1 00:00:00,967 --> 00:00:02,302 (audience applauds) 2 00:00:02,302 --> 00:00:04,170 - Mr. Buckley, I've noticed that 3 00:00:04,170 --> 00:00:07,540 whenever you appear on television, you're always seated. 4 00:00:07,540 --> 00:00:10,276 Does this mean you can't think on your feet? 5 00:00:10,276 --> 00:00:13,513 (audience laughs) 6 00:00:13,513 --> 00:00:14,414 - It's very... 7 00:00:15,815 --> 00:00:20,153 very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what I know. 8 00:00:20,153 --> 00:00:22,922 (audience laughs) 9 00:00:22,922 --> 00:00:25,992 (audience applauds) 10 00:00:27,894 --> 00:00:30,463 (light music) 11 00:00:31,831 --> 00:00:33,700 - [Speaker 1] And now, will you welcome, please, 12 00:00:33,700 --> 00:00:37,871 a man who's been described in a million different ways. 13 00:00:37,871 --> 00:00:39,839 - [Speaker 2] He's articulate, provocative, 14 00:00:39,839 --> 00:00:42,442 a scourge to some people and a hero to others. 15 00:00:42,442 --> 00:00:43,743 - [Speaker 3] I always find him fascinating. 16 00:00:43,743 --> 00:00:45,578 - [Speaker 4] Very, very strong opinion. 17 00:00:45,578 --> 00:00:47,447 - [Speaker 5] One of the most controversial 18 00:00:47,447 --> 00:00:50,984 and charming men on television, Mr. William F. Buckley Jr. 19 00:00:50,984 --> 00:00:53,787 (audience applauds) 20 00:00:53,787 --> 00:00:56,689 - [Speaker 6] Bill Buckley was so refreshing. 21 00:00:56,689 --> 00:00:57,957 He was so exciting. 22 00:00:57,957 --> 00:00:59,459 - It seems to me 23 00:00:59,459 --> 00:01:00,860 that whoever said that was trying to be provocative. 24 00:01:00,860 --> 00:01:03,963 Whether he is naturally or affectively stupid, 25 00:01:03,963 --> 00:01:05,365 I don't know. 26 00:01:05,365 --> 00:01:08,635 (host laughs) (audience applauds) 27 00:01:08,635 --> 00:01:11,938 - [Speaker 7] Whether you agreed with him and loved him, 28 00:01:11,938 --> 00:01:14,240 or he enraged you, 29 00:01:14,240 --> 00:01:16,943 Buckley made everybody's blood run quickly. 30 00:01:16,943 --> 00:01:19,112 - I think that you use the word violence 31 00:01:20,513 --> 00:01:24,417 with such slovenliness as to render yourself unintelligible. 32 00:01:24,417 --> 00:01:25,852 - [Speaker 8] This is the William F. Buckley 33 00:01:25,852 --> 00:01:27,187 America knows best, 34 00:01:27,187 --> 00:01:29,722 the man someone called the King of Leer, 35 00:01:29,722 --> 00:01:32,725 grimacing or incredulous or disdainful. 36 00:01:32,725 --> 00:01:35,361 - Mr. Buckley, you once called Harry Truman 37 00:01:35,361 --> 00:01:38,064 the nation's most conspicuous vulgarian. 38 00:01:38,064 --> 00:01:39,666 You said of General Eisenhower 39 00:01:39,666 --> 00:01:41,267 that when he touches a subject, 40 00:01:41,267 --> 00:01:44,771 every ray of light, every breath of air is choked out. 41 00:01:44,771 --> 00:01:46,673 Of the Kennedy administration, I quote you, 42 00:01:46,673 --> 00:01:48,641 "There are not enough psychiatrists 43 00:01:48,641 --> 00:01:51,044 to cure this crazy administration." 44 00:01:51,044 --> 00:01:54,547 And you've called President Johnson, Uncle Corn Pone. 45 00:01:54,547 --> 00:01:56,049 - I didn't say that about Kennedy. 46 00:01:56,049 --> 00:01:57,350 I said the other three though. - [Interviewer] Right. 47 00:01:57,350 --> 00:01:59,052 - I'd be glad to elaborate on them. 48 00:02:00,286 --> 00:02:02,088 (group applauds) (quirky instrumental music) 49 00:02:02,088 --> 00:02:05,225 - [Speaker 9] Bill was so big that he wasn't one thing. 50 00:02:05,225 --> 00:02:08,761 A political man, yes, but also a literary one. 51 00:02:08,761 --> 00:02:13,833 A provocateur, a public brawler, but also a kind of poet. 52 00:02:15,835 --> 00:02:18,471 - [Speaker 10] He wanted to encompass as many forms 53 00:02:18,471 --> 00:02:20,440 of conservatism as he could. 54 00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:22,742 - It certainly isn't just rich people, 55 00:02:22,742 --> 00:02:24,844 it certainly isn't just poor people. 56 00:02:24,844 --> 00:02:26,746 It certainly isn't just Westerners 57 00:02:26,746 --> 00:02:29,549 or just Middle Westerners. 58 00:02:29,549 --> 00:02:33,119 There are conservatives everywhere I've been in America. 59 00:02:33,119 --> 00:02:34,754 - [Speaker 11] It wasn't about personal power, 60 00:02:34,754 --> 00:02:36,856 it was about building a movement. 61 00:02:36,856 --> 00:02:41,094 - Conservatives paid $1 each to see William F. Buckley Jr. 62 00:02:42,195 --> 00:02:43,897 There was nothing fancy on the menu here, 63 00:02:43,897 --> 00:02:45,765 just hot tongue and cold shoulder 64 00:02:45,765 --> 00:02:48,301 for everything distasteful to the conservatives. 65 00:02:49,435 --> 00:02:51,771 - [Speaker 11] Without William Buckley, 66 00:02:51,771 --> 00:02:55,542 conservatism as we understand it would never have happened. 67 00:02:55,542 --> 00:02:57,076 - [Group] We want Buckley! 68 00:02:57,076 --> 00:02:58,611 - [Speaker 12] Buckley said 69 00:02:58,611 --> 00:03:00,880 that he was a revolutionary against the establishment. 70 00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:03,183 An intellectual revolutionary. 71 00:03:03,183 --> 00:03:04,417 - [Speaker 12] I can't think of anyone 72 00:03:04,417 --> 00:03:06,052 who you would compare him to 73 00:03:06,052 --> 00:03:08,521 over the last three-quarters of a century 74 00:03:08,521 --> 00:03:12,325 who had the impact that he had on American political life. 75 00:03:13,493 --> 00:03:16,629 To have built the kind of edifice of ideas 76 00:03:16,629 --> 00:03:20,733 and institutions that Buckley did is astonishing. 77 00:03:20,733 --> 00:03:22,502 It's just astonishing. 78 00:03:22,502 --> 00:03:27,574 (quirky music continues) (typewriter clacking) 79 00:03:31,611 --> 00:03:34,147 (typewriter dings) 80 00:03:34,147 --> 00:03:34,948 - [Producer] William F. Buckley? 81 00:03:34,948 --> 00:03:35,848 - [Buckley] All set. 82 00:03:36,649 --> 00:03:38,117 - [Speaker] Start. 83 00:03:38,117 --> 00:03:40,220 - Why are the races unreconciled? 84 00:03:40,220 --> 00:03:42,322 Why does poverty persevere? 85 00:03:42,322 --> 00:03:44,524 Why are our governors indifferent to us? 86 00:03:44,524 --> 00:03:46,492 Why are the young disenchanted? 87 00:03:46,492 --> 00:03:49,262 Why do the birds sing so unhappily? 88 00:03:49,262 --> 00:03:50,630 It is easy to be carried away, 89 00:03:50,630 --> 00:03:54,901 and yet always, there is a strain of seriousness, 90 00:03:54,901 --> 00:03:56,803 something in the system that warns us, 91 00:03:56,803 --> 00:03:59,505 warns us that America had better strike out 92 00:03:59,505 --> 00:04:01,574 on a different course rather than face 93 00:04:01,574 --> 00:04:06,479 another four years of asphyxiation by liberal premises. 94 00:04:06,479 --> 00:04:09,015 (crowd cheers) (pensive music) 95 00:04:09,015 --> 00:04:10,984 - [Sam Tanenhaus] There is no political movement 96 00:04:10,984 --> 00:04:15,555 that comes close to the American conservative movement, 97 00:04:15,555 --> 00:04:18,224 where you actually have a different idea 98 00:04:18,224 --> 00:04:20,393 about what the country should be like, 99 00:04:20,393 --> 00:04:24,097 and then over time, the country gets there. 100 00:04:24,097 --> 00:04:26,666 And that's what happened with this conservative movement. 101 00:04:26,666 --> 00:04:31,170 - Under liberalism, America hasn't prospered. 102 00:04:32,605 --> 00:04:34,874 - [Sam Tanenhaus] Bill Buckley was one of its best writers, 103 00:04:34,874 --> 00:04:37,043 maybe its best debater. 104 00:04:37,043 --> 00:04:40,146 He was its voice, he was its face. 105 00:04:41,614 --> 00:04:44,984 There's the Whitman line, you know, "I contain multitudes". 106 00:04:44,984 --> 00:04:47,854 Buckley did contain multitudes within himself. 107 00:04:47,854 --> 00:04:50,156 - This is William F. Buckley Jr. in New York. 108 00:04:51,357 --> 00:04:52,725 (indistinct) Perfect. 109 00:04:52,725 --> 00:04:53,593 - [Speaker] Good. 110 00:04:53,593 --> 00:04:55,361 (Buckley chuckles) 111 00:04:55,361 --> 00:04:57,030 (pensive music) 112 00:04:57,030 --> 00:05:00,733 - [Christopher] My father was a man of many parts. 113 00:05:00,733 --> 00:05:05,371 If you ask me what I was most proud of, 114 00:05:06,205 --> 00:05:08,875 it was his generosity of soul. 115 00:05:10,710 --> 00:05:14,547 I have a hard time imagining Pop sitting down 116 00:05:14,547 --> 00:05:18,084 at his desk and thinking, "I shall become a leader." 117 00:05:18,084 --> 00:05:22,789 You know, I think it evolved much more organically. 118 00:05:22,789 --> 00:05:25,291 (pensive music continues) 119 00:05:25,291 --> 00:05:27,560 Someone once wrote my father and said, 120 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:31,497 "Mr. Buckley, what is the secret to happiness?" 121 00:05:31,497 --> 00:05:34,434 And he wrote back, "Don't grow up." 122 00:05:36,436 --> 00:05:41,274 He was raised in, I guess you could call it a bubble. 123 00:05:41,274 --> 00:05:44,444 It was sort of, you could call it Buckley World. 124 00:05:44,444 --> 00:05:47,347 (pensive music continues) (car whooshes) 125 00:05:47,347 --> 00:05:51,317 In 1923, the family bought a house 126 00:05:51,317 --> 00:05:54,554 in Sharon, Connecticut, and it was called Great Elm 127 00:05:54,554 --> 00:05:58,491 because there was an enormous elm tree. 128 00:05:58,491 --> 00:06:03,496 I think it was the largest and oldest elm in Connecticut. 129 00:06:04,397 --> 00:06:05,798 (engaging music) (bird squawks) 130 00:06:05,798 --> 00:06:09,001 - [Kevin Schultz] Great Elm was a world unto itself. 131 00:06:09,001 --> 00:06:12,405 It's this huge estate filled with six pianos 132 00:06:12,405 --> 00:06:15,408 so all the children could practice on their own. 133 00:06:15,408 --> 00:06:18,544 (engaging music continues) 134 00:06:18,544 --> 00:06:21,147 The family was unbelievably insular. 135 00:06:21,147 --> 00:06:23,316 Nobody had to go outside of the walls 136 00:06:23,316 --> 00:06:26,085 in order to encounter any part of life. 137 00:06:27,253 --> 00:06:29,222 - [Speaker] They don't go to the local school. 138 00:06:29,222 --> 00:06:32,959 They have a school that they hold within their house. 139 00:06:34,260 --> 00:06:37,130 They have a variety of tutors in academic subjects, 140 00:06:37,130 --> 00:06:41,100 tutors in ballroom dancing and horse riding. 141 00:06:41,100 --> 00:06:42,435 (hooves clopping) 142 00:06:42,435 --> 00:06:44,937 They were learning French, learning Spanish, 143 00:06:44,937 --> 00:06:47,140 learning how to sail, learning how to hunt. 144 00:06:48,274 --> 00:06:49,742 - [Speaker] It was like a summer camp 145 00:06:49,742 --> 00:06:52,178 and a liberal arts college right there at the estate. 146 00:06:53,446 --> 00:06:56,449 - [Speaker] The Buckley children had an opportunity 147 00:06:56,449 --> 00:07:01,154 to inspire each other, to challenge each other, 148 00:07:01,154 --> 00:07:02,789 driven by their father. 149 00:07:02,789 --> 00:07:05,958 He really was sort of the headmaster of this academy. 150 00:07:07,627 --> 00:07:10,696 - [Christopher] My grandfather was a fascinating guy. 151 00:07:10,696 --> 00:07:13,065 He grew up dirt poor. 152 00:07:13,065 --> 00:07:17,703 He went down to Mexico and got into the oil business, 153 00:07:19,005 --> 00:07:20,740 and it was boom and bust. 154 00:07:22,408 --> 00:07:25,011 Eventually, he found a lot of oil. 155 00:07:26,846 --> 00:07:28,281 - [Matthew Continetti] Will Buckley was searching 156 00:07:28,281 --> 00:07:31,617 for fortune, but he got caught up in a lot 157 00:07:31,617 --> 00:07:34,420 of revolutionary movements in Latin America, 158 00:07:34,420 --> 00:07:37,623 and I think that instilled in him a distaste for disorder 159 00:07:38,458 --> 00:07:40,193 and a fear of revolt. 160 00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:43,629 And he communicated that to his children. 161 00:07:46,699 --> 00:07:48,935 - [Christopher] My grandmother was an enchanting woman. 162 00:07:48,935 --> 00:07:52,805 We called her Mimi, Aloise Steiner Buckley. 163 00:07:52,805 --> 00:07:55,241 Deeply, deeply religious. 164 00:07:56,342 --> 00:07:59,479 She gave my father a religious faith 165 00:07:59,479 --> 00:08:04,484 that was the molten core of his being, 166 00:08:05,685 --> 00:08:08,221 and I think you could extrapolate from that 167 00:08:08,221 --> 00:08:10,890 everything about my father. 168 00:08:10,890 --> 00:08:13,659 (engaging music) 169 00:08:13,659 --> 00:08:16,095 - [Matthew Continetti] That devotion ends up being 170 00:08:16,095 --> 00:08:17,897 kind of at the core of Buckley's understanding 171 00:08:17,897 --> 00:08:19,398 of what love is, 172 00:08:19,398 --> 00:08:22,902 love of one's friends, one's family, and one's country. 173 00:08:24,737 --> 00:08:29,308 - [Lee Edwards] This was Will Senior's pedagogical idea 174 00:08:29,308 --> 00:08:32,044 to say, "I'm not going to entrust this to government 175 00:08:32,044 --> 00:08:33,679 to take care of my children. 176 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:37,984 I'm gonna create this perfect brood of young people." 177 00:08:37,984 --> 00:08:39,952 (engaging music continues) 178 00:08:39,952 --> 00:08:45,024 He's trying to extract the very best from his children, 179 00:08:45,892 --> 00:08:46,893 challenging them again and again. 180 00:08:48,828 --> 00:08:53,900 Bill Buckley Jr. really learned how to defend himself 181 00:08:55,301 --> 00:08:58,004 and to stake out positions which nobody else had staked out. 182 00:08:58,004 --> 00:09:00,039 (engaging music continues) 183 00:09:00,039 --> 00:09:01,874 - [Matthew Continetti] There were frequent guests, 184 00:09:01,874 --> 00:09:04,443 and among the guests was a major influence on Buckley, 185 00:09:04,443 --> 00:09:06,846 the literary journalist, Albert Jay Nock. 186 00:09:08,214 --> 00:09:12,885 Nock was a former Anglican priest who abandoned his family 187 00:09:12,885 --> 00:09:15,821 to become a intellectual aristocrat. 188 00:09:17,023 --> 00:09:19,926 - [Christopher] Nock's theme was essentially, 189 00:09:19,926 --> 00:09:22,128 civilization was in decline, 190 00:09:22,128 --> 00:09:23,763 (typewriter clacks) 191 00:09:23,763 --> 00:09:27,833 and it had come down to what he called the remnant, 192 00:09:27,833 --> 00:09:30,436 which was a very limited number of people 193 00:09:30,436 --> 00:09:34,574 who could really be trusted to lead wisely. 194 00:09:34,574 --> 00:09:36,776 (engaging music continues) 195 00:09:36,776 --> 00:09:39,478 - [Beverly Gage] That central thought 196 00:09:39,478 --> 00:09:42,114 that there is a noble remnant 197 00:09:42,114 --> 00:09:46,152 of highly educated men in particular, 198 00:09:46,152 --> 00:09:49,288 who were going to stand apart from society, 199 00:09:49,288 --> 00:09:52,825 who could see things that other people couldn't see, 200 00:09:52,825 --> 00:09:54,994 loomed very large for Buckley 201 00:09:56,362 --> 00:09:59,298 and it really becomes part of the sensibility 202 00:09:59,298 --> 00:10:01,100 of the conservative movement.