On the Right

Rio de Janeiro, Nov. 5—The invitation was generally extended to visiting Americans, and we had dreams of Walter Cronkite by satellite, even as if we had been sitting in our own living rooms. The scene was very different, and the GSA would have been pleased by the prevailing austerity. Off in one room was the single television set, throwing up its beam at a huge screen before which fifty people sat quietly, expectantly. Thither we went, and it was our old friend Bill Moyers with a panel of Americans analyzing the issues of the campaign. Suddenly the ear detected an anachronism . . . didn’t Moyers say something about how tomorrow he would resume following President Carter about the campaign trail? For God’s sake, can’t Bill Moyers take it like a man and acknowledge that exactly 15 minutes ago Jimmy Carter conceded defeat to Ronald Reagan? It transpires that we are looking at a video cassette, the sort of thing the old USIA (now the USICA) makes available in the public room for idle or inquisitive Brazilians, and the transient Americans tonight just went in there to sit down, because there wasn’t all that much going on in the main room.

There, the communications nub was a tiny UPI machine, the ticker. It worked fitfully. One young man tapped the operator on the shoulder and said, “Here, let me try.” He lifted the lid and smartly spanked the moving part, which roused itself and, as if to make up for lost time, whirred out the news at breakneck speed. We craned to read the letters that appeared in the unfolding story. It was a recap, something to the effect that “an exmovie actor, the darling of American conservatives,” had reached an electoral count of 238, and that formal results from Pennsylvania were expected at any moment, which would put him over the goal line. UPI went on to say that at 9:58 Eastern Standard Time President Carter had conceded defeat to his adversary, wishing him well in his Administration. We arrived too late (it was after midnight, Rio time) to get the text, and found ourselves wondering whether Jimmy Carter had managed to formulate a message of congratulations that wished Reagan well in winning the world war he would get us into, and in healing the wounds between rich and poor, North and South, white and black, Christian and non-Christian, after inflicting said wounds; but the young AP reporter said Carter had played it straight. He hadn’t caught the expression on Carter’s face, because the television wasn’t working. A small shortwave set, perched on top of the desk of the Charge d’Affaires (in Brazil they forced the brass to move to Brasilia ten years ago) carried Carter’s message, and a half-dozen people at most were able to hear it, the other hundred receiving the news in relays.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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Rio de Janeiro, Nov. 5—The invitation was generally extended to visiting Americans, and we had dreams of Walter Cronkite by satellite, even as if we had been sitting in our own living rooms. The scene was very different, and the GSA would have been pleased by the prevailing austerity. Off in one room was the single television set, throwing up its beam at a huge screen before which fifty people sat quietly, expectantly. Thither we went, and it was our old friend Bill Moyers with a panel of Americans analyzing the issues of the campaign. Suddenly the ear detected an anachronism . . . didn’t Moyers say something about how tomorrow he would resume following President Carter about the campaign trail? For God’s sake, can’t Bill Moyers take it like a man and acknowledge that exactly 15 minutes ago Jimmy Carter conceded defeat to Ronald Reagan? It transpires that we are looking at a video cassette, the sort of thing the old USIA (now the USICA) makes available in the public room for idle or inquisitive Brazilians, and the transient Americans tonight just went in there to sit down, because there wasn’t all that much going on in the main room.

There, the communications nub was a tiny UPI machine, the ticker. It worked fitfully. One young man tapped the operator on the shoulder and said, “Here, let me try.” He lifted the lid and smartly spanked the moving part, which roused itself and, as if to make up for lost time, whirred out the news at breakneck speed. We craned to read the letters that appeared in the unfolding story. It was a recap, something to the effect that “an exmovie actor, the darling of American conservatives,” had reached an electoral count of 238, and that formal results from Pennsylvania were expected at any moment, which would put him over the goal line. UPI went on to say that at 9:58 Eastern Standard Time President Carter had conceded defeat to his adversary, wishing him well in his Administration. We arrived too late (it was after midnight, Rio time) to get the text, and found ourselves wondering whether Jimmy Carter had managed to formulate a message of congratulations that wished Reagan well in winning the world war he would get us into, and in healing the wounds between rich and poor, North and South, white and black, Christian and non-Christian, after inflicting said wounds; but the young AP reporter said Carter had played it straight. He hadn’t caught the expression on Carter’s face, because the television wasn’t working. A small shortwave set, perched on top of the desk of the Charge d’Affaires (in Brazil they forced the brass to move to Brasilia ten years ago) carried Carter’s message, and a half-dozen people at most were able to hear it, the other hundred receiving the news in relays.