Bill Buckley was a big person, containing multitudes. I suppose we all think we contain multitudes, to a degree — Bill really did. He belonged to America, and the world. He was always writing for “mainstream” journals: Esquire, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, etc. He was always on television — his own show (Firing Line), of course, but also the “mainstream” shows: the Tonight show, the Today show, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Laugh-In . . .
He is not to be ghetto-ized — not to be parochialized, provincialized. The conservative movement (if that term is still viable) should not clutch him, like Gollum purring, “My precious.” Bill would have hated that. There is a reason that he tabbed Sam Tanenhaus as his biographer. As Bill explained to me, he saw what Tanenhaus had done with Whittaker Chambers, and he wanted similar treatment for himself.
In 2004, when Bill separated from National Review — that is, when he gave up his shares — he told the New York Times before he told us. He sent us a memo, which began, “As you may have read in the opposition press . . .” Typical WFB. Playing at tribalism — “the opposition press” — but doing what he wanted to do, regardless. Frankly, I was a little irked.
No matter. Over the years, I have come to understand Bill better than ever. I wish I could tell him. (Maybe I will.)
In the American Masters series, a documentary about Bill has appeared. (He is certainly an American master.) The documentary-makers are entitled to their views about Bill, and so are others. Again, he belonged — belongs — to the great big world. He would be aghast at ghetto-ization.
But among those entitled to their own views is my own bad self. And I will give a few — plus memories.
There are people who would like to freeze WFB in time: freeze him in the 1950s and ’60s. Most of these are on the left. But, in recent years, I have noticed that some are on the right. People want to freeze him for their own purposes. They are loath to grant him the ensuing 40, 50 years.
(I myself started reading Bill in high school, in about 1981.)
He changed his mind on a number of subjects. He was ever inquisitive, ever learning, ever examining and re-examining. He spent a good part of his early career defending Joe McCarthy. He wrote or co-wrote two books on the general subject. His mature views, however, are found in his novel The Redhunter (1999).
McCarthy, WFB told me, set back the cause of anti-Communism by ten years. He did it through his buffoonery and mendacity. (Also, McCarthy was afflicted by alcoholism, but that is not an excuse.)
Most important, WFB changed his mind about civil rights. It would be wrong to freeze him in time, when he himself was not frozen. In a post five years ago, I related a couple of memories. I wish to relate them again. (In fact, I think I’ll paste from the old post.)
A long time ago, there was a catchphrase in American life: “Wass you dere, Sharlie?” (“Was you there, Charlie?”) I was there. And this cannot be “gainsaid,” as Bill would say.
Let me paste:
In Bill’s last years, I was on a platform with him, a platform that included Jeff Greenfield, the longtime Democratic journalist. (He was also a longtime friend of WFB’s.) Jeff was pressing him on the Right and civil rights, and I made an intervention or two, saying that Goldwater was worried about the faithful application of the Constitution, etc. — you know, all the things we’ve always said.
Bill would have none of it. He shut me down. He said the Right, including himself, had been wrong on civil rights, and that’s all there was to it. He regretted it keenly.
A second memory:
Flash forward to the last conversation I ever had with him — at least, the last in person. It was in February 2008, the month he died, and I was just about to go off to India. He was reminiscing. With the most pained expression, he recounted an incident that occurred in Camden, S.C., in the home of his mother. A friend of hers, a leading lady in town, had come to visit. She had just interviewed a maid — a black woman — who introduced herself as “Mrs. Sullivan.” The leading lady was aghast: Imagine someone like that, wanting to be called “Mrs.” Somebody!
Why Bill was reliving this, I don’t know. But it was on his mind, and he hated the inhumanity of that little episode. (Of course, everyone first-names now. But it was different then. Bill wanted this lady — Mrs. Sullivan — to have had her dignity.)
Maybe, just for kicks, I could relate one last memory, from that final visit. Bill had just read Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s Journals and had been enthralled by them. There were two references to him, he told me, both negative. Still: He was deeply impressed by the journals and wanted to review them at great length. Ten, twenty thousand words for one of the big magazines, such as The New Yorker.
It would have been wonderful, to read that review — that review–essay.