May the man his brother often called the Sainted Junior Senator now find that he is indeed sainted.
May the man his brother often called the Sainted Junior Senator now find that he is indeed sainted.
J ames Lane Buckley, statesman of paramount dignity, cheer, wisdom, and temperament; loyal servant of his country, its Founding ideals, the Catholic faith he dearly embraced and practiced, the modern conservative movement, whose Valhalla he occupies, this saddened journalistic institution founded by his remarkable brother; and a fierce friend and champion — as he was to the causes of federalism, the precious unborn, and the Almighty’s good earth — has been called home by that same Creator he loved. He passed away peacefully Friday morning, having gotten and given every full measure of the 100 years and five months during which he lived amongst us as a most important figure in modern American history.
To think — all he ever wanted to be was a country attorney in the northwestern hills of Connecticut. Alas, if that was to be his fate, he should not have been born into the Buckley clan.
But he was. It was that storied clan, and younger brother Bill, whose influence and determination to stand athwart America’s slouching towards liberalism that turned the Connecticut lawyer’s life upside down. The spate of remarkable events came fast and furious mid life. One day you are a much-travelled lawyer for the family’s energy business, the next you have been dragooned to serve as chairman of a sibling’s infamous New York City mayoral run. Chairman Jim’s honest cut, manners, and unaffected, sweet-quiet persona — his charm — so impressed Conservative Party leaders in New York that they persuaded him to be their candidate (no, not to win, but to make a point to the state’s Rockefeller Republicans) in the forthcoming 1968 U.S. Senate race. And what a point was made: The reserved, crew-cut man with the high-society, French/Spanish/Yankee–marinated accent and wonderful smile and politeness-overload connected with citizens, garnered over a million votes, gave the GOP establishment a mighty scare, and supercharged the emerging conservative political movement that just four years earlier had been declared dead after Barry Goldwater’s presidential defeat.
Political duty done? The 1968 race was, in Jim Buckley’s own words, his “first and last hurrah.” Except it wasn’t: Convinced that the right conservative could prove electable in a three-way U.S. Senate race in New York in 1970, Buckley agreed to run — this time, symbolism be darned, to win.
His memorable campaign ads asked, “Isn’t it about time we had a senator? There were a lot of “we”s in the Empire State. On Election Day, they answered — it was time.
Jim Buckley’s historic 1970 Senate victory began a storied public career — indeed, a historic career — of service that Matthew Continetti wonderfully recounted in National Review earlier this year, on the occasion of the great man celebrating his 100th birthday. We shall note here one highlight of Jim Buckley’s CV: In the 247 years of this Republic, only a handful of men have served in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of American government. James Lane Buckley was one of these rare men: The junior Senator from New York followed his one term by serving high in the ranks of the Reagan administration’s State Department, then as head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty during the Cold War’s deep freeze, and finally as a highly respected judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where he sat from 1985 to 1996 (he was succeeded by John Roberts), and served upon retirement as a “senior judge” until his death.
Oh: His is also the name on one of the Supreme Court’s most important free-speech rulings, Buckley v. Valeo.
Let me share a few random but not unimportant things about His Honor, maybe that point to a fuller picture, maybe to brag a speck, hopefully to give attention to his relations with this institution and his own family.
Being a judge was something Jim took terribly seriously (although terrible seriousness likely applied to all his thoughts and deeds). He held himself to stratospheric standards. In 2010 or thereabouts, sister Priscilla, the late and wonderful managing editor of NR, hosted a fund-raiser for a congressional candidate at Great Elm, the Buckley family’s grand home in Sharon, Conn. At the time, Priscilla still lived in the big house, while Jim lived in one of the smaller houses on the Great Elm grounds. He was not to be seen or found that day — he vamoosed. Outside of voting, Jim was determined there be no hint of impropriety, so even a senior federal judge should opt for temporary homelessness rather than be in the proximity of political doings.
(A personal political aside: It was a thrill, a few years back, while he was still living in Connecticut, before he moved to the Washington, D.C., area to be nearer to his children, that His Honor called me to get my voting recommendations for various state-office GOP-primary candidates — whether or not he took the advice, I can’t say. Still, it was cool to be asked by the great man about this, or about anything, for that matter.)
He was no stiff. There was a decidedly impish, lighter side to Jim. Two stories, the first one shorter: After NR’s 45th anniversary celebration, a festive boat ride around Manhattan, the Buckleys piled into a dockside car to leave. Yes, there were too many Buckleys and too few seats for the car — nevertheless, as it drove off, there, from the popped-open trunk, sat Jim Buckley, laughing and waving.
The longer story has to do with a young Yale sophomore and the outbreak of war. As he told in Gleanings from an Unplanned Life, his wonderful 2006 memoir, the future senator, then a staff member of the Yale Daily News, found himself an eyewitness to history on that momentous December 1941 weekend:
I learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio while driving back to Yale from Sharon [Connecticut], where I had spent the weekend. On my arrival, I rushed to the News to help put out the war issue. For whatever reason, Yale’s president, Charles Seymour, had declined to issue a statement for the occasion. So three of the sophomore editors, Stu Little, Seth Taft, and I, decided on a stratagem for extracting one from him. Seth found a drum somewhere and then the three of us went to the Old Campus (where Yale’s freshman are housed) and started marching through it, drum beating, while yelling “To Hell with Hirohito [the Japanese emperor]; on to Tokyo.” We felt a little silly at first, but soon some freshmen began falling in line behind us and taking up the chant. Like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, we were soon leading a chain of students wherever we chose to go. After circling the campus, we moved through two of the residential colleges, then up Hillhouse Avenue to President Seymour’s house. By that time we had three or 400 students in tow and Seymour had no choice but to come out and utter appropriately stirring words about country and duty, including the duty to study even harder to prepare ourselves for service to the nation. We then abandoned our chain to its own devices and rushed back to the News with our story.
It was an exhilarating experience, and we were too keyed up to consider going to bed. We decided, instead, to drive to Washington in the hope that Seth’s uncle, Senator Robert A. Taft, might be able to get us into the Capitol to hear President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war. We drove all night (there were no superhighways in those days) and reached the city at around 9:00 in the morning. We had breakfast at the home of Seth’s grandmother, Mrs. William Howard Taft, and then went on to the senator’s office to try our luck. Unfortunately, two other classmates had been there ahead of us, the senator’s son, Lloyd, and his roommate, Bob Sweet. Lloyd would be taking his mother’s seat in the House gallery, and his roommate would be smuggled in in the guise of a page. Senator Taft suggested, however, that we accompany his wife to the Senate side where we could listen to the President’s speech on her battery-operated radio, which was then something of a novelty. When Mrs. Taft arrived, the senator escorted us to the Capitol. On arriving there, Mrs. Taft led us to a room off the Senate floor. It was there that we heard Roosevelt request that Congress declare that we had been in a state of war since the prior day, the “day that will live in infamy.” Following the conclusion of Roosevelt’s speech, we moved to the Senate gallery where we saw the senators vote their approval of the declaration.
It’s hard to picture Jim Buckley leading a parade and banging a drum. But it’s good to know that he did. And another obvious thought from the vignette: Surely, as he watched history unfold in the Senate, he did not imagine that one day he would be representing the people of New York in the fabled Upper Chamber.
(Between that day and his Senate term a generation later, there was another service that James Buckley, United States Navy lieutenant, performed, for three-plus years. It is told comprehensively in a 2015 taped interview, which also affords an ideal exposition of the temperament and honesty and self-effacement of a proud veteran who was there — as he described it, watching from a 50-yard-line seat — in the heat and fury of Okinawa, Leyte, and other Pacific battles.)
A few years after the war, Jim met and married Ann Cooley, soon to be Mrs. Buckley and the mother of their six children. Later in life, Ann was involved in a horrible car accident that left her thoroughly disabled. She passed away in 2012, living out her last years in the relentless care of her husband.
Part of that care was familial — there were still two Buckley siblings at Great Elm. But when younger sister Jane died in 2007, it left Priscilla, beloved by all but, never having married, sans children, possibly solitary. She worried: What was to come of her as she approached dotage? I recounted a tender mercy in a remembrance of this wonderful lady who was blessed to have Jim as her brother:
But a few years back it was a place of sorrow. Priscilla lived in the old house, as did her sister and sidekick, Jane. She lost a tough battle to cancer. Could anyone blame Priscilla for being . . . worried? With her close sister and housemate gone, would a loneliness of sorts overtake her remaining years?
A month or so later, I was having lunch with Priscilla and Ed Capano in Manhattan and asked her how she was coping with the loss of Jane. She started crying because she was deeply moved by her brother’s love: She said Jim had assured her that she would not be alone, that she would be with him and Ann every night. And they were. This was no weakness by Priscilla. She was simply sharing that even among siblings, love can be so deep, so tender, so real. So fierce.
Now, a decade later, the image of Priscilla’s tears of appreciative love over the promise of her younger brother remains powerful, and it’s another testament to an exceptional man and family.
About Jim’s abiding Catholic faith, surely known to all, I can add an anecdote. When National Review a few years back was moving from its Lexington Avenue offices, the infamous room chock-full of ancient file cabinets and Buckley documents galore had to be emptied. In one cabinet was a plastic case filled with various letters. A quick observation showed these were familial and personal. I remember the letter atop the pile: From the 1970s, if recollection is right, handwritten in blue pen, to Bill, the subject was faith: Aren’t we so fortunate, wrote Big Brother Jim, to have been born into Catholicism, and to be blessed by its teachings and beauty? This was no rhetorical questioning from one sibling to another, but evidence of a man who wanted merely to dash off and mail a note to share his unfailing spiritual joy with a brother.
Who does these things in this world today? Jim Buckley does — or now, did.
Shall we ever see the likes of this man again? Or anyone approaching him?
We can dream. On that most special night in November 1970, in the hoopla at his campaign headquarters, his victory a certainty, Senator-elect Buckley addressed his volunteers: “The American people want a new course; they want a new politics.” He paused for the slightest moment, then added, “And I am the voice for the new politics.” A roar ensued. Would that we could roar again to such a man, and such a promise.
Conservatives should hold dearly Jim Buckley’s memory, and praise his life, for hope and inspiration, and to give evidence that it is possible for a genuinely humble and decent man to mount the public stage, enter the fabled arena, rise above others, be a counterpoint to the prevailing rhetoric, and stand out by offering unstinting, wise service to his country, and to his family, and to his faith — achieved without calculation or posture or rancor but with love and intelligence and determination that must not abate, as Jim’s did not abate until his very last year.
One more matter before closing. Jim’s special affections were directed at this institution. He was a fierce friend of National Review and National Review Institute. As for the latter, he was awarded NRI’s Buckley Prize, named for Brother Bill, in 2020, and his last public speech, which can be watched on C-SPAN, was given at NRI’s 2019 Ideas Summit. This year, NRI honored its dear friend by creating the James L. Buckley Lecture, the inaugural one given in March by former attorney general Michael Mukasey. As for National Review, Jim once served on its board, and his writings — typically about the need to defend federalism and the Tenth Amendment — graced the pages of the fortnightly journal many a time. Some of these NR writing are available here, and a more complete gathering of his writings can be found in the 2010 book Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State (dedicated, lovingly, “For my sister and oldest friend, Priscilla Langford Buckley”).
And maybe that is a good way for Jim to be remembered in these NR precincts, as a man whose most profound concern was that America’s freedom was indeed at risk, especially from the aggrandizing state. We have been warned, and by a great man. Refusal to heed Jim Buckley will spell disaster for this nation to which he gave his all.
There is an old song from Sesame Street with the line, “One of these things just doesn’t belong.” It always came to mind when I was in Jim’s presence. He was so genuinely Christian, of unsurpassable esteem, that I didn’t believe I could have been so fortunate to be with him, talk with him, email and eat and cruise and joke with him. And yet, that happened. Sometimes in life, we win a different version of MegaMillions. But it comes with an obligation: that Jim’s model be followed, at least by this poor sinner, so we may do right with the talents God has given each of us, that we rise to the unexpected occasion, and that when our own days end, we might find an eternity alongside our old friend.
By his long life, Jim, the last of the living children of William and Aloise Buckley, defied the actuarial gods. Could one be blamed for thinking this day would never come? Maybe. Still, it has come. What would Jim have us do? I offer: Pray. And we should pray that now Jim rests in eternal bliss, with Christ, and that he is reunited with Ann, these two exceptional people of exceptional mutual devotion affixed till the end of time. To Jim’s children, Jay, Peter, David, Priscilla, Bill, and Andrew, to his many grandchildren, and to the extended Buckley family, and to his many friends, we share this special mix of sorrow at a great man’s passing, but elation that God was so good as to offer him to us as a father, a sibling, a friend, a fellow American. May the man his brother often called the Sainted Junior Senator now find that he is indeed sainted.