128.html

After Liberty Lobby launched an extended investigation of Buckley and his affairs, some details (but not all of them) were published in The Spotlight, Buckley then filed a libel suit against Liberty Lobby in 1980.

And—not coincidentally—this came not long after Buckley’s longtime friend and former colleague in the CIA station in Mexico City, E. Howard Hunt, one of the former Watergate burglars, had filed his own lawsuit against Liberty Lobby.

Not only was the CIA providing Hunt with money and attorneys, but Buckley was helping fund Hunt’s lawsuit, even as Buckley was waging his own legal assault on the populist institution.

In the end, in 1985—under the skillful defense of attorney Mark Lane—Hunt’s lawsuit was dealt a devastating defeat, as later described in Lane’s best-selling book, Plausible Denial as well as this writer’s Final Judgment.

The jury concluded—just as The Spotlight had said—that there had been CIA involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and that Hunt had somehow been involved. Although Hunt denied under oath that he had any knowledge of any conspiracy to kill Kennedy, he later admitted, in a deathbed confession publicized by his own sons, that he did have foreknowledge of the impending assassination.

And, for the record, it should be noted that there were published allegations that Buckley himself may have had some role in the JFK conspiracy.

In any event, not long after Hunt’s lawsuit was scuttled, Buckley’s case against Liberty Lobby came to trial. Although Buckley sued for millions of dollars, the jury awarded Buckley only a dollar (plus $1,000 in punitive damages).

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Interesting article in the American Free Press about the possible links between Buckley and the assassination of JFK:

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/bill_buckley128.html

for the record, it should be noted that there were published allegations that Buckley himself may have had "some role" in the JFK conspiracy.

For the record, it should be noted that Buckley is linked to the assassination only because "there were published allegations" that he may have been linked to the assassination. That keeps everything going nicely around in circles.

The article does not even reveal where the allegations were "published", and there is not a word about evidence.

This is known as circulating a rumor.

It is interesting that Buckley WON his libel lawsuit against Spotlight and that the court awarded PUNITIVE damages. No mention whether Spotlight appealed the verdict, so we can assume that, if they did appeal, Buckley won again.

If there was any doubt that this article is a circle-jerk, one of the sources relied on bears the circular name of Revilo P. Oliver.