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Strictly Right: William F. Buckley Jr. and the American Conservative Movement

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William F. Buckley Jr. has been at the center of the conservative movement for more than half a century. In fact, it is more than fair to say, WFB is responsible for the conservative intellectual movement in the United States. At a crucial time WFB provided a forum for a diverse set of talented writers and thinkers to come together in a new magazine that is perhaps the most important journal of ideas in the 20th Century. Buckley's dedication to anti-communism and the intellectual defense for the position he and his writers provided was important in the face of liberal intellectuals (anti-anti-communists) who saw anti-communism as nothing more than the boorish antics of McCarthy and others. Later NR became the journal in exile for conservatives after Goldwater's defeat. Even later NR became the house organ of the Reagan Revolution.

Early on NR and WFB directly also challenged some of the less than pleasant strains of conservatism -- Birchers and Randian cultists leading to their ultimate peripheral status. WFB continued his influence with Firing Line, one of the few intellectually stimulating television debate shows (Firing Line was no Hardball or O'Reilly!).

The book gives Buckley his due as we see the formation of NR to its maturation as indispensable read for Goldwater and a Hollywood actor turned Governor turned President.

An enjoyable read.

I was very excited to read this book. In fact, I asked for it as a present. I have been following WFB since I was a teenager and couldn't wait to get a full picture of his professional life and his role within conservatism and the Republican Party.

Unfortunately, this is not the book for that.

The book is written from an insider's perspective, but a completely uncritical, cloying one. There is more time spent of social details about NR parties and what type of hostess and decorator Buckley's wife was than on editorial debates and business decisions. I was dumbfounded to have to wade through minute details of who skied with who and which daughter of this important person used to ride horses with this other important person when they were young. You will learn nothing about Firing Line, but a great deal about chateaus by the time you're finished. As another reviewer mentioned, it's also surprising how much space is given to each Buckley novel, including excerpts.

The authors, who were both involved in NR and Republican politics, can't resist being a substantial part of the story, turning it into more of a memoir of their experiences than a true account of Buckley's life and impact. You'll wonder throughout why so much time is spent on Spiro Agnew, who one of the authors worked for. Additionally, they reference themselves throughout with the odd device "one of the present authors" such as "one of the present authors recalls". You'll also find pages of shallow American history, such as a retelling of Vietnam.

Again, I truly wanted to love this book. I hesitate to write such a negative review, but I really feel like you should have a better idea of what to expect. For people who were supposedly such insiders, I don't know that you will gain any actual insight into WFB or learn new details that have not been made public elsewhere. It reads more like a scrapbook for former employees of NR, with an emphasis on staff personalities and health problems, the social calendar and the authors' own experience.

There have been a number of books published in the last few years tracking the influence of "National Review" on the rise of the American conservative movement. And while all have their merits (at least, the two or three I've read so far all do), this was the most entertaining of the three. That's because in addition to being a history of "Buckleyite" or "National Review conservatism," so-called, it's also -- as the blurb on the back cover says -- "an affectionate portrait of the man who started it all."

The authors are long-time NR writers and editors and close associates of WFB, and so they don't claim to have produced a work with the olympian distance and objectivity (real or feigned) modern historiography seems to require. "Strictly Right" is a candid, relaxed, and very personal look at a man, a magazine, a movement, and the close ties between the three.

Fans of the man and the mag will certainly enjoy the authors' storytelling abilities and their recounting of interesting and half-forgotten episodes. Readers interested in the history of this form of conservatism would, I think, do well to pair this book with Jeff Hart's "The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times" (2005) which, I think, does a better job placing NR in historical and political context (Bridges and Coyne cite "The Making..." in their bibliography). Hart is another NR insider, of course, and so his book too is fundamentally sympathetic to the people and ideas discussed. He, however, has a jaded view of the magazine's relevance to modern conservatism that -- at least to judge by this book -- Bridges and Coyne do not share.

From uniting selected strands of the Old Right in the 1950s to charting a course between neocons and paleocons today (the authors devote several pages to David Frum's 2003 NR ukase "Unpatriotic Conservatives," which read people like, well, me, out of conservatism ... at least as David Frum defines it), Bridges and Coyne do a fair job showing how NR has shaped how "conservatism" has been defined and understood on the American political spectrum.

When you get right down to it, though, this is a book about William F. Buckley, Jr. And in the absence of any full biography of the man since John B. Judis' "William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives" in 1988, it's about the best look we've yet had at the man who can justly claim to have had as much influence as anyone on the political and cultural direction of America in the second half of the 20th century. The admiring tone of this book may put off readers not already sympathetic to man and cause, and certainly points out the need for a more scholarly volume or two on the subject. But conservatives and even libertarians -- particularly the young conservatives Hart argues are disconnected from their historical and philosophical roots -- should find much in these pages to appreciate and enjoy.

Linda Bridges gives us the background on how Buckley and his magazine helped transform the American political landscape. In witty fashion shows how this individual could help save the world while having a lot of fun on the way. Young people may not realize how lonely and beleaguered conservatives felt forty and fifty years ago. Those were heady times for young conservatives as well as the rabble-rousers of the New Left. People took ideas more seriously back then, too, not just the slogans and PR cliches that are our diet today.

Janis Starcs

I was quite disappointed. From its title I was expecting more details about Buckley's influence on the movement but instead there were tidbits with filler about his novels, his ski trips, and his sailing. Those details would have been important in a WFB bio. A reader curious about Buckley's influence on the movement would have instead been looking for what was not found in the book, which is more details about his conflict with the Birchers and the Randians, perhaps his differences with libertarians over immigration, with social conservatives over drug policy. I am hopeful that Hart's book will have more meat to it than the present study.

I've read everything he's written and looked forward to a book like this. I was hoping for more inside stories. Of course, anyone who has read every sailing book and the two "day" books knows that no one tells inside stories better than WFB himself. This book didn't offer much that I didn't know already. It did chronicle the history of NR well, and for that matter, a good chronology of the conservative movemement post 1960, but not much new info here. All that said, read this book. You will enjoy it, it reprints some very memorable pieces from his books and retells stories that you'll be glad to hear again and it connects the dots on NR and the conservative movement pretty well. Not sure that this is the definative work on WFB, I think I'm still waiting for that.

William F. Buckley Jr. is here and there in "Strictly Right." Beginning with what its dust jacket promises ("an affectionate portrait") the book, halfway through, first sheds fresh or exclusive information, then primary sources, then any coherent narrative on Buckley altogether -- ending in weirdly detached conjecture by authors whose orbit from the founder of National Review and patron of modern rightism was close, but not that close.

The drift would be OK if "the American Conservative Movement" were more than a subtitle. As the book progresses, biography is substituted by generic history, borrowed-interest anecdotes, and brittle gossip. The worst offense comes when the authors -- who apparently personally dislike Alfonse D'Amato -- take an opportunity to denigrate the former senator as they recount editorial lunches. Fair enough if they don't care for Al. But where does Buckley figure on that page? He is . . . referenced.

"Strictly Right" is an unsuccessful try at a difficult task. There's a characteristic noted by most who have written about Buckley, which is that Buckley was by all appearances hardworking, focused, private, and a little impersonal. He inclined not to biography but bibliography: fiction; nonfiction; commentary, in print and on television. Even in writing his many, touching eulogies, Buckley focused on the subject rather than on himself. Faced with that kind of reticence, biographers have had to search; or like these authors, really strain.

For those who wish to know the man, you can find William F. Buckley Jr. in the work of William F. Buckley Jr. At the very least you won't find him in this book.

There is no doubt that William Buckley had a profound effect on our nation in the last fifty years. Equally profound has been the existence of the National Review, surviving through the days of LBJ and thriving with Ronald Reagan. But in my opinion, Bridges and Coyne provide insufficient insight as to some information on Buckley that is not readily available to members of younger generations, like myself. I have not had the experience of hearing Buckley speak, and I have heard that he was a most eloquent orater that demands respect whether one agrees with him or not. I suppose for adults who have watched Firing Line or read the National Review or even lived in the United States during or before the Reagan years would understand and find entertaining some of the facts in this biography. But as for current students like myself, the name Bill Buckley is foreign.
Historically, Bridges and Coyne describe events from a strictly right perspective, and this is understandable considering the authors are writers for the National Review. Still, it is somewhat frustrating for a leftward-leaning person to read of historical events from such a heavily conservative perspective. Also, many of Buckley's or Reagan's jokes went right over my head, either because I'm missing some context or because I disagree with the material.
All in all, Strictly Right is a great book if you're already a fan of WFB. But if you're trying to get acquainted with his persona for the first time, it's not very informative. I guess to realize what kind of intellectual Buckley is, the old Firing Line episodes must be more useful.