We met a year ago at a conference put on by the Buckley Program at yale, and i can see that she at the time she has a real affinity for trying to understand the connection between the Communications World and the media world, on the one hand, and different elements of the conservative movement on the other. So its this is a natural kind of outgrowth of her previous work, looking at that general area. Open to debate is the book, heather has watched not maybe every single one of 33 years worth of firing line episodes but pretty close to it so probably the reigning expert on all things related to firing line. So help me welcome Heather Hendershot to the program. [applause] thank you so much. Its really great to be here, particularly here at the hoover institution, because the hoover was so important to the research i did on the book. I was out at stanford where all the papers are, and of course they have preserved all the episodes and son but the papers and transcriptscouldnt have done it without ohoover institution so its great to be here. The first thing that people ask me about this book is, why did you write it . And the short, quick answer well, in part its this guy. I had been working on the book since 2011, and by about a year and a half ago it became more urgent as our level of discourse seemed to be deteriorating and the shouting matches seem to be increasing. Seemed like a particularly important time to be talking bat show that really valued civil discourse, civil debate between people who disagreed with each other, and so part of the reason and the genesis of the book is from the impulse. The other force of the boost is more personal but my intellectual development. The book in 2011, called broadcast fog the public , into was that extremists who emerged in radio and television, mostly radio, local radio, and also somewhat on tv, in the year falls Barry Goldwaters defeat in 1964. So Barry Goldwater totally flame i out in the election. Got 10 million votes beau return toed. People had a sense that liberalism has won for, the conservative movement is dead but a conservative movement blossomed in the wake of that defeat and some was on the more legitimate side which william f. Buck lee was advocating for and also a lot of extremism, con pierer toal thinking, John Birch Society, peel thought that president eisenhower was an pat of the John Birch Society. And these poock to the air with as and anticivil rights and so on, and buckley at first was appearing on some of their tv shows. This is him in the early 50s on a show called fox form, which is created by hl hunt, the texas Oil Billionaire who put a lot of his fortunate into everyone communist television and radio, and buckley was a regular guest on he show but figured out this guy was bad for the movement, bad for the image of conservatism, an extremist and paranoid and so on. And just to tell you a little bit about buckley. He emerged as a National Figure in 1951 with the publication of god and man at yale, an attack on his alma matter and made hill a minor celebrity. The book edged into the bestseller list at number 14 so he became known from the book. But he really became known for a few years later, 1965, when wi he ran for mayor of new york, and you become a National Figure and he ran as a protest candidate, protest can that john lindsey, was running on the republican ticket but was not conservative in any way. And buckley very famously was asked, what would you do the first thing youll if elected and she said, demand a recount blot it just seemed so unlikely. And sure enough he did not win but staked a claim for conservative republicanism. And this put him in a really good position to start his own tv show, just one year later. Because he was so articulate in the media and there was a great coup for his campaign where there was a newspaper strike so that maintain the radio and tv coverage the campaign increased dramatically, and buckley was great on tv. And he was great in part not only because he was so articulate some so smart and charming and used really long words that a lot of people didnt understand, sounds great, but he was not afraid to show what he really thought and felt. So, here he is, with john lindsey, lindsey looks peeved. And buckley is so bored because lindsey is not very articulate smart and buckley complained about lid si wrote his own speeches with earclanging sin sin tax, and people wrote letters to buckley and said i disagree with you and would never vote for you but thanks a lot for being honest and pointing to how much politics was rigmarole. He would decline to go to parades. Because he said were not going to talk about policy at parades. Thats just image stuff and he was running his magazine, writing editorial columns and so on. So he was seen as a sort of honest candidate, even by people who thought he was much too right wing and too conservative for them. So the year after the campaign, he started his Television Show, firing line, which ran from 1966 to 1999, 1500 episodes. And i want to show you a clip from that very first year with David Suskind as a guest. Suskind was a tv talk show host, a liberal, and had a show called open end because it was openended. If the conversation wag was going well they would keep talking. If it wasnt going well they would cut it off. I will show you actually two clips from the show to give you a sense of the flavor of the program. Perhaps the first time in television history, the people are interesting, it was he who offended the program open end precisely to that proposition which committed viewers to listen for as many as three hours to playwright, artisted, thieves, prostitutes, ideologies. So this we are very grateful to him. Sometimes a staunch liberal. If there were a con tennessee cob contest titled mr. Eleanor roosevelt he would win. There i a discuss is a prevailing bias, and if so, where does it pound and you are most welcome. Would you in 2,000 words give us your preliminary views. I wonder if i were unwelcome how you would introduce me. I say rude and insulting book. I hopes you were having your own Television Program you would abandon your personal penchant for bitchiness and your rude behavior is congenital and compulsive. Im always unabashed by your broad spirit. What a genteel discussion. Suskind has a short fuse and buck leaver has a long fuse. A charming meeting of people who cant stand each other. And ill show you one more clip from the same episode. Certainly not here to deny that by and large, the News Services and the Television Industry and the schools and universities are liberal dominated, are you, or are you. Well, if you use is in a pejorative way, of course die. The entire thrust of cower country in at the last 40 years has been a liberal thrust in our legislation, churches, schools, and communications media. Nothing sinister or evil. We call that progress. Suskind is expressing the dominant line at the time. It opinions to how loon tack it would have seeped to have a conservative Public Affairs talk show in 1966. Its a labral country. What are you talking about . So its kind of amazing in addition to political guests, buckley also had cultural figures, artistic figures, bach specialists. He was devoted to bach and would have discussing bach and i wanted to show you a clip from the episode with norman mailer, just to give you a sense what he did outside of the strictly political kind of discussion. This conversation is not apolitical. Its from 1968, and mailer has just published armies of the night and it won the Pulitzer Prize about the march on the pentagon, and the opening here is buckley reading aloud from i believe Time Magazine, their coverage of mailer at this event. After more obscenity, mailer introduced law who got annoyed and requested to speak later. Ill bellow but wont do any good. By the time the mailer was perky enough to get himself arrested. He explained with some pride on the way to the lockup. So, a tech. Thats your time. Its good for the time. You were talking about maturation. I never i dont know what that means. Thats the continuing correspondence. Thats they talk of engaging in a scatological solo. Thats what you get from the idea. So the confession i made what about victorrization. Between the the intervention. You can see youre a student of the subject. Keep up with me. Trying to refocus the discussion. The Time Magazine observed okay so maybe the first and last time the word was used on american television, and really on any Television Show. Im sure all of you are very sophisticated and know what it means but is means urination. So, its a very sophisticated discussion about the scatological about a charming debate between people with very different world views but people enjoy this kind of sparring match, talking about their ideas on the show. Buckley also had the spokespeople of radical movements in 60s and 70s. He had black power folks on the shortthis Milton Henley and he is wearing a giant onc and had two security guards in fatigues behind him, who never moved throughout the whole thing, and theyre up armed but probably usually are armed. Some kind of negotiation with the producer to not have guns on she, and buckley never acknowledges theyre there. Never even makes eye contact. Just talks to milton henry. And what is radical in part about the appearance of black power on the show is that the coverage of black power elsewhere was mostly sensationalist, up so bides and nixon conveyed to the network in the early 70s they shouldnt cover back power anymore, and ignore it. He encouraged them not cover vietnam as well but the continued to cover vietnam. But the dead minimize in the coverage of black power so if wasnts to learn about black power you didnt subscribe to a newsletter, firing line was a good place to learn about it. Whether you tight it was a great idea or terrible idea. You could here the ideas expressed unedited on the show and that was remarkable. He also had heres Eldridge Cleaver on the show. He also covered the Womens Liberation Movement on the practice he had betty fer dna on early on, and he was not a very good speaker, kind of inarticulate and was not invited back for 18 years and was the voice of the mainstream liberal feminism. A better episodes with we germane greer who was published at the female eunuch and buckley enjoyed talking to her. Let me show you a clip from that encounter from the early 70s. Which appeared sometime like a contradiction in my book, i to make he and she words equal or screen out she as forever incapable of equaling he grammatically. Grammatically. You could be antifeminism by suppressing the female in a pronoun. The hierarchy. Never heard of early man, you should refer to early humans which means you cant use not only that. What it mean is is that the real attitude is going to be concealed by a form of primitive censorship, and the actual situation wont change. Its like calling people when theyre married. Doesnt change the fact of their marriage. Its hypocrisy. You think of the answers on nomenclature is preposterous. Such a trivial aspect of the real struggle and been given so much attention. Its part of the general movement to coopt the struggle for existence, really, and turn it into something okay, so, its a really interesting moment because actually the two people agree about the nonsense of the way that liberal feminism wants to change language and both agree that ms. Is a bad idea. Buckley things its not its so jarring. And she says, it doesnt change the structural relationship of marriage if you call yourself ms. , so thought she was kind of loon tack as far as trying to lunatic as far as trying to take down the family but they agreed about this issue in laing and after the show he wrote a thank you note, a as he always dade, and sacker god dam it youre good and she did not want to come back on the show but he was a terrific show. They just debated at Cambridge Student Union the week before and she had resoundingly won that debate about womens liberation bay a photo of the cambridge students so in a way this episode was a rematch after that debate. Buckley also had of course antifeminists on the show. The subject of the equal rights amendment came up and this is phyllis schlafly. The antifem is in activist and he also had Margaret Thatcher on the show twice, and this i want to show you a clip from the q a. She was not there to talk about womens liberation, did not want to talk about gender issues at all but jeff greenfield, one of the common q a guys at the time on at the questioner panel as a younge man, brought it up. And so this is their exchange. I wonder if your reputation, when you a cabinet member, the was Margaret Thatcher, no snatcher because of your ox to the program and that and your ideological stand helped you overcome the stereotypical objections to a Woman Holding office. No. Very surprised, as i said, that at home on the whole we just look at the person and not necessarily the sex. Youre limited. Youre a man. Certainly. The public the interesting thing foss mr. Is the local government has not restored the free will despite all the propaganda, but, look, i i think these questions are very trivial. You dont mind my saying so. You can sense the sweet break the sweat breaking out, just been told off by Margaret Thatcher, and buckley is great because matcher is saying gender is to answer iin uk and buckley is just poppycock, nonsense. If women are so qualified how come there rant more women in office and pushes back in an interesting way. Another great episode was he did a few episode is with clare booth luce but this one episode, she specifically asked to be on she show to talk about feminism and they were old friends and he cooperate disagree with the idea of having her on the show so he did and he gave her this long, very positive introduction, and he concluded the introduction by saying, i should like to begin by asking if you find the way that people introduce you on Television Talk shows to be condescending. Heres what she says. I thank you for that warm and extraordinary introduction. You would be pleased to know the entire introduction which was only words and not a putdown. This is a high level of achievement for a man introducing a woman. You spoke of her inability on occasion to hold her tongue. Now, had you been a man, would spoke out and made enemy for himself in the process, whether he was speaking out, right or wrong, you would have said, he is makes enemies by what he said. He is overly candid. You might use many phrases. But the phrase hold her tongue is a phrase that men frequently use about children and with opinion of the truth. No. It comes out of mans need, desire, highly successful, over the centuries to master women. So thats the beginning of the show, and then at the end of the show, as he is about to cut to the q a session he says to her, the notion that women are inferior to men is an original sin of which i am not guilty, that women are inferior to men never occurred to me. Theres different is patently obvious and i would not want to see them behind the wheel of every mac truck but you would find that insult organize would you, he is saying what do you really think. This is her response. Im much too fond of you to tell you what i really think. Perhaps one of the most charming and subtle and sophisticated of mail cough nists. I love that. Its flirty and bashful but she says, i never say it to you publicly, and obviously over a three martini lunch at his favorite Italian Restaurant you can imagine her telling him off quite a bit privately. So its a wonderful sort of public moment of friendly disagreement between these two. I warrant to read to you from the book from the introduction and then from the chapter on civil rights and black power movement, and give you a sense of the flavor of the book. Thats 20 minutes, and then we will open up to q a. All know the program was undenily his for 33 years, firing line was not his idea. Its hard to major a tv star lest interested in tv than buckley. He won an emmy for firing line in 1969 and was the longest running Public Affairs show with a single host in u. S. History. But buckley remained a tv industry outsider. It would be somewhat unfair, even uncouth, to describe buckley as a snob. He did write a fun novel about elvis presley, and if he failed to understand how anyone could consider mick jagger a good singer, his voice couldnt be better than that of every fourth person lift nest the tell dont direct hi listeneds the the beatles during sessions with hi personal trainer. But he could not stand the beatle. In 1970 he consented to be interviewed by playboy magazine. Made him practically hip. The appeared on the show, laughin, explaining didnt interview we playboy because i decided it was the only way to communicate my views to my son. And noting that he had only agreed papp on laugh insure because the producers offered to fly him out to california on an airplane with two right wings. At a press conference for buckley where henry gibson kerryed, mr. Buckley, whole youre on television youre always seated. Does this mean you cant think on your feet . Buckley responded its very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what i know. As though opinion about nudity and entertainment he tersely replied, its excessive. And asked finally whose image would be more hammered by his appearance on laughin, his or she shows, laughed and said i suppose it will make you more respect ail, coy wink, and me less so, and both probably to be desired. Manage ode play along and be a good sport and remained the dig nye identified spate of conservatism. Its doubtful the watched laughin but had a fondses areness for all in family, archie bunker he noted is the greatest anticonservative ripoff in history of modern offenses you. Dont knee karl marx. You just neil archie bunker. Son buckley once acknowledgeds that anybody who wants to understand what is going on has to watch tv. The most bookish man i ever now, whether it at the chambers, watched television uninterruptedly