As far away as new york, maybe farther. And were always delighted to welcome our visitors. We also want to welcome our viewers by cspan so i want to let folks know that cspan is here to cover this afternoons conversation. After doctor felzenberg and i talked for a bit where going to open the floor to a q and a and we will ask those who have questions to come down to the microphones that are just here. And ask your question from the microphone. Speak right into the microphone so we can pick you up and remember you will be on screen as well as having your voice heard so smile, look pretty. The Madison Program at princeton is dedicated to providing our students and members of our community with the best possible civic education. We believe has madison taught that only a well educated people can be a free people so we want to do our part by contributing to the education of our fellow students and others, when it comes to fundamental questions of american constitutionalism and basic political thought, of course Like Princeton University as a whole we are a Nonpartisan Organization and we welcome all points of view. In fact, we encourage a wide diversity of viewpoints. We believe what many people preach but perhaps are not so strict about actually processing as well as preaching and that is the true civil engagement of ideas, true civil dialogue including or perhaps especially among people who disagree. We know that in our society there are reasonable people of goodwill who disagree about many issues. This is always the case in the United States. But we leave in common that the way to handle disagreements is by engaging each other. In civic, civil discourse. By doing business in the currency of intellectual discourse. Currency consists of reason and arguments and evidence we are proud here at the Madison Program to be contributing to that mission and by doing that we hope to the common good of the United States and im absolutely delighted to welcome back to princeton one of our most distinguished sons, Alvin Felzenberg who earned his masters degree and phd from princeton university. He earned his ashlars degree from Rutgers University test of the road so hes new jersey through and through. How is a lecturer at the Nuremberg School at the university of pennsylvania. He served as the principal spokesman for the 9 11 commission. He served in two president ial administrations, held several highlevel posts with the United States council of representatives and in the 1980s was new jerseys assistant state in the administration of governor thomas h kane. Hes been a fellow at the institute of politics at john f. Kennedy school of government and at yale here at princeton in Johns Hopkins and at George Washington university in washington dc. He has appeared as a commentator on major Public AffairsTelevision Shows including cnn, fox fired, as you can see survive crossfire. Cspan washington journal and altogether more dignified place to be a commentator. Msnbcs morning joe, nprs, sorry. We are nonpartisan. Talk of the nation and multiple others. His writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Weekly Standard and philadelphia inquirer, Christian Science monitor. He is regularly contracting to National Review online. Whose significance we are going to be exploring, us news. Com and politico. The book that we will be discussing today is his new book, a man and his president , the political oddity of William F Buckley junior which is published by Yale University press. His other writings include the leaders we deserve and a few weekend, sometimes rethinking the president ial rating game which was published by basic books in 2008 and was a conversation as you recall between the two of us at princeton after publication of that book. If you keep writing books, we will keep having conversations and biography of tom king sometime from the new jersey state house of 9 11 commission which was published by Rutgers University press appropriately and 2006 so welcome me join me in welcoming doctor Alvin Felzenberg [applause] William F Buckley was the grand man of the modern conservative movement. It would be entirely unfair to say he was the founding father of the modern conservative movement and yet, some of my students, i might even save many of my students, perhaps most of my students including my conservative students dont really know who William F Buckley was. Which makes me gas. Since those of us of a certain age, William F Buckley was a fixture in our homes through his Television Program firing line which aired seems like generations, 34 years on pds and the fixture on our lives not only the lives of conservatives but of liberals as well. He was a famous kind of civil discourse engagement of ideas. That we stand for here in the Madison Program at princeton, his guests on firing line included not only fellow conservatives of various stripes, traditionalists and libertarians and moderate republicans and so forth but also people on the liberal and farther to the left side of the spectrum. In fact, i think his favorite guest host something for him was Michael Kinsley who was a famous and is a famous liberal commentator so now, why dont you say a word about why our students should care about William F Buckley . Who was William F Buckley . Its a great honor to be back at the program and in this room, giving lectures in it. And as a professor, its a pleasure. William buckley in short i think probably the most influential private citizen in American History, if you think about it. Never had agovernment job. He had a few honorary commissions , roberts one time was the 13 percent. He forced his way on the public stage, decided to write a book that criticized of all things Yale University. His first major opponent was Yale University. Yaleuniversity made one major mistake , and i tell my students at vandenberg not to do it. The more powerful subject should never be crossed at the time a minor critic. Yale as one new yorker pointed out, reacted to his criticism which we can get into with all the rigor of an elephantterrified by a little mouse. And of course the american sense of fair play, a Young Journalist also told him, you know him as thehost and founder of 60 minutes, mike wallace. Had mike wallace on a radio show, 1953 and one of the first questions was why is Yale University picking on you . So you have picking advice of somebody bigger and you lost a career. But i would say that as a commentator, as a political figure of his time, and something i discovered as i really get into the paper, as a political operative, it was second to none. The only person i could think of is very very close to buckley was probably Frederick Douglass in the 10th century and why do i say that . He was a writer, he formed organizations, bill buckley was not just economists, only asset this morning, who is bill buckley . I cant think of any columnists right now who does out there and sounds political organizations out there. He founded seatac, he founded Young Americans of freedom, and whenever there was cause he was out there mobilizing it. He wasnt a campus politician and many of those tracy brought into the Public Square in many ways on behalf of our candidates. Because he was a charismatic personality, with extraordinary sense of erudition and wit, he was able to mobilize audiences, particularly young people and he loved talking to young people, he did 70 campuses a year in his prime. That was, i write a newspaper column, editing a magazine, running a show. President s all came to court him. People wanted his endorsement. As much as they ever talked about any political ball and again, its too bad that he didnt have a few more years to really perfect his skills on the internet. He mastered every form of communication in his time. Wherever you were, he would find you or you would find him whether its on your car radio, whether its in your newspaper, the ritz watching tvs area weather news was being made that hes now residing on the honorary board. That kind of thing. He had a tremendous impact and we still see it today. Now, my students, same thing as george when he died, they knew that an important person i. Because they kept getting little messages on the internet whether they subscribe to the New York Times or Washington Post or whatever it was so this is an important person, america should stopand take note but they couldnt remember why he was an important person so i thought what an extraordinary life to bring back. Ill put it up a new for a new generation, reintroducing to a new generation for the rest of us have some nostalgic. Lets begin by talking about that first book, that bombshell book called god and man at yale and it was an indictment of Yale University. Why . Of course, he was a student at Yale University. I noticed when i went back and looked at some of the reviews which were written by the great and the good of the lost establishment of the United States, that the reviewers were outraged for other reasons because buckley had accused yale of abandoning christian heritage and adopting a sort of new religion, a pseudoreligion of liberal secularism so the responses of some of the great and good were, this is outrageous. By the way, hes a catholic. This upstart catholic at yale comes in and accuses us of abandoning christian universities. One thing you know about yale is it has not abandoned or will ever abandon its christian heritage. Well, let me begin by saying that you go down to the Jefferson Memorial and is a great quote of jefferson who has hostility at any form in mass. Plus i would agree with that but he would also say even a greater proponent, what is more equivalent . He explained it like this. Imagine a wheelchairbound person is about to cross the street. And a passerby appears and he pushes the wheelchair in the way of an oncoming bus, its a terrible end to the story but imagine the person is halfway across the street, the light changes and a bus is approaching. And a Good Samaritan pushes the wheelchair out ofthe way of the oncoming bus. Well, therefore both stories have a few things in common. Theres a wheelchair, theres possibly a Good Samaritan or a bad samaritan. That doesnt make their motives equivalent and he thought yale as it was teaching the infamous era after world war ii, where first of all, the economics, this was in 1925, think of 1925. He didnt say very much, he didnt think he had to impose himself every five minutes on the American People like other president s we could think about. He was famous for not saying very much at all. He gave much less and america thought it had learned from his crusade in europe, was trying very hard not to repeat it. The world was at peace and the countrys Economic Situation was booming. Well, as bill was getting older, he was witnessing in his seniors the Roosevelt Administration coming to water power, a completely new worldin terms of the army in 1945. Suddenly we are talking about mixed economies, not freemarket which he thought was really structure reality by another name. They had the aggressive kind that saw the parades of the g. I. Coming home after world war ii. So we had that form of tyranny and we had a benign kind, the kind in a free democracy but suddenly he feels that thats more and more of the economy and they were teaching this at yale. Very few freemarket economists were around. All the textbooks talked about how successful societies have a welfare state, excessive regulatory state and he had an issue with that. Not that they didnt teach it, he just thought that was all they were teaching. More importantly in the religion department, he did not feel that they should teach one form of religion or that there should be a Religious School but he did feel that christianity or our judeochristian heritage was superior to the other forms. Why . Because its the form that our founding nation, informed the founding documents. We were a judeochristian society. Judeochristian tradition teaches that we are all made in gods image. Therefore, the source of all freedom. All freedoms in government affairs, all equal in the eyes of each other. In the eyes of the state. In the eyes of god. And thats what he believed. He said its great to have other religions, its great to learn about other religions but dont tell us that some of the traditions of these demo islands that Margaret Mead was writing about or other traditions that talk about untouchables and god knows what is the same as ours. We should teach that there is a difference, that there is not a moral equivalent area thats the obvious part. And that was the name of the book, god and man at yale. He thought there was a fighting song which is now the yale anthem and the last line is god before man and yale. He changed that to god and man at yale meaning secular humanism is pushing man into the center between god and of course yale, a little bit of a play on words. Why was this important . Other than the religion department, why was this important all this going on at that time , they were really famous espionage cases going on, one in the uk, youve heard of the cambridge five. Names like sam silvey, these were the best and brightest of their generation. Including by the communist south, to do two things. First to infiltrate british intelligence, to help the british grassroots intelligence and they did many things to win the war and also share whatever information they possibly could because after all, he was allied with the uk so we get this meeting of. He can now bring heaven on earth in the form of pure democracy, they learned marxism in their 30s just around the time of before the war, what happened in the United States . In my generation probably the vietnam war was probably the most galvanizing issue for those of us who were politically engaged. Bill kristol, tell me who you were, vietnam and ill tell you how you voted in the 65 election. And in 1945, 46, 48, we had what was called a s case, there was algers, alger his was a very prominent person, had the best possible education you could get. Harvard law school, a clerk and Oliver Wendell holmes, you cant do better than that. A social friend of franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt , the former or future cabinet member, maybe even the head of the united nations. Alger was accused in 1948, bill would have been i think a sophomore there, having been aspiring to the soviet union and his accuser was a fellow named Whittaker Chambers. And chambers was a former communist, was there for the communist party and eventually leaves the party. Well, buckley comes to the conclusion that we need stronger stuff, theyre getting to the prime of our youth. They singled out the kind of things, this kind of activity so a lot of this is going on. Even though then the student body at yale was homogenous enough, it was all white, allmale. It was probably all alumni and it probably wasnt what you would see now, the breakdown of the campus, 60 percent were doing 40 percent so i dont think when you look at any campus since then, i dont think republicans have done as well but on the faculty, on the faculty side, it was real side, harry truman and not tom dewey, harry truman had the walk, my students dont know who harry was. If your students that dont know, we have to have a discussion. Franklin roosevelt, think Bernie Sanders and youve got it. Bernie sanders was a red star emblazoned inside his jacket that you didnt know about. Quicks and its if some of you ever get past this administration ever decides to appoint people and some of you get past, name, address, Social Security number and maybeyour religion, Henry Wallace was the secretary of agriculture. His religion was mystic. Let me figure that out. These are people, there are people who talk to trees, he called himself a mystic and you see Franklin Roosevelt there shaking his martini glass saying what the hell is that . In any event he became a pretty good politician , very good republican because his father had been there. And roosevelt decides that when james garner, by the way roosevelt Vice President was james garner, former speaker of the house. So you have your own Democrat Coalition between eight northern liberal and a southern conservative, kennedy and johnson. Now garner decides hes not only going to oppose roosevelts nomination but hes going to run against him. Roosevelts great comment was i