William F. Buckley, Jr. -- It Gets Even Better

March 14, 2008, 7:39 pm
Uncommoner Than Thou: Buckley, Part Two
(This is the second of a two-part column. Read part one.)
William F. Buckley was a man who had a great capacity for fun and for amusing himself by amazing others.
Example: Dick Clurman of Time magazine, an affable gent, was a guest on the Buckley yacht in the Caribbean. After dinner, Bill B., leafing through a TV log, announced that “The Wizard of Oz” would be starting in half an hour — in English, broadcast from Puerto Rico. Clurman was delighted and confessed to never having seen it.
At the appointed time the set was switched on, but to everyone’s chagrin it seemed the movie had already been on for a good half hour. Bill had read the starting time wrong. Clurman’s disappointment was visible.
“Let’s see if my name cuts any ice down here,” his host said. The incredulous Clurman later described how his friend grabbed the phone, rang up the station in Puerto Rico, managed to get through to the engineer, explained his guest’s disappointment, and asked if it would be too much trouble to start the movie over!
In disbelief, Clurman saw the screen go blank, followed by a frantic display of jumbling and flashing. And then — the opening credits and the comforting strains of “Over the Rainbow.” The movie began anew. Clurman declared that never until then had he known the full meaning of “chutzpah.”
I think Bill decided to let a year go by, giving Clurman time to regale all his friends and acquaintances with the tale of the Oz miracle. It was then, still reluctantly, that the magician revealed his secret. The movie had not been broadcast at all that night — except on Bill’s tape deck, which he had secretly manipulated with his unseen left arm while “talking on the phone” using the other.
He was full of surprises. Once on my show we were talking about Muhammad Ali, and Bill revealed that he himself was taking boxing lessons.. The audience gasped.
“Expecting trouble?” I asked.
“No,” he intoned. “But I’m ready.”
**********
Buckley enjoyed tossing literary references into the conversation; a habit not always guaranteed to make friends. Once, in answer to something I said, he injected, “As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Hypocrisy is the compliment that vice pays to virtue.”
A fine and witty remark to be sure, but one you wouldn’t be wise to depend on as your opening gag in your nightclub act. And one I would guess he knew it might take the rest of us a moment to fully “get.” If then.
But that’s not what bothered me about it. A little voice in me whispered, “Is that Oscar Wilde?” In one of those bizarre coincidences life tickles us with, a French friend had given me, two days before, a volume of famous “Citations” (see tahss ee own) by French wits. Try real hard to believe that among the half dozen she had checkmarked as favorites was that one. Yes. The alleged Wilde.
What fun to catch my learned guest on this. But because he was who he was, I figured he must be right and the moment passed. And because he was who he was, it was mildly heartbreaking.
Weeks pass. And he is back. All fear of him is gone. Try not to form your entire opinion of me by what I did:
Bill, I said, I notice that on your show you hold yourself to a high level of accuracy. And that you don’t shrink from holding your guests to it. I like to do the same here. (He is too smart not to sense something. And what I did next is inexcusable.)
Last time you were here, Bill, you said, “L’ hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend a la vertu.” I forget how it goes in English. (Can you see why I was sometimes beaten up on the playground?)
Well, you get the idea. I told him that it was in fact, “not Oscar Wilde, who was of course Irish, but Francois de la Rochefoucauld, who, as far as we know, was French. And I just couldn’t let you go around embarrassing yourself like that again. As a friend.” (Audience chortles, then claps.)
Bill’s expression was beyond description. There was fire. Ice. And a trace of amusement.
DC: What are you thinking, Bill?
WFB (after a well-timed pause): Of a variety of ways to express my profound gratitude.
(Everyone has a laugh.)
**********
A writer friend reminds me that, over the years, many a journalist’s day was made by receiving one of the short personal notes Buckley used to send when they’d written something he liked. These cherished tidbits were only a line or two long, but imbued with the full Buckley flavor.
Language was his medium and he loved to make it roll around and do tricks. I just now unearthed a copy of one of his books he had inscribed to me. He was a fan of all wordplay and had admired an unforgivable pun I had made about French painters. He wrote:

To Richard, in deepest gratitude for “More in Seurat than in Ingres.” May I use it?
With affection,
Bill
The adjective “fabulous,” through overuse, has become cheap currency. But it applies to him. In the sense of “fabled.” He was a character in the true sense of that word. And not of our time. He was like a creation out of 19th — or even 18th — century literature, rather than the predictable and dreary sort of folk you get these days. Not one of whom would have the class to reply to an irate letter-writer demanding that he cancel her subscription to his magazine: “Cancel your own damn subscription.”
If I were composing a Top 10 list of things that will never be said, I submit as number one: “Hey, I just met someone exactly like William F. Buckley.”
**********
Postscript: Bill would have loved this. Remember the stories the other week about how badly our ignorant American high school students had done on a general knowledge test? Failing to identify Hitler correctly, or to know when the Civil War was? Well, irony of ironies, the test itself contains an error.
One of its multiple-choice “correct” answers is wrong.
What would our friend have done with this? He would convince us that we are all too soft from being handed things too easily, and that what would be best for all concerned would be to let the reader diligently discover the error himself, rather than to get the answer by spoon, so to speak.
So, in memory of Bill, until next time . . . .
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1.March 15th,
2008
12:14 am The anecdote about the Wizard of Oz is wickedly hilarious.

The reason I like this blog is that you know the newsmakers, and you can talk about them freely. I’ve gotten a much better picture of the type of person William Buckley is here on this blog than all of the eulogies I’ve read of him, combined. And the same goes for your entries Bobby Fischer and Norman Mailer, as well.

Keep up the good work. I love reading your blog. I hope to read much more from you.

— Posted by Bart
2.March 15th,
2008
1:03 am Boy, that was quick, Cavett! Now, how about letting this Part 2 one on WFB be a precident for beginning another piece right away! Like I said before, how about one or two on Arthur Godfrey — surely as interesting a character as WFB! I’ll stand by to correct you — if necessary! Like, do you know the “real” Julius LaRosa story?

— Posted by Peter Kelley
3.March 15th,
2008
1:35 am It is wonderfully charming (and even funny) to read all of these tales (from Mr. Cavett and others) about how William Buckley had such a great command of the English language. He did, and no one can take that away from him. He must have been a wonderful person to have as a friend.

But I also saw him use his intellect to put people down in petty and cruel ways by talking over their heads and using fancy words – instead of addressing the issues. It’s that I’ll remember most about him.

— Posted by Michael Conley
4.March 15th,
2008
1:40 am Hmm.. When I read the lead-in for this, I saw ‘fabulous’ applied to Bill Buckley. I wondered: is Dick Cavett insinuating that Buckley made stuff up? That would certainly be spicy, and a play on words worthy of Buckley himself. No such luck…

— Posted by p mac
5.March 15th,
2008
3:14 am Dick…..he was so good I could almost forget I detested his politics…..eh?

— Posted by sturgeone
6.March 15th,
2008
3:44 am Buckley would’ve fit well in the company of G.K. Chesterton. I’ve often wondered ~ was WFB born multi-syllablic or did he come down with it at some point later on?

— Posted by Roy Truitt
7.March 15th,
2008
4:21 am I just watched the 1960s debate between Buckley and Noam Chomsky on youtube, and my modest opinion of WFB was reaffirmed. He may have been eloquent, witty, and a good friend, but he was also unable to deal with intellectual equals like Chomsky, thus interrupting constantly. In that respect he was the forerunner of all the current right-wing talk hosts. He always seemed arrogant to me.

— Posted by Greg Tamblyn
8.March 15th,
2008
5:16 am Mr. Cavett,

When you write you would never meet anyone like WFB, I’m wondering if there are, floating in the mediocre-sea we call the media, someone already working WFB’s beat. Not as a conservative per se, but as a pundit, thinker or personality. Is there such a person doing something novel on Fox? Will Bill O’Reilly warrant such tributes? Rush Limbaugh? Will Ann Coulter get this kind of high-end ink? Is there anyone out there who can bluff and bob and weave so well these days? Steven Colbert? I may not have liked WFB’s politics but I certainly love the theater involved in a long-distance rewind of OZ. Now we’re all about YouTube and downloading Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

Bravo for the fable.

Best,

Matthew Rose / http://homepage.mac.com/mistahcoughdrop/

— Posted by MATTHEW ROSE
9.March 15th,
2008
5:20 am Buckley was the consummate snob, influencd no one except several
hundred rich, close buddies, and
will fade quickly from the public
conciousness.Hopefully.

— Posted by richard slimowitz
10.March 15th,
2008
5:45 am ‘More in Seurat than in Ingres.’

It still hasn’t sunk in. Help!

— Posted by Bob Wilcox
11.March 15th,
2008
6:49 am Mr. Buckley hid a sadistic Darwinist social philosophy behind pretty words, a dubious gift. No doubt he had other gifts, but if a sordid philosophy creates pain for innocent people, it’s impossible to like such a fellow.

— Posted by sufi
12.March 15th,
2008
7:33 am The leisure class has truly lost one of its most rewarding characters. Of course, we feel for his family, as would any decent person. Decent people also recognized the immediate need long ago for the national need for laws dealing with the national waste called hatred on account of race. The people who didn’t had a moral and ethical blind spot the size of the grand canyon, which still was not large enough to contain the blind spot of William Buckley. Before we enjoy too much celebrating the articulateness of the most extraordinarily precise morally blind character of his generation, perhaps the rejoicers should celebrate the anniversary of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Laws, and . . . maybe you get the point. Selective memory is a wonderful thing. Put into perspective, the man’s individual kindnesses were blessings to those he helped. His professional attitudes led an army that trampled on people as they were struggling to be part of the nation. All in all, he would have been a wonderfully entertaining leader of the confederacy during the civil war.

— Posted by Hobbes
13.March 15th,
2008
8:39 am A few years ago, while driveing down the road in Bay City, Michigan,I listened to the radio. I was tuned to a famous radio personality of the time. This man was famous for narrateing the funeral prossession of a president and fireing one of his singers on his television program. On this day, the radio personality, let`s call him A.G.,introduced a new comedian to his radio public. This comedian was an ex-writer for the Tonight Show and was now strikeing out on his own as a standup. A.G. took great pleasure in saying that this comic was honeing his skills at the Hungry Eye. I been a fan of yours ever since.

— Posted by Lawrence Perry
14.March 15th,
2008
8:44 am Despite the great songwriter Lloyd Cole having written — in his 1988 song, SPEEDBOAT — that “wits, they come three to a pound,” I for one am always willing to pay top dollar for the type of self-amusement that you ascribe to Buckley, and the combative and instructional wordplay that you highlight, Mr. Cavett.

For more of the same, i.e., instances where power is measured by verbal prowess, I recommend the wonderful 1996 film set in 18th century France, RIDICULE, directed by Patrice Leconte.

A gem.

— Posted by Mark Cougar Rosenblatt
15.March 15th,
2008
8:46 am You wrote, “If I were composing a Top 10 list of things that will never be said, I submit as number one: Hey, I just met someone exactly like William F. Buckley.”

Dick (or is it Richard?) I sure hope you’re right!

— Posted by Ron Lewis
16.March 15th,
2008
8:46 am Buckley may have thought we are all too soft from being handed things too easily and that we should all discover and work for things on our own, but where did Buckley get the substantial wealth required to begin his own magazine? It is easier to be an armchair quarterback and speak about earning things when one is cushioned from all economic worry. Perhaps his political views would have been modified, if he realized intimately that some people may stuggle and struggle without showing much gain. Clearly his acceptance of others with different views and willinginess to embrace all as friends from the entire political spectrum is very refreshing.

— Posted by Marvin Meadors
17.March 15th,
2008
9:53 am I give up. I went to Common Core, took the test, checked the answers. Apparently I got one wrong?? Which of the quiz answers do you quibble with?

— Posted by geo
18.March 15th,
2008
10:12 am It always hurts to have to explain a bon mot, but here goes:

Hamlet: What, look’d he frowningly?
Horatio: A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

— Posted by andrew Shalat
19.March 15th,
2008
10:20 am Bob Wilcox:

“More in sorrow than in anger” is what’s got you confused…

— Posted by K
20.March 15th,
2008
10:22 am Well, if there were another person just like WFB it’s too bad they’re not running the NR. A worthy opponent has sunk to the level of charicature and self-inflated soap box.

— Posted by Doug l
21.March 15th,
2008
10:25 am Like Bob Wilcox, in post number 10 above, I had trouble with
“More in Seurat than in Ingres” until I recalled the line from Hamlet:
“More in sorrow than in anger.” (Pardon their French.)

— Posted by Steve Samuels
22.March 15th,
2008
10:38 am There are undoubtedly countless numbers amongst the literati who are educated beyond their intelligence, WFB, assuredly did not fall into that category!

— Posted by Warren Hughes
23.March 15th,
2008
10:55 am To Bob Wilson:
“more in sorrow than in anger” is from Hamlet. The French pronunciation of Seurat and Ingres are close (enough) to sorrow and anger.

I love these reminiscences and the focus on language, but I have to agree with the “consummate snob” comment. . . . .

— Posted by Czar
24.March 15th,
2008
11:12 am For those that asked…
More in Seurat (pronounced sur-rah; sounds like sorrow) than in Ingres (pronounced ang-res; sounds like anger)
I think that Dick had a problem with Jamestown being described as the first ‘permanent’ settlement when in fact it failed. I could be wrong on that one…

cheers

— Posted by Stephen Cassidy
25.March 15th,
2008
11:13 am William F. Buckley was an unrepentant racist hiding his views behind a facade of intellectual pretension. His passing will not be mourned.

— Posted by jk8790
26.March 15th,
2008
11:13 am Nonpareil, raconteur…different costume, but underneath, the same as the Limbaughs and the Coulters he spawned. We won’t be telling funny stories about their charm and thank you notes after they’re gone. Sorry, I don’t mourn Bill Buckley.

— Posted by DFC
27.March 15th,
2008
11:22 am Someone and I can’t recall who once said of Buckley that he was a learned and erudite man who knew everything except what it is like to have been born without the silver spoon, and of that he was glaringly ignorant.

— Posted by moon
28.March 15th,
2008
11:26 am For those who struggled with

“To Richard, in deepest gratitude for “More in Seurat than in Ingres.” May I use it?
With affection,
Bill”

as I did: More in sorrow than in anger.

— Posted by Anonymous
29.March 15th,
2008
11:32 am Like everyone else I am charmed and impressed by these anecdotes of his erudition.
Did anyone else witness the aggressive ignorance of Buckley when he interviewed Derrida?

— Posted by Bernard harte
30.March 15th,
2008
11:36 am More in sorrow…

Ouch! But thanks to all who helped.

I haven’t found the error in the multiple choice questions, except that it might be ‘the freedom of speech and religion’ which is in the first amendment to the constitution (and thus part of it). That would be splitting hairs (I suppose you could argue that the Bill of Rights is not a real law, but just a common name for the first 10 amendments to the constitution).

— Posted by bob Wilcox
31.March 15th,
2008
11:37 am I don’t care how nice William F. Buckley was to his friends. I don’t care that he was witty and erudite. I don’t even care that he was a cultured man who spoke several languages, played the harpsichord, and loved Bach. None of that really matters except to those who knew him personally. What does matter is that, with few exceptions, he was on the wrong side of every important issue facing post-World War II America. And it matters a great deal that he spawned the movement that has resulted in the disasters that the current occupant of the White House has unleashed upon the country and the world.
A man who never worked a day in his life out of necessity, William F. Buckley could be counted on to oppose the efforts of men and women who actually work for a living to obtain a bigger slice of the pie for themselves. He was always, however, eloquent in defense of the prerogatives of those who, like himself, were born into unearned wealth and privilege.
Likewise, Buckley was a consistent opponent of the struggles of non-wealthy minorities (blacks, Latinos, women, gays, you name it) to claim for themselves the rights that he took for granted for himself. The National Review, the magazine that he founded and funded, might as well have been a Klan publication, just disguised with better grammar and an impressive vocabulary, when it dealt with most minority issues.
He was an apologist for McCarthyism and his first book was an attack on the very idea of intellectual and academic freedom in universities. He suggested that people with AIDS be tattooed. He called a debating opponent (Gore Vidal) a “queer” on national television. The list goes on and on. He reserved his compassion for those who didn’t need it and his scorn for the unfortunate. That he did so behind a façade of wit and charm makes it worse, in my opinion.

— Posted by MTS
32.March 15th,
2008
11:43 am I have learned more about WFB from the comments than from Cavett’s piece.

— Posted by John Podsiadlo
33.March 15th,
2008
11:44 am More in Thoreau than in Ingres would have been better understood by lispers, but alas Thoreau was not a painter.

— Posted by Joel Wapnick
34.March 15th,
2008
11:46 am Reflecting upon the snottiness that William F. Buckley wallowed in from time to time–it makes
my number one wish (as I rub the lamp) to be the
making of dueling fashionable again and that dear
Billy would be held accountable at dawn!

— Posted by Michael M. Macara
35.March 15th,
2008
11:55 am Jamestown did not fail. The capital of the colony was there until 1692, when it was moved to higher ground. James City shire, which included Jamestown, persists. The colony, originally centered there, is now Virginia. This is as permanent as the questioned intended that to mean. Salem was founded 1626, Providence 1636, Philadelphia per se even later. So was one of the other answers wrong, Mr. Cavett ?

— Posted by geo
36.March 15th,
2008
11:57 am OK, I give up. Where’s the mistake in the quiz?

— Posted by ex-Khobar Andy
37.March 15th,
2008
11:58 am The first time I ever saw Mr. Buckley was in the late 70’s and on his TV show. I was in my early 20’s at the time and my first thought, equally admiring and suspicious, was “This is the American prince!” Watching him was deeply and terribly affirming of the sense I’d always had that the powerful elite of our country held me and my loved ones in utter contempt. Contempt for our ignorance, contempt for our poverty, both of which, according to their view, we roundly deserved, having brought them on ourselves through poor breeding, indolence, and the stubborn refusal to recognize our betters.

Thanks so much to Greg Tamblyn for mentioning the youtube videos of debates with Noam Chomsky. I can’t wait to see them. My own favorites were a discussion with the Dalai Lama and a debate with John Kenneth Galbraith.

The Dalai Lama had with him an interpreter. At one point in the discussion, Mr. Buckley protests that the interpreter “is speaking English!” “Yes,” replies the Dalai Lama “but much simpler.”

As for the debate with Mr. Galbraith, I remember that on the subject of trickle down theory, Mr. Galbraith invoked his grandfather and said that if you feed enough oats to the donkeys even the birds will get some. Now, I much admire Mr. Galbraith and it might be that I actually heard him say that in some other context and have only retroactively juxtaposed it with Mr. Buckley. But, if so, I think it is a very apt juxtaposition and one that highlights a truly noble use of wit.

— Posted by Pallas Stanford
38.March 15th,
2008
12:06 pm My only encounter with WFB occurred perhaps 35 years ago, when he was guest speaker at a dinner hosted by a professional society. The person who introduced Buckley was an older man whom some knew to have a terminal illness that may have affected his cognition. He spoke at great length and with many attempts at wit and erudition that fell flat before an audience that wanted only to hear the headliner speak. When Buckley finally was allowed to rise, he avoided the obvious remarks one could make about speakers who drone on far too long, instead offered brief thanks for a kind introduction, then launched into his prepared remarks.
Though I now despise the politics WFB espoused, I will always remember the humanity and compassion of a brilliant duelist who could demolish any opponent but knew when to hold his fire.

— Posted by James Morrison
39.March 15th,
2008
12:13 pm I was trying to formulate my netagive thoughts about WFB but MTS has just said it much better than I could. He has charmingly assured that the resources and assets of the United States would end up in the hands of a very few. The rest of us don’t really appreciate the charm.

— Posted by Gene Matthews
40.March 15th,
2008
12:17 pm A wizzard with words, but a very poor communicator.

— Posted by John Cornell
41.March 15th,
2008
12:21 pm My one contact with Buckley was over 25 years ago. I was appalled to read in his column published in the Albuquerque Journal his statement that Mexico had supported Nazi Germany in WWII. I sent a letter to him via the newspaper (this was in those bygone days before email) and a few weeks later I was surprised to receive a letter from him, actually admitting he had erred. Buckley’s defense was that when he was in Mexico during the 1940s, he remembered hearing pro-Nazi sentiments from the people he socialized with. And without checking the facts, wrote that calumny in his column. For the record, as I told him, Mexico declared war on the Axis in 1942 after a couple of its merchant ships were torpedoed by German submarines. It was an ally of the US and contributed a volunteer fighter squadron that saw action in the Pacific with US forces. I thought this was important to clarify because Mexico, then as now, was not generally portrayed sympathetically or accurately in the American media. I was amused by Buckley’s response and could only conclude that he palled around with a bunch of Nazis during his student days in Mexico City.

— Posted by Carl Mora
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About Dick Cavett
The host of “The Dick Cavett Show” — which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982 — Dick Cavett is also the coauthor of two books, “Cavett” (1974) and “Eye on Cavett” (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in “Otherwise Engaged” “Into the Woods” and as narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show,” and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including “Forrest Gump” and “The Simpsons.” Mr. Cavett lives in New York City and Montauk, N.Y.
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