William F. Buckley Jr.
A friend of one of the country's leading conservatives looks at WFB's career as a writer and editor, his public life and the time he spent as an undercover CIA agent.

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By Chris Weinkopf

Sept. 3, 1999 | "It's amazing we weren't all killed," is how the story usually begins. I have heard it at least a dozen times. Among friends and family of William F. Buckley Jr., it's a favorite.

Like all old and many-times retold anecdotes, the details are fuzzy, and depend largely on who is recounting them, but the general outline is always the same. It takes place just outside the ritzy Swiss ski resort of Gstaad, in the more low-key village of Rougemont, where Bill and his wife, Pat, spend their winters. Bill is behind the wheel of his white four-wheel-drive station wagon, driving down one of those steep, windy roads that cling to the side of the mountain -- a narrow strip of pavement with sheer rock on one side and a hundred-foot drop on the other.

It's an unseasonably warm day; too warm for Bill, who decides to remove his sweater. The passengers watch in terror as he fumbles with one hand -- the other still on the wheel -- to yank off the pullover, now wrapped around his head and completely blocking his vision. Amazingly, the car stays on course, and the passengers live to tell the tale.

Which they are happy to do. The story speaks to two of their friend's most endearing characteristics -- his calm disposition and the divine providence that seems to make it possible. Both infuse his writing and explain Bill Buckley's success at making politics his living, but not his life.

I first met WFB, as his friends and colleagues refer to him in writing, four years ago, when I started working at National Review, the conservative journal he owns and founded. After retiring as editor in 1990, Buckley withdrew from the day-to-day operations of the magazine. Except for the occasional glimpse at a meeting or a luncheon, or a handshake at his annual Christmas party, we junior staffers rarely saw him. But we were always aware of his presence -- for young conservatives, the name Buckley is second only to Reagan on the hero scale -- and we found it, quite frankly, intimidating. When, 18 months into my tenure at NR, Frances Bronson, his indispensable secretary, summoned me to a 5 p.m. meeting at WFB's Upper East Side Manhattan apartment, I was terrified. Buckley soon assuaged my fears, offering me an iced coffee (which I despise, but drank anyway) and an invitation to join him for six weeks in Switzerland to provide research for his planned novel, "The Redhunter: A Novel Based on the Life of Senator Joe McCarthy." I gladly accepted the assignment.

Buckley writes all his books in Switzerland, and has done so for four decades. On average, he puts out one a year, plus 100 columns and scores of longer pieces, obituaries and editorials. In Rougemont he works eight hours a day, seven days a week, all six weeks. But he is as adamant about maintaining his recreation schedule as he is about finishing his book on time. He lunches at a local inn and skis for one to two hours in the afternoon. Every evening in his study, he hosts a cocktail-and-cigar hour for his male house guests. The one thing Buckley won't tolerate is idle time. When he gets a haircut, he brings a book. In a restaurant, he usually calls over the waitress to order right away, and then asks for dessert midway through the entree, so that no time is lost between courses. He settles the bill as soon as she brings the coffee.

Eric Alterman wrote in June in an online book club discussion that Buckley has a talent uncommon among those with deep political convictions -- that he is unlikely to "ruin a dinner party" with indelicate partisan banter. That's probably because he has had much practice at the art of dinner partying. Pat Buckley is an accomplished hostess and socialite. In Switzerland, the Buckleys entertain between four and eight friends no fewer than three times a week. The affairs exemplify their commitment to good manners and etiquette, offset by an unwillingness to let convention get in the way of a good time. The appetizer might be foie gras, but the hors d'oeuvre is almost always bread bits covered in peanut butter. ("If peanut butter were as expensive as caviar," Bill has said more than once, "it would be served at Buckingham Palace teas.") When guests overstay their welcome, Bill plays "Goodnight Ladies" on the piano.

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