Henry Hazlitt: In One Lesson

In 1965 Bill Buckley, Jim Burnham, and I took a very eminent economist to dinner at a smashing French restaurant in midtown Manhattan to sweet-talk him into writing regularly for this magazine. Although he agreed with what we stood for, he ever so patiently refused to associate his name with this venture, for reasons that I never thought genuine. I think he just wanted to keep his skirts clean and not associate with us rowdies. By that time the great Harry Hazlitt had already been writing steadily for NR for nine years.

Harry is ninety now, but the scrappy fighter in him has perdured, and he still sports that bear-trap mind and booming laugh. In mind and body, what a warrior! I took him and his wife, Frances, to supper at a quiet inn in northern Connecticut when he was in his eighties, and he consumed: two shots of red-eye, eggs à la russe, bread & butter, roast beef, baked potato, veggies, green salad, vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, coffee, brandy. And I mean he cleaned his plate and laughed with gusto so irresistibly that pretty soon the little dining room was relaxed and at one with his merriment. Did we have wine, too? You’ll have to ask Harry. I can’t remember.

WR

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William F. Rickenbacker

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William F. Buckley Jr.

The New York Times

In 1965 Bill Buckley, Jim Burnham, and I took a very eminent economist to dinner at a smashing French restaurant in midtown Manhattan to sweet-talk him into writing regularly for this magazine. Although he agreed with what we stood for, he ever so patiently refused to associate his name with this venture, for reasons that I never thought genuine. I think he just wanted to keep his skirts clean and not associate with us rowdies. By that time the great Harry Hazlitt had already been writing steadily for NR for nine years.

Harry is ninety now, but the scrappy fighter in him has perdured, and he still sports that bear-trap mind and booming laugh. In mind and body, what a warrior! I took him and his wife, Frances, to supper at a quiet inn in northern Connecticut when he was in his eighties, and he consumed: two shots of red-eye, eggs à la russe, bread & butter, roast beef, baked potato, veggies, green salad, vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, coffee, brandy. And I mean he cleaned his plate and laughed with gusto so irresistibly that pretty soon the little dining room was relaxed and at one with his merriment. Did we have wine, too? You’ll have to ask Harry. I can’t remember.