I think. Shes probably the reigning expert on all things related to firing line line, so please hele welcome Heather Hendershot to the podium. [applause] thank you. Its really great to be here, typically to speaker at the Hoover Institution because the hoover was so important to the research i did on the book. I was out at stanford were all the papers are and, of course, they have preserved all the episodes and so on for the papers and transcripts, i really couldnt have done without the Hoover Institution so its greav to be here. The first thing people asked me about this book is why did you write it . The short quick answer, well, in part its this guy. Ive been working on the book since 2011 and about a year and half ago it became more urgent as our level of discourse seem to be deteriorating and the shouting matches seem to be increasing and so on. It seemed like a particularlyee important time to be talking about a show that really valueds so discourse, civil debate between people who disagreed with each other. D l part of the reason was from that impulse, but the other force of the book is more personal about my intellectual development. The books that are published in 2011 was about the extremists who emerged in radio ando emer television, mostly local radio but also somewhat on tv. In the years following Barry Goldwater defeat in 1964. So Barry Goldwater totally flamed out in the election. I think he got 10,000,000 votes votes but he was really trounced. People have a sense liberals by the conservative movement blossomed in the wake of that defeat. Some of it was sort of more legitimate size what went at f buckley was advocated for but there was quite a bit of extremism, paranoia, territoria, thinking. The John Birch Society emerging, the floor in aid of water was a communist conspiracy. Consci and so these folks took to the airwaves and their paranoid thinking, and the anticivil rights and so on. Buckley at first was agreed on some other tv shows. This is him in the early 50s on a a show. Buckley was a regular guest on that show but he figured out pretty quickly that this guy was bad for the movement and bad for the image of conservatism. He was an extremist and paranoid and so on. Just to tell you a little bit about buckley, he emerged as a National Figure in 1951 with tho publication of god and man at yale and it happened at his alma mater for its humanism andd despite in a kind of wider celebrity. The book and into the bestseller list at number 14 or so. He came known from this book, but he really became known for a few years later, 1965, when he ran for mayor of new york. Because when you run for mayor of new york you become a a National Figure, not just a local figure. He ran as a protest candidate, on the conservative ticket. He was protesting that johnvatie lindsay, was running on the republican ticket but was not conservative in any way. Buckley very famously was asked what would you do, the first thing you would do if youre elected. He said demand a recount. It just seemed so unlikely. Sure enough he did not win by the state a claim for a conservatives republicanism. This putting in a really good position to start his own tv show just one year later. Because he was in the immediate and there was a great coup for his campaign in the middle of it all weather was a newspaper strike. So that meant the radio and tv coverage of the campaign increased dramatically. Buckley was great on tv. He was great in part not because he is so articulate and smart and charming and usually long words that a lot of people to understand, sounded great, but he was not afraid to show what he really thought and felt. Here he is with the john lindsay. Lindsay looks peeved, and buckley is so bored. Because lindsay is not very articulate and smart and interesting, and buckley complained that lindsay wrote his own speeches with theed tha reclining syntax. Just terrible syntax. So people sent letters to buckley is that i disagree with you, i would never vote for you but thanks a lot for being honest and pointing to how much of politics was rigmarole. For example, he would decline to go to parades, because, we are not going to talk policy at parades. Best just image. He was campaigning parttime for mayor. He was running his magazine, writing editorial columns and so on. He was seen as an honest candidate even by people who thought that he was much too rightwing and much too conservative. They year after the campaign he started his Television Show firing line which ran from 19661999, about 1500 episodes. I want to show you a clip from the very first year with david as the cast, a tv talk show host. He was well known as a liberal. He had a show called open end and it was called open in because it was open ended. The conversation was going well, they would just keep talking fol a few hours. The conversation wasnt going wellwell, just cut off at 30, 4f minutes. Kind of amazing that this was happening at the kind. So heres what others guess buckley and on his show and i will show you two clips to get a sense of the flavor of the program. It was he who found that the program open in dedicated precisely to not proposition which permitted use a listen for as many as three hours at athreo stretch, this ideologue, the full communication in favor of their views and their ideas. We are very grateful to david susskind, who is a staunch liberal. If there was a title mr. Eleanor rooseveltroosevelt, he would unquestionably win it. The question where to discuss today weather is theirs something as a prevailing bias. If so where does it point . Mr. Susskind, you are most welcome. Would you give us your preliminary views . I wonder if i was unwelcome how you would introduce me. I must say [inaudible] the generosity of your broad spirit. Susskind is feeling. Youre such a short fuse and buckley has not always a long fuse but in this case it does. Its a really charming meeting of people you clearly cantt stand each other. Peopl ill show you one more clip from that same episode. I hope we are not here to deny that by and large the news surfaces and the Television Industry and the schools and universities are liberal dominated, are you . Well, if you use it any pejorative terms terms, of couri do. I think our country in the last 40 years has been a liberal trust in our legislation, and our churches and her schools and our indications of media. Theres nothing sinister or evil. So susskind is expressing the dominant line at the time. It points to a latic or would it seem to have a conservative Public Affairs talk show in 1966. Its a liberal country, what are you talking about . Its kind of amazing. Nt in addition to political guests, buckley also had cultural figures, artistic figures, he was devoted to balk and he would have it playing and discussing bach and so on. What is your clip with Norman Mailer to give you a sense of what he did outside of the strictly clinical kind of disgusting. This conversation is not a political. Its from 1968 and mailer has just published armies of the night, and chilled after he appeared on the show he won the Pulitzer Prize and it was not a, march on pentagon. The opening is buckley reading aloud from Time Magazine,ve tm their coverage of mailer at this event. They were introduced, got annoyed about asked to speak letter. Od. [inaudible] mailer was perky enough to get himself arrested by twoo marshals. [inaudible] you were talking about mea maturation. Its of the influence. Our continuing correspondence, thats one example of Time Magazine at work. [inaudible] the concession i made that night was about that smack. [inaudible] i can see you are a student of the subject. Lets try to refocus the discussion. The Time Magazine observed may be the first to last time maturation was used on american television, really arent any Television Show. Im sure all of you are verymea sophisticated, so its a sophisticated discussion about scatological. Really charming debate between people with very different worldviews that people really enjoyed this kind of sparring match of talk about their ideas on the show. Buckley also had the spokespeople of the various radical social movements going on throughout the 60s and 70s. Quite notably he had blocked our folks on the show. This is milton henry and the nature and one can see but withh him wearing this. He had two security guards behind them in fatigues who never moved throughout the whole thing. They are unarmed but probably there some negotiation with the producer to not have guns on the sugar buckley never acknowledges that they are there. He never even makes eye contact. He just talks to milton henry. Once radical, the appearance of black bar on the ship is that o the coverage of black power elsewhere was mostly sensationalist, soundbite, this kind of thing. Up nixon conveyed to the networks in the early 70s that they really shouldnt cover black power anymore. Ea they should really just ignored. He encouraged them not to cover the as well and they did not take that advice. They continue to cover vietnam but they did minimize the coverage of black powder if you want to learn about lik black pr you didnt describe to one ofrn their newsletters or this kind of thing. Firing line was a good place to learn about it. You can do the ideas expressed an edited on the show. So that was really remarkable. He also had heres Eldridge Cleaver on the show. He als he also covered the Womens Liberation Movement on the program. He had betty for dan on early on. On she was not a very good speakers she was kind of articulate and she wasnt invited back for 18 years. She was a voice of mainstream liberal feminism, much better episode was testing just published the female eunuch and was much more radical buckley really enjoyed talking to her. Im going to show you as little clip from that encounter from the early 70s. [inaudible] are you today key and she equals and estimations or are you too screen out she forever incapable of equaling he grammatically . Mmatic grammatically . You could be at the feminist. [inaudible] you should refer to early humans. Spirit not only that, what it means is the real attitude istoe going to be concealed by a form of primitive censorship, so the actual situation might change its like calling people when they are married. I think its a sort of hypocrisy. So in other words, you think the answer is on nomenclature is preposterous . It such a trivial aspect to the real struggle. It is given so much attention. As far as the general movement to coop a struggle for resistance really enter into something. So its a really interesting moment because actually these people sort of agree about the nonsense of the white liberal feminism wants to change language and they both agree ms. Buckley thinks its just not euphonious. Its jarring. Not euphonious, my god. She says it doesnt change theru structural relationship off marriage. He thought she was a lunatic as far as trying to take it down the family and so on and so forth. But they agreed about this one issue in language and at issuess on the show he wrote her a thank you note as he always did to his guests and he said god dammit, you are good. He really enjoyed it. Unfortunately she did not want to come back on the show but it was a terrific show. They debated at the Cambridge Student Union will be before and she was soundly won that debate from the cambridge students. In a way this episode were kind of a rematch after that debate. O buckley also it of course antifeminists on the show. The subject of equal rights and came up over the years. This is the less likely phyllis schlafly. He also had Margaret Thatcher on the show twice. And this i want to show a clip from the q a. She was that there to talk about womens liberation. She really did not want to talk about gender issues at all. But Jeff Greenfield who is one of the common q a guys at the time on the panel as a young man brought it up. So this is their exchange. Im wondering in your own case, your reputation whenpu youre a cabinet member with Margaret Thatcher because of your objection to the free milk program, that angier etiological stent helped you from a conservative point help you overcome someday stereotypical objections for women who held office . No. As i said, at home on the whole we dont look at the person and not necessarily your limitedh [inaudible] the local government has not restored a free vote in spite of all the propaganda. But look, i guard these questions as very trivial. Its what i do. He takes it but you can sense the sweat breaking out on his upper lip. He has just been told off by Margaret Thatcher. Buckley is great because thatcher is saying this really, gender based on an an issue in uk, not relevant. Buckley is poppycock, nonsense. If women are qualified, how come there are not more women and office . He pushes back in an interesting way. Another great episode was, he did a few episodes with clare booth luce but insulin episode 222 clips, specifically asked to be on the show to talk about feminism. He couldnt disagree with the idea of having her on the show. So w he did and he gave her this long very positive introduction, and he concluded the introduction by saying i should like to become a asking if you find a way people entered issue on television to be condescending. Here is what she says. Thank you for that warmion. Introduction. You will be pleased to know that my entire introduction which is strapping to say the least, there was only one put down. This was a highly Level Achievement for a man introducing a woman. You spoke of the inability t o hold tone. Had you been speaking of the man who spoke out, whether he was speaking out, rightly or wrongly, you wouldnt have said [inaudible] he makes enemies by what he says. He is overly candidate. You might have used many phrases, but the phrase hold her tongue has been frequently used about children and it comes out in taming the true spirit no. It comes out highly over successful. So thats the beginning of the show. 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 it has ever never occurred to me that theyre different is patently obvious, and i would not want to see them behind the wheel of every mac truck. I think you would find that insulted, would you . He isnt what do you really think . And this is a response. Im much too fond of you to tell you what i really think. [laughter] i can be one of the most charming and subtle and sophisticated as male chauvinist. [laughter] i love that. Its so kind of flirty and bashful. But she says i would never say it to you publicly and opposite over a three martini lunch, you could imagine her telling him off quite a bit privately. So its a wonderful sort ofrienl public moment of friendly disagreement between these two. Now that ive shown you a bit of the show, what i want to do is read from the book. Im going to read to you some excerpts from the introduction and then from the chapter on civil rights and black Power Movement to give a sense of thed flavor of the book, and thats about 20 minutes. Then we will open up to q a. So although the program was undeniable heads for 33 years, firing line was not Buckley Zaidi to begin with. This is not altogether surprising. It is hard to imagine a tv star less interested in tv then buckley. He won an emmy for five new line in 1969 and it was a modifying Public Affairs show for a single post in u. S. History buckley remained active industry outsider. It would be somewhat unfair, even uncouth to discover buckley as a snob. He did write a fun novel about Elvis Presley after all. If you dont understand anyone could consider mick jagger a good singer, his voice could be better than that of every fourth person listed in the telephoners directory. The t he did at least listen to the beatles during his weekly session with his personal trainer. This was perhaps a masochistic choice as he really could not stand the beatles. In 1970 he considered considered to be interviewed by playboy magazine. This make him practically hip. That same year he appeared on the abc comedy show rhone and martins laugh in. Explaining that i did an interview with playboy because i decided it was the only way to communicate my views to my son. And noting that only agreed to appear on laugh and because ofau it is after flight out to california on an airplane with two right wings. Laugh and stage a press for buckley were cast member henrik ibsen queried mr. Buckley, ive noticed one of you appear on television you always seated. On does this mean you cant think on your feet . Buckley candidly responded, its very hard to stand up carrying the weight of what i know. Asked his opinion but new to the interview he replied, its excessive. Asked whose image would be more harm eyes appears on laugh and his or the shows, he laughed and said i suppose it will make you more respectable, wink inserted, and both of those are probably to be desired. He managed to put a long and a good sport while remaining the dignified face phase ofed spe conservatives. Its doubtful hed ever watched an episode of laughing but he did admit to a real fondness for all in the primary. Archie bunker hindered he noted is the greatest anticonservative ripoff and history of modern offenses. You dont need call marks in all you need is archie bunker. Hes despicable but endearing and away. Buckley was once late for dinner party hosted by Nelson Rockefeller because he was at home watching all in the family. In thing is openness to Television Viewing he was acknowledged that anybody who wants to effectively understand whats going on has got to watch tv. The most bookish man i ever knew, whittaker chambers,it watched television on and about billy for about seven until 11 1 every single night of his life. Buckley also noted he was too busy to watch tv himself. He had no idea who jabba the hutt was big he admitted to watching professional football and during his run for mayor of new york city he was dumped by reference to micke