Key to understanding the success of William F. Buckley Jr. in building the modern conservative movement is his enduring talent for friendship.
K ey to understanding the success of William F. Buckley Jr. in building the modern conservative movement is his enduring talent for friendship. Among the most important friendships in Bill’s life was the one he forged with Ronald Reagan, which extended beyond the two men to their respective wives and families. Buckley and Reagan first met in 1961 in California, a consequential and fortunate event which Bill memorably recalled in his 2008 The Reagan I Knew, with the future president showing his physical courage and will in breaking into a control room to get a microphone back on to proceed with a public speech. From there, both would work tirelessly to try and get Barry Goldwater elected president in 1964, with Reagan giving his breakthrough political speech in late October of that year—dubbed simply “The Speech.”
Soon after, Reagan, seen as a rising star after his “Time for Choosing” speech, would successfully run for Governor of California, serving two terms. Reagan would make multiple appearances on Buckley’s show of public affairs, Firing Line, including a famous 1978 debate on the Panama Canal treaty, which involved the two men in disagreement and featured teams that included the likes of George Will, James Burnham, and Pat Buchanan. Both would be key supporters and builders of the burgeoning institutions in the movement, like the Young Americans for Freedom.
When Reagan finally ascended to the presidency in January of 1981, it was a capstone for National Review, and Reagan not only publicly celebrated the influence of the magazine of which he had been an inaugural subscriber but hired numerous talented figures from within the magazine’s orbit. As President Reagan so memorably summed up the successful relationship at the magazine’s 30th anniversary dinner, “You didn’t just part the Red Sea. You rolled it back, dried it up, and left it exposed for all the world to see the naked desert that is statism, and you did it without an environmental impact statement.”