Long ago, I was a UCLA undergraduate when William F. Buckley Jr. spoke on campus. As was his custom, he asked to meet with a few conservative leaders. That began my association with Bill and then more Buckleys — but it was Jim I would know well.
A couple of years later, I was a very young editor of the New Guard, then the national magazine of Young Americans for Freedom, when activism brought me and my friend YAF chairman David Keene to New York. While we were in New York — to be precise, on August 20, 1968 — the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. Marvin Liebman, the ex-communist impresario of the conservative movement, let David use his office to form the Student Committee for Freedom in Czechoslovakia. Marvin, a close friend and confidante of Bill and Pat Buckley, asked us: Could we involve Bill’s brother Jim in the news conference?
Conservative Party candidate Jim Buckley was running for U.S. Senate. He had no chance against entrenched incumbent Jacob Javits and needed exposure, and we obliged. Jim was gracious but awkward. He was certain of how he felt about the Soviets and what he would say, but almost shy. Nice guy, I thought, but candidate material?
I misconstrued that shyness. He was not an extrovert because he was not one to sell himself. He was understated, modest. Politics, for him, was not an end in itself but a necessary evil in a democracy. In time, he would synthesize his propensity for reflection with essential advocacy into a gentle persuasion that caused people to listen. He was of ideas, not polemics.
So it was that less than two years later — in the spring of 1970 — the legendary F. Clifton White concluded that this same Jim Buckley, if he ran again for Senate —in a three-way race — perhaps, just possibly, he might win. The two other candidates would be incumbent Republican Charles Goodell (father of the current woke NFL president Roger Goodell) and the Democrat, the popular Westchester County congressman Richard Ottinger. So it was that I joined Cliff and another mentor, the quintessential organizer Dave Jones, for this long shot. Big names in the national conservative movement privately ridiculed the race; presumably, all our recruits to join the Buckley team were, as I, delusional.
(Now, to correct the record, hopefully forever. [1] The myth is that in 1970 Jim would have lost in a two-way race with Democrat Dick Ottinger. But a post-election study showed what I found anecdotally — the overwhelming share of Republicans, along with a majority of independents, would have joined enough defecting Democrats to elect Jim. Note that Jim in that election had made significant inroads among many traditional Democrat voting groups, especially ethnic constituencies, particularly Irish, Italian, and Eastern European. [2] One reason why Jim lost in his 1976 reelection campaign was Pat Moynihan’s strength among those same groups; another reason was that Jim was a good senator in the real sense, meaning he worked all day in Washington on official business and hearings, even burning the midnight oil on legislation, rather than constant travel throughout New York State pursuing media-style campaign visuals.)
Anyway, in June of that midterm election year, we were starting a campaign with mirrors and no money. Cliff, Jim, and I traveled the state to appoint county chairs and meet with local media. Neal Freeman, who apprenticed with WFB Jr. in the early years, was then a column syndicator and briefed me on New York State media. But even he was stunned by how Jim charmed the editors and reporters. The “liberal media” treated Jim more than fairly; not only would we be overwhelmed with newspaper endorsements, but a university post-election study concluded that Jim received more favorable news coverage than his liberal opponents. Sure, one reason was our entire team, which included the brilliantly creative Tony Dolan, who would later emerge as a Ronald Reagan chief speechwriter, and so many others who would impact the conservative movement, including later Reagan Administration star Dan Oliver and the insightful future NR columnist Kate Walsh O’Beirne.
In the United States Senate, what can we say about Senator James L. Buckley? That he was a century late? In my time in Washington, I saw most senators enter a speech, written entirely for them, in the Congressional Record. In contrast, Jim might begin with a draft, often Jim’s own first draft but if not, it quickly became his, as he deleted, inserted, edited, and labored over every word. He was a deep thinker, a rigorous intellect, not obsessive, but precise. He would spend many hours agonizing over every word in a speech that he might deliver to a near-empty Senate chamber. It was as if in an old Senate from another era — where senators listened and debated and might change their minds.
And Jim was open, not to repudiating his principles, but to data and serious argumentation. Out of a sense of duty, he had enlisted in WWII in the Navy. He opposed the libertarian ideal of a volunteer military. Over a period of months, we discussed the moral case for voluntarism, the arguments advanced by Brother Bill’s ski partner, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, and the pioneering data from the Friedman proteges. Jim reconsidered: Our compromise amendment for an 18-month extension of the draft essentially ended it. Jim did not receive credit for this and for so much of his extensive and varied work behind the scenes, such as helping Jewish “refuseniks” to leave the Soviet Union.
While other senators went to receptions and dinners, Jim often went home to work on legislation. He was more methodical and detailed than any staff member and more conscientious and hardworking than any senator, except maybe Senator Byrd, then the Democratic Senate leader. Years later, when Jim served as a federal appeals judge, his written opinions were known for their logic and elegance. Even those who disagreed with him were quick to praise his fairness as a judge.
Back again to that summer of 1970. There was little time to organize a campaign. As I began to spend private time with Jim, I sensed early the power of his amiable gravitas. Here was a principled man of absolute integrity and formidable intelligence. His sincerity was not contrived; it was real and apparent. He was not stern or mean, and he smiled a lot, and that was rare among politicians. Nor did he have a typical politician’s inflated ego. He was not boastful.
A few years ago, when Jim was well into his 90s, I attended a seminar he conducted for law students. Afterward, Jim told me about Trump, “There’s nothing conservative about him.” That’s because, to Jim, conservatism was not a knee-jerk sound bite, but a temperament, a way of looking at life and the public square. Policy is not impulsive, but thoughtful. Jim would no more favor a Trump overreach on executive power than a Biden overreach, or a Trump budget deficit over a Biden budget deficit. And while, if necessary, Jim would not shy away from confrontation, unlike Trump, he would not seek it gratuitously. And before the internet accelerated fact-checking, Jim insisted on time-consuming, meticulous research and documentation. There would be no 1970s equivalent of tweets with spelling errors and garbled numbers and inflated claims. And unlike what we’ve heard about Trump and Biden, Jim treated everyone who worked for him, from student interns to his most senior staff, with respect and dignity.
I remember how appalled Jim was when Roe v. Wade was decided; he was a constitutionalist who felt this was not a federal matter. Given his prudence, he might today still let states settle the matter; regardless, as an incrementalist, he would not, especially without consensus, impose a six-week ban. Jim did not shy away from confrontation, but he did not seek it.
The Buckleys did not feel one had to be offensive and obnoxious to get things done. Some MAGA conservatives depict Bill Buckley as an elitist who wanted most of all to be liked by the very Liberal Establishment he engaged in a rhetorical duel. Similarly, they might see Jim as too much of a gentleman. The truth is both Bill and Jim were respectful and civil, but hardly pushovers. Jim was the epitome of civility — he opened the door for . . . anyone. In fact, he was always the last person to exit an elevator.
And Jim was not mushy, but decisive. Jim had entered the 1970 race in part because President Nixon agreed to privately and implicitly back him, the Conservative Party candidate, over Republican Goodell. Indeed, a very wealthy close Nixon friend had ended up funding one-third of our campaign. But Jim showed great courage when he shocked that donor and many Republicans in 1974 by publicly calling on Richard Nixon to resign. (Will any Senate Democrat have the guts to tell Biden to go?)
Jim had a sense of right or wrong that started with basics.
Once terrible weather was about to prevent us from taking off on a small private plane to attend a Republican dinner in upstate New York. Commercial flights were grounded, and we were at a small airport. Somehow, we did not have a somewhat larger aircraft with a pilot and co-pilot. Soon the pilot advised there was a narrow window to take off, but the flight would be rough, and he hesitated. From his Navy service and then international travel several months out of each year for the Buckley family’s Catawba Corporation, Jim was undeterred. Furthermore, he insisted to me: “I committed to speak at this dinner, ‘we’ made a commitment.” He smiled with his characteristic twinkle of the eye and added, jokingly, “Besides, if it’s your time, it’s your time.” To which I said, “Maybe it’s your time, but not mine.” We never made it to the dinner. It was a terrible, scary flight with a difficult landing en route at some tiny airport, at which time Jim said, “We let them down. Let’s make sure we reschedule.”
He was a man of his word and fastidiously punctual. He would exit a meeting running late with someone to be on time for the next appointment, even if the first person was presumed by his staff to be “more important.” I once asked him why. “If I’m late, it’s theft. You’re stealing someone’s time,” he said.
Once, I determined that a candidate for local office in New York had fabricated an endorsement letter, even forging Jim’s signature. “Deal with it. We can’t have this,” Jim said. I explained the fellow had worked hard as a volunteer in Jim’s campaign. It was a rare time the low-key, unflappable Jim showed anger: “Let him go to jail if it comes to that.”
During that 1970 campaign, liberal columnist Pete Hamill wrote a scathing attack on Jim — that he and the Buckleys were “Castle Irish” who looked down on others-Irish. Nothing could be further from the truth, and voters didn’t buy the attack. I never heard Jim or any Buckley look down on anyone. Bill called his brother Jim the “sainted Senator” because Jim was unpretentious, never full of himself, and a truly kind soul. He was not only a gentleman, but a gentle man. Jim was like an adult Eagle Scout earning merit badges. It sounds corny in this age of tearing down America, but Jim believed, as Superman, “in truth, justice and the American way of life.”
No wonder Jim Buckley’s magic embraced all of us who knew him.
Arnold Steinberg helped create the Buckley for Senate campaign and served as its communications director before joining Senator James L Buckley on Capitol Hill. A political strategist whose graduate texts defined modern campaigns, Steinberg wrote the more recent Whiplash! From JFK to Donald Trump, A Political Odyssey, with a foreword by James L. Buckley.