National review institute its president Lindsey Craig and fellow trusties including here and now rich lowery and stan, if i forgot anyone, you will let me know. I would like to welcome you about a conversation, an important new book, a torch kept lit, great lives of the 20th century. My name is jack fowler and im the publisher of National Review. [laughter] [applause] the institute is our sister organization, a nonprofit educational entity founded 25 years ago by William F Buckley, jr. [applause] its mission to advance the conservative principles bill champion, complement the mission of the magazine and support National Reviews best talent and preserve and promote the buckley legacy. Indeed, the institute that is formally launched a buckley legacy project and there was literature here explaining its plans and vision, in this last year the institute through this project haskell braited the anniversaries of two important and lasting aspects of the buckley legacy. The marvelous Interview Program firing line. The buckley legacy is why we are here today. To discuss bill the writer and specifically bill the observer of men and women public and private giants and small fries, before i introduce our participants a related anecdote. Over 20 years ago my predecessor who is here today and to whom National Review owes so much. Thatll be ten bucks, ed. [laughter] or 20. Had a terrific. List have nr publish a collection and we collected them all and consulted buckley, bills beloved sister who agreed, terrific idea. Already we approached bill. He couldnt say no fast enough. For a long time ed and i remained perplexed. The idea was a short fire success because we believed then as we believe now and as we see now through this marvelous book, james rosen has edited that among bills many talents, this one where he remembered the recent dead with deep insight and elegant probes would be embraced not only by National Review readers but by the public at large. Bill was no dope, he knew what he knew so ed and i eventual deduced and he did sprinkle some including miles gone by and buckley and there are so many of the gems that the thought of a necessary collection remained valid over the years. Along comes 2014 and along comes rosen. Through a conversation about another idea, james raised this. I would like to do a collection of bills eulogies remembrances and rips. What do you think . It was like asking if i wanted a bag of m ms, of course, i said. So did chris fer buckley, who oversees the buck lee estate. We were off to the races. Campbell and the people agreed and here now we have this wonderful book. I cant help to think he knows what we all know that although he left us eight years ago, bill buckley in many ways still looms very large. The song asks where have you gone, like wise a conservative america asks the same about bill. There is a appetite for his wisdom remains very strong. Coming up next is a conversation about bill buckley, the man of pros, the man who wrote history, person by person through his particular talent. It is not a conversation about politics, the elections, or the often dismaying game of if bill buckley were alive today, what would he say about blank. So at the end of the conversation, questions will be entertained. You will find cards on the table, feel free to write down your question, we will collect the cards and hand them to the moderator who will pick and choose. And about the moderator, he is my friend and colleague, the very big brain ryahan. He is the coautoo of brand new party, he has a book coming out in early 2017 on immigration. I look forward to the conversation about that book next year. So genuine and deeply appreciated it. The only son of bill and pat buckley, christopher graduated cum laude from yale. Former managing editor of es squire magazine. He knows a thing or two about books having written 16 or so, many exceptional. I must really encouraging you to read his most recent, the relic master, a marvelous novel. If you laugh, you will need to go to confession. And a personal side, i went to bed alone last night because my wife was up till the wee hours reading and laughing at a 22yearold Christopher Buckley novel, thanks, pal. [laughter] he was speech writer to george h. W. Bush and the price for american humor. Last but not least a new friend, a man who inspired this book and contributor to it in beautiful probes as was bill buckley and thats james rosen. The chief washington correspondent for fox news, james has covered the white house and the state department and reported from capitol hill, the pentagon, the supreme court, nearly all 57 states 50 states, 40 Foreign Countries across five continents. Rosens articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, wall street journal, the Washington Post, harpers and National Review. This is not his first book, james is the author of the strong man, John Mitchell and the secrets of watergate and also cheney oneonone. Friends of bill and not only the 12step kind should know that this man is a walking, talking buckley legacy project. His knowledge about bill and his belief in lasting relevance and how we need to realize that powerful good resides in the buckley legacy is second to none. It has been a delight to working with him and i congratulate james not only for the book he assembled but also for his own small prose providing the context in which all of bill set remembrances are set. On that note, ladies and gentlemen, rye hanssalam. Thanks very much for the kind introduction and National Review institute colleagues for helping put together the event. You look, you know, you kid but its true. James, i wanted to ask you, what on earth led a perfectly healthy sane person to become oh obsessed with bill buckley and second to this project in particular. First of all, my thanks for everybody to coming this morning and all of my friend at the National Review and National Review institute and to christopher for hosting this event. I have to tell you that i feel a little bit like its kind of surreal for me. So i thats not just false humility, humility with an asterisk perhaps. [laughter] so i learned about bill buckley for the first time in the tonight show with john carson and treating johnny as an equal as opposed to most people on the tonight show and grateful to be there. I remember on that occasion, and i tried to find the date on the tape but no success, i think it was around 1985, johnny said to bill, why is it whenever you come to the set i feel like im at the Principals Office . I thought, i want to be like that guy. My wife who is here today and just say hi, to everybody, this is my lovely wife sarah, who is the unsung suffering heroine and she has seen that i have many obsessions and im and im intense about them and in the case of bill buckley, i know so many people, christopher, from fred barnes and other people who have said, i want to be like that guy. In any case, this book began few years ago and i was trying to find a particular piece that bill had done about him. I remember the headline, i was labeling in the misapprehension that it had appeared in National Review. I finally consulted a book, published in 2002 when bill was alive and it was an annotated election of all of his work and therein i learned that it had been in the times magazine. Some day, someone should do a volume of bills eulogies. And i thought, why not me, and im just grateful to be associated with it. Im going to jump in. I was asked to give a blur for this book and im at the height of vanity to quote ones own blurb. Its such a good blurb, i cant resist. [laughter] William F Buckley jr. Was a master of many things, this collection of obituaries and eulogy that is he wrote over extraordinary career well established as the modern of literary form. I have read, did i have read every single one of my fathers 60odd books. I do not exaggerate to propose that this may proof to be William F Buckleys finest book ever. And i mean that. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you. I had road as they came out and i was never i was never failed to be moved. What an elegant sentence that was. [laughter] but it wasnt until i saw them all in total that it came to me that, i think, this is women yum William F Buckleys beautiful writing. I think you called about 250 op obituaries and also elsewhere including forbes nyi. And some delivered as actual eulogies. On the subway down this morning. Unlike my father, i road the subway. [laughter] i once mentioned the word subway to him and he said, what would that be. [laughter] on the way down to the subway, i did a count of the 52 and the table of context and put a check next to each person that he knew personally and it came out to 33. 33 out of 52 and these are pretty, you know, pretty big people. Including pat buckley. He knew pat buckley in a biblical sense as well. I suppose im proof. We have here with us the wife of one of the people, best friend ben. [applause] how glad i am to see and its an extraordinary collection and off to a very good start. Not only i think because it is such a good book and, by the way, your introductions to each one of the 52 pieces are many master pieces. Very kind of you. You may know this guy mostly as a fox news tv guy, but let me tell you, this sun of a gun can write. Is cspan getting this . [laughter] anyway, in part because of james being a household name up there in tv land, the book is off to a brilliant start and he was on bill oreilly gave it a nice plug a couple of days ago and i did something i dont do a lot. I went to amazon to check the sales ranking. U thought i thought it was legit and it was number two. [applause] so i emailed james. He said to me, i checked. Its number one. Good for you. Thank you. James i wonder, chris mentioned a moment ago that you called obituaries from rich source materials and many, many things that you might have published in the collection. Tell us a bit about how you discipline yourself and how you made your selection . Well, here thanks to the good folks at crown publishing. Everyone needs an editor and they were great in helping me focus. So we found about 200220 eulogies and of itch wares that obituaries that bill wrote. We rescued a few people and we sort of cast them into and where they went to other chapters that remained and what we wanted to do is break it down by types of people he was remembering. So theres a section for president s of the United States. Theres a section for bills own family members, eulogies for his mother, father, his wife and brotherinlaw. Theres a section for arts and letters figures. I would like to say that a torch kept lit is the only place in the world where you will find open freedman rubbing elbows with jerry garcia. [laughter] he wrote an entire novel of Elvis Presley late in his career. Some people really only to the Buckley Family in terms of readers. One of the things about this book a recurring theme is friendship. I dont think bill buckley would have caught to the term genius. In a rare moment of modesty he could have recoiled from the word genius i dont know. [laughter] there is only one expert on this stage about bill buckley, but every one that ive spoken to who knew him well has attested that bill buckley had a genius for friendship and passionate about his friends and maintained friendships in some cases over 60 years im. The last eulogy he wrote or published was for van who had been his friend, by the time they died within a short time of each other for 60 years. He invested in them and cared deeply about them. I dare say that the dare giving of this book to a friend will deepen ones friendship with those friends. Lastly, theres a section called nemesis. This is my favorite section because these are eulogies and obituaries for people who predeceased bill and had done battle. People like al western and john lindsey and spectrum of awfulness and arthur, Eleanor Roosevelt and the fun in this chapt ir is watching bill struggle to find something kind to say about these people or alternatively not bothering. [laughter] one last word about this, these are piece that is were often written on deadlines and situations where writers themselves because he knew 33 of the 52 people was himself often racked with guilt, guilt grief is what i meant to say. When he was himself suffering from grief at their loss. He was a man of devout faith as we all know and that is the eulogy which, i believe, is technically not a part of the catholic mass. The inherited corporate of truths that get past down and conservatives believe in objective truths and one of them is that people die and god endorse. I think that infused the writings as well. Chris, i had a question for you as a writer. So this is for both of you, though, i want to hear your perspective from this. Bill buckley was americas most celebrated public intellectual, yet he was also a writer and was also the architect of a Political Movement and as such it occurs to me that sometimes one might be political in how one is describing other figures and how its navigating the larger landscape. Do you feel as though he ever pulled his punches indifference to his responsibilities as the leader of a movement . Again, curious to hear your thoughts. No, but putting punches as james was talking, it occurred to me pop predeceaseed labelle. I would love to have read the obituary. I dont think so. Here is one of the remarkable things you all know about William Buckleys history, some of you have probably seen the celebrated documentary, the best of enemies about the Famous Exchange of 1968 and, you know, which precipitated lawsuits and all sorts of things, pop let go of gorvidal. The only time pop ever mentioned at the dinner table or whatever was in the context of his delight in some that gorvidal had rendered. Remember was offered, awarded election to the American Academy of arts and letters and he his reply to them was, thanks, i already have diners card. [laughter] this is about the wittiest thing he had ever heard. I purposely have not seen the documentary but apparently he was obsessed and would it came up all of the time and he would when he had friends over for dinner, afterwards, he would scream the famous debate in 1968. I think in the documentary they used a clip from the movie sunset boulevard you gloria norma played by Gloria Swanson sitter her watch her old movies. One old queen measured against another. But the to james point about pops genius to friendship, even as you point out in your brilliant introduction, even in these, you know, dozen odd nemesis, categories, you can see pops struggling find nice to say. This, i think, came from his deep, deep, deep sense of christianity, which so aanymorated him. You know, if i can jump in to the point of whether he pulled punches, these remembrances isnt strictly celebratory, even in the case of figures and people who are iconic in the conservative movement, win stone churchill who buckley had gone to speak personally in 1949 is not for winston churchill. He celebrates the accomplishments of churchill up through and including the victory in world war ii but then faults churchill for continue to go stay in office when he didnt have the stamina to prosecute the cold war properly with the ensuing result that onethird of the worlds people at the time wound up behind the iron curtain, similarly for Martin Luther king which in todays landscape we conceive of in terms. When bill buckley wrote his remembrance of Martin Luther king after assassination, buckley wrote a column that was tough on Martin Luther king, celebratory of his accomplishments in civil rights but at the same time condemn of some statements that Martin Luther king had maid about america at the height of vietnam war and the role in the world that he thought were utterly appropriate. He didnt always pull his punches. Even when he was discussing people who are on the right and that speaks, i think, to bills intellectual integrity. Was this a sense that some figures have become too big, too overlarge, celebrated inappropriately or purely the sense that i must get the record right . I think its the latter. One of the themes within this book is under the general the gift for friendship was his relationship with arguably the leading liberal intellectual of our time, john kenneth galbrath. This was a friendship that dated to 1966. They met in an elevator at the plaza hotel on the way to black and white ball. The party of the century. The party of the century as you point out. Brilliant introduction. You can say it as often as you like. I cannot say this enough. [laughter] if you read this book for one reason, read it for the introduction. Youve gone too far. Crazy talk. [laughter] i dont think pop and john kenneth could have agreed on the time of day but this became one of his deepest friendships and ken died, i think he was in his 90s and he had bedridden for years and every three weeks pop would get on the train in stanford and go to boston and sit by his bedside at a certain point ken was no longer conversationial to he would just sit there. The last trip i made with pop was the memorial service. That eulogy is contained in here. Their relationship was teasing on a mutually on a very grand level. When nixon resigned, pop, nixons resignation was inconvenient for pop because he had scheduled, he was going sailing on his boat with me as it happens. This is 1974. I think its just marvelous that after one of the most important events in american political history that you chose to write your column about peanut butter. [laughter] and pop replied, ken, you dont understand. When i relax, i write columns about peanut butter. When you relax, you write economic textbooks. [laughter] and, you know, i think in your, may i say one more time, brilliant introduction, you quote john kerry the conversation i had with him, yeah on pop in the context of the friendship with john kenneth galbraith. A