Buckley, William Frank, Jr.

Related Category: Journalism and Publishing: Biographies

1925–, American editor, author, and lecturer, b. New York City, grad. Yale, 1946. Buckley is a popular, eloquent, and witty spokesman for the conservative point of view. An editor for The American Mercury (1951–52), he founded (1955) the National Review, which soon became the leading journal of conservativism in the United States and which he edited until 2004. In 1965 he was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of New York City. He hosted (1966–99) the television show “Firing Line,” and writes a syndicated column. His nonfiction includes God and Man at Yale (1951) and The Unmaking of a Mayor (1966). His novelistic accounts of the adventures of an American spy during the cold war include Saving the Queen (1976), Marco Polo, If You Can (1982), A Very Private Plot (1994), and Last Call for Blackford Oakes (2005). He also wrote The Redhunter (1999), a largely favorable fictional presentation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's activities.

See his “autobiography of faith,” Nearer, My God (1997) and Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography (2004); biography by J. Judis (1988).