William F. Buckley Jr.: life, ideas and books
Founder of National Review and host of Firing Line, who built the postwar conservative movement by joining traditionalists, libertarians and anticommunists.
Also known as Bill Buckley
Life
| Born | November 24, 1925, New York City |
|---|---|
| Died | February 27, 2008, Stamford, Connecticut |
| Occupation | Editor, author and television host |
Life
William Francis Buckley Jr. was born in New York City in 1925, served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946 and graduated from Yale in 1950. He published God and Man at Yale in 1951, a critique of what he saw as hostility to religion and free enterprise in the university's teaching, and spent about two years with the CIA.
In 1955 he founded National Review and edited it until 1990. He helped form Young Americans for Freedom in 1960, began the syndicated column On the Right in 1962 and ran for mayor of New York on the Conservative Party line in 1965, finishing third. From 1966 to 1999 he hosted the public-affairs program Firing Line, which ran for 1,429 episodes. He also wrote spy novels, books on sailing and many other works. He died at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, in 2008.
Ideas
Buckley is associated with fusionism, the effort to unite traditionalists, free-market libertarians and anticommunists in one movement. He was a committed anticommunist and shaped the magazine's line that it would support the "rightwardmost viable candidate". He also drew boundaries, distancing National Review from Ayn Rand, the John Birch Society and racist and antisemitic groups. He was known for a combative wit and for civil debate with opponents.
Major works
- God and Man at Yale (1951).
- McCarthy and His Enemies (1954), with L. Brent Bozell Jr.
- Up from Liberalism (1959).
- Miles Gone By (2004), a memoir.
Why conservatives read him
Buckley built the institutions, notably National Review and Firing Line, through which the modern American conservative movement found its voice and its leaders, including Ronald Reagan. Readers study him for the project of coalition-building, for the model of intellectual seriousness joined to public combat and for the debates over where the movement draws its lines.
Sources
Profile last reviewed November 8, 2026