The WFB Legacy — Blackford Oakes

Among Bill Buckley’s many accomplishments is that he was not merely a best-selling author of books on politics and public affairs, God and Man at Yale and Up from Liberalism, but he was also a best-selling and award-winning novelist. His long-running series of spy novels focused on his patriotic, Yale-educated CIA spy protagonist Blackford Oakes, spanned eleven books, the first Saving the Queen published in 1976, and the last, Last Call for Blackford Oakes, in 2005.

The series was spurned during a lunch meeting with Buckley’s editor, Samuel Vaughn, after Bill had read Day of the Jackal and contemplated writing his own; he decided to take the challenge and try his hand at the genre. However, Buckley did not want to follow modern conventions of the genre that demanded moral ambiguity, especially about the moral stakes of the Cold War. Rather, Buckley insisted that despite the myriad flaws of his central character and the sympathetic way he constructed Oakes’s central antagonist and Soviet spy Boris, Oakes was still the “ultimate Cold Warrior,” and the United States was the good actor looking to stop and destroy the evil, destructive and atheistic forces of Communism.

About the Author

National Review Institute

National Review Institute was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. as a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) charitable organization in 1991.

Among Bill Buckley’s many accomplishments is that he was not merely a best-selling author of books on politics and public affairs, God and Man at Yale and Up from Liberalism, but he was also a best-selling and award-winning novelist. His long-running series of spy novels focused on his patriotic, Yale-educated CIA spy protagonist Blackford Oakes, spanned eleven books, the first Saving the Queen published in 1976, and the last, Last Call for Blackford Oakes, in 2005.

The series was spurned during a lunch meeting with Buckley’s editor, Samuel Vaughn, after Bill had read Day of the Jackal and contemplated writing his own; he decided to take the challenge and try his hand at the genre. However, Buckley did not want to follow modern conventions of the genre that demanded moral ambiguity, especially about the moral stakes of the Cold War. Rather, Buckley insisted that despite the myriad flaws of his central character and the sympathetic way he constructed Oakes’s central antagonist and Soviet spy Boris, Oakes was still the “ultimate Cold Warrior,” and the United States was the good actor looking to stop and destroy the evil, destructive and atheistic forces of Communism.