FrankRep
02-21-2010, 08:01 AM
William F. Buckley Jr.: the Establishment’s “House Conservative” (http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/457-william-f-buckley-jr-the-establishments-house-conservative)
Warren Mass | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
14 March 2008
The New York Times noted in observing Buckley's passing: "Mr. Buckley's greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal postwar America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Mr. Goldwater in 1964 and saw his dreams fulfilled when Mr. Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office." (Emphasis added.)
As one of the leading organs of the Eastern Liberal Establishment, the Times unquestionably played a key role in granting Buckley the keys to the kingdom of "respectability" (whatever that means in contemporary society) by which he might possess the power to admit (or deny) an entire political spectrum passage through the pearly gates guarded by alumni of Ivy League universities and members of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
In so doing, however, it can be documented that rather than fit the traditional conservative square peg into the round hole of establishment "respectability," Buckley whittled away at traditional, "square" conservatism until it was divested of any resemblance of its former self. Buckley very competently performed the task assigned to him by his mentors (most notably his Trotskyite socialist Yale Professor Willmoore Kendall, a veteran of the OSS, which later became the CIA), of slicing from the conservative timber anyone who persisted in espousing traditional "Old Right" conservative values. These conservatives "excommunicated" (or simply repulsed) by Buckley included: Professor Medford Evans, who appeared on Buckley's National Review magazine's inaugural masthead; Henry Paolucci, a leader of the Conservative Party of New York State; economist Murray Rothbard, who was an early National Review contributor; Ralph de Toledano, an early National Review editor; and Daniel Oliver, a National Review executive editor.
But dwarfing all of these slights was Buckley's unprovoked and uncivil attack on the man who had done more than any other individual in the 1950s to marshal confused and leaderless conservatives around a singular standard — Robert Welch, the founder of The John Birch Society.
That this schism among conservatives was completely instigated by Buckley is indicated by Welch's high praise for Buckley's magazine at the 1958 founding meeting of The John Birch Society, when Welch told his associates: "I think that National Review especially, because it is aimed so professionally at the academic mind, should be in every college library in the United States…." And in the JBS membership Bulletin for May 1960, Welch encouraged members to write to Captain Edward Rickenbacker, then Chairman of Eastern Airlines, urging that both Human Events and National Review be placed on the airline's planes.
Despite Welch's longtime support of Buckley and his magazine, however, in early 1962 Buckley gathered his editorial staff to plan an attack on America's leading conservative, anti-communist leader. Starting with a six-page editorial entitled "The Question of Robert Welch," Buckley was unrelenting in his attack on The John Birch Society for the remainder of his life.
An excerpt from Buckley's forthcoming book, Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater, entitled, "Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/Goldwater--the-John-Birch-Society--and-Me-11248)" was published in the March 2008 issue of Commentary magazine, which openly calls itself "the flagship of neoconservatism."
The article is a candid description of Buckley's meeting with members of Senator Barry Goldwater's pre-presidential exploratory campaign team in 1962, and of National Review staffer Russell Kirk's attempts to get Goldwater to renounce The John Birch Society. The very liberal New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had urged Goldwater to do the same, and, for his efforts, was almost drowned out at the podium at the 1964 Republican Convention by a hearty chorus of boos coming from the galleries! To his credit, Senator Goldwater delivered his famous "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" speech, largely as a rebuke to Rockefeller.
Though the Times now credits Buckley for the conditions making Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential nomination possible, it was Robert Welch and The John Birch Society that did the spadework that made that happen, and Senator Goldwater knew it. Buckley talked like a conservative, but his neocon philsophy was much closer to Rockefeller's than to Goldwater's.
Neoconservatism Explained
It is impossible to understand William F. Buckley without understanding what neoconservatism is. Those laboring with that handicap were apt to be taken in, as this writer once was, by Buckley's charm, wit, and ability to crush liberal opponents in debates. A case in point is an article headlined "Buckley's Catholic Legacy," in the National Catholic Register of March 9.
The Register is a newspaper I read faithfully, and, I rarely have reason to disagree with its generally conservative Catholic reporting. However, the author of this article, Father Raymond J. De Souza, stopped only a little short of proclaiming Buckley as the greatest American Catholic since Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. It is entirely possible that Father De Souza, a Canadian, simply does not fully understand U.S. politics, and the difference between historic American conservatism and neoconservatism. (Very likely, 98 percent of Americans do not understand the difference!) Much is explained, however, as De Souza describes in a sidebar ("My Encounter With Mr. Buckley") how the late journalist, in appreciation for the priest-writer's favorable review of Buckley's autobiography, Nearer, My God, once treated him to lunch at Paone's, an Italian restaurant located near National Review’s Manhattan offices.
Having been subjected at such close range to the legendary Buckley charm, it is perhaps understandable that Father De Souza failed — as have so many others — to see through the late journalist's façade and realize that the man was an imposter as a conservative, and a poor representative of his professed faith, as well. Explaining the latter point first, during his career Buckley submitted to interviews with Playboy magazine, and allowed excerpts from his works to be published in both Playboy and Penthouse; he allowed National Review to publish several articles defending "gay rights," and as early as March 1966, several years before Roe v Wade, he wrote that "the Catholic Church should reconsider its position" on laws prohibiting abortion. In a footnote in Nearer, My God that Father De Souza must have overlooked in rendering his favorable review of the book, Buckley wrote, in a tone far too flippant for such a critical subject: "The demand to baptize abortion is very rare, the general position among Catholic dissenters being that those who abort, or collude in bringing about an abortion, are yes sinners, but so is your old man."
De Souza misses this point completely by describing Buckley as "staunchly pro-life," when, in reality, the man was as wishy-washy on the matter of life as is John McCain.
As far as Buckley's well-touted "conservatism" goes, De Souza accepts at face value what all those who have not fully investigated the man accept, and parrots the establishment's designation of Buckley as the "father of the modern conservative movement." His most egregious misstatement, perhaps, is his claim:
In founding his magazine, National Review, in 1955, he fashioned a new conservative movement, "excommunicating" the isolationists and nativists and extremists (he broke with Joe McCarthy) that had previously dominated American conservative thought.
The fact of the matter is that Buckley, far from being the father of anything resembling true conservatism (as best exemplified by Senator Robert Taft, who was denied the Republican nomination in 1952 by Buckley's philosophical brethren), was merely a very capable quarterback for a team of neoconservatives (neocons) who had graduated from the World War II-era OSS into the CIA, bringing their anti-Stalinist, but definitely Trotskyite (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j061303.html), ideas with them. The repackaging of this anti-American philosophy as "neoconservatism" rivaled any campaign Madison Avenue ever concocted for a "new" detergent that would get your clothes whiter and brighter.
The original OSS/CIA neocons, including the aforementioned Willmoore Kendall, spotted young Bill Buckley when he was on the staff of the Yale Daily News, and tagged him as a likely rising star of their movement. (Buckley, of course, was also tapped to join the secretive Skull and Bones society while at Yale, as had both presidents Bush and Senator John Kerry.) At Kendall's urging, Buckley joined the CIA after graduating from Yale. Through Kendall, Buckley became acquainted with James Burnham, another OSS/CIA veteran who would become a prominent figure at National Review. So strong was the CIA connection that the brilliant economist and former contributor to Buckley's magazine, Murray Rothbard, said in 1981: "I'm convinced that the whole National Review is a CIA operation."
There is much more that must be considered to fully comprehend William F. Buckley, the star quarterback of the neoconservative movement. Those who are interested in learning "the rest of the story" are encouraged to read William F. Buckley, Jr., Pied Piper for the Establishment (http://www.amazon.com/William-F-Buckley-Jr-Establishment/dp/1881919064), by John F. McManus.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/457-william-f-buckley-jr-the-establishments-house-conservative
Warren Mass | John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)
14 March 2008
The New York Times noted in observing Buckley's passing: "Mr. Buckley's greatest achievement was making conservatism — not just electoral Republicanism, but conservatism as a system of ideas — respectable in liberal postwar America. He mobilized the young enthusiasts who helped nominate Mr. Goldwater in 1964 and saw his dreams fulfilled when Mr. Reagan and the Bushes captured the Oval Office." (Emphasis added.)
As one of the leading organs of the Eastern Liberal Establishment, the Times unquestionably played a key role in granting Buckley the keys to the kingdom of "respectability" (whatever that means in contemporary society) by which he might possess the power to admit (or deny) an entire political spectrum passage through the pearly gates guarded by alumni of Ivy League universities and members of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
In so doing, however, it can be documented that rather than fit the traditional conservative square peg into the round hole of establishment "respectability," Buckley whittled away at traditional, "square" conservatism until it was divested of any resemblance of its former self. Buckley very competently performed the task assigned to him by his mentors (most notably his Trotskyite socialist Yale Professor Willmoore Kendall, a veteran of the OSS, which later became the CIA), of slicing from the conservative timber anyone who persisted in espousing traditional "Old Right" conservative values. These conservatives "excommunicated" (or simply repulsed) by Buckley included: Professor Medford Evans, who appeared on Buckley's National Review magazine's inaugural masthead; Henry Paolucci, a leader of the Conservative Party of New York State; economist Murray Rothbard, who was an early National Review contributor; Ralph de Toledano, an early National Review editor; and Daniel Oliver, a National Review executive editor.
But dwarfing all of these slights was Buckley's unprovoked and uncivil attack on the man who had done more than any other individual in the 1950s to marshal confused and leaderless conservatives around a singular standard — Robert Welch, the founder of The John Birch Society.
That this schism among conservatives was completely instigated by Buckley is indicated by Welch's high praise for Buckley's magazine at the 1958 founding meeting of The John Birch Society, when Welch told his associates: "I think that National Review especially, because it is aimed so professionally at the academic mind, should be in every college library in the United States…." And in the JBS membership Bulletin for May 1960, Welch encouraged members to write to Captain Edward Rickenbacker, then Chairman of Eastern Airlines, urging that both Human Events and National Review be placed on the airline's planes.
Despite Welch's longtime support of Buckley and his magazine, however, in early 1962 Buckley gathered his editorial staff to plan an attack on America's leading conservative, anti-communist leader. Starting with a six-page editorial entitled "The Question of Robert Welch," Buckley was unrelenting in his attack on The John Birch Society for the remainder of his life.
An excerpt from Buckley's forthcoming book, Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater, entitled, "Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/Goldwater--the-John-Birch-Society--and-Me-11248)" was published in the March 2008 issue of Commentary magazine, which openly calls itself "the flagship of neoconservatism."
The article is a candid description of Buckley's meeting with members of Senator Barry Goldwater's pre-presidential exploratory campaign team in 1962, and of National Review staffer Russell Kirk's attempts to get Goldwater to renounce The John Birch Society. The very liberal New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had urged Goldwater to do the same, and, for his efforts, was almost drowned out at the podium at the 1964 Republican Convention by a hearty chorus of boos coming from the galleries! To his credit, Senator Goldwater delivered his famous "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" speech, largely as a rebuke to Rockefeller.
Though the Times now credits Buckley for the conditions making Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential nomination possible, it was Robert Welch and The John Birch Society that did the spadework that made that happen, and Senator Goldwater knew it. Buckley talked like a conservative, but his neocon philsophy was much closer to Rockefeller's than to Goldwater's.
Neoconservatism Explained
It is impossible to understand William F. Buckley without understanding what neoconservatism is. Those laboring with that handicap were apt to be taken in, as this writer once was, by Buckley's charm, wit, and ability to crush liberal opponents in debates. A case in point is an article headlined "Buckley's Catholic Legacy," in the National Catholic Register of March 9.
The Register is a newspaper I read faithfully, and, I rarely have reason to disagree with its generally conservative Catholic reporting. However, the author of this article, Father Raymond J. De Souza, stopped only a little short of proclaiming Buckley as the greatest American Catholic since Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the sole Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. It is entirely possible that Father De Souza, a Canadian, simply does not fully understand U.S. politics, and the difference between historic American conservatism and neoconservatism. (Very likely, 98 percent of Americans do not understand the difference!) Much is explained, however, as De Souza describes in a sidebar ("My Encounter With Mr. Buckley") how the late journalist, in appreciation for the priest-writer's favorable review of Buckley's autobiography, Nearer, My God, once treated him to lunch at Paone's, an Italian restaurant located near National Review’s Manhattan offices.
Having been subjected at such close range to the legendary Buckley charm, it is perhaps understandable that Father De Souza failed — as have so many others — to see through the late journalist's façade and realize that the man was an imposter as a conservative, and a poor representative of his professed faith, as well. Explaining the latter point first, during his career Buckley submitted to interviews with Playboy magazine, and allowed excerpts from his works to be published in both Playboy and Penthouse; he allowed National Review to publish several articles defending "gay rights," and as early as March 1966, several years before Roe v Wade, he wrote that "the Catholic Church should reconsider its position" on laws prohibiting abortion. In a footnote in Nearer, My God that Father De Souza must have overlooked in rendering his favorable review of the book, Buckley wrote, in a tone far too flippant for such a critical subject: "The demand to baptize abortion is very rare, the general position among Catholic dissenters being that those who abort, or collude in bringing about an abortion, are yes sinners, but so is your old man."
De Souza misses this point completely by describing Buckley as "staunchly pro-life," when, in reality, the man was as wishy-washy on the matter of life as is John McCain.
As far as Buckley's well-touted "conservatism" goes, De Souza accepts at face value what all those who have not fully investigated the man accept, and parrots the establishment's designation of Buckley as the "father of the modern conservative movement." His most egregious misstatement, perhaps, is his claim:
In founding his magazine, National Review, in 1955, he fashioned a new conservative movement, "excommunicating" the isolationists and nativists and extremists (he broke with Joe McCarthy) that had previously dominated American conservative thought.
The fact of the matter is that Buckley, far from being the father of anything resembling true conservatism (as best exemplified by Senator Robert Taft, who was denied the Republican nomination in 1952 by Buckley's philosophical brethren), was merely a very capable quarterback for a team of neoconservatives (neocons) who had graduated from the World War II-era OSS into the CIA, bringing their anti-Stalinist, but definitely Trotskyite (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j061303.html), ideas with them. The repackaging of this anti-American philosophy as "neoconservatism" rivaled any campaign Madison Avenue ever concocted for a "new" detergent that would get your clothes whiter and brighter.
The original OSS/CIA neocons, including the aforementioned Willmoore Kendall, spotted young Bill Buckley when he was on the staff of the Yale Daily News, and tagged him as a likely rising star of their movement. (Buckley, of course, was also tapped to join the secretive Skull and Bones society while at Yale, as had both presidents Bush and Senator John Kerry.) At Kendall's urging, Buckley joined the CIA after graduating from Yale. Through Kendall, Buckley became acquainted with James Burnham, another OSS/CIA veteran who would become a prominent figure at National Review. So strong was the CIA connection that the brilliant economist and former contributor to Buckley's magazine, Murray Rothbard, said in 1981: "I'm convinced that the whole National Review is a CIA operation."
There is much more that must be considered to fully comprehend William F. Buckley, the star quarterback of the neoconservative movement. Those who are interested in learning "the rest of the story" are encouraged to read William F. Buckley, Jr., Pied Piper for the Establishment (http://www.amazon.com/William-F-Buckley-Jr-Establishment/dp/1881919064), by John F. McManus.
SOURCE:
http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/457-william-f-buckley-jr-the-establishments-house-conservative