[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 27, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1234-S1235]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, this morning we learned of the death of 
William F. Buckley, Jr. I wanted to come to the floor and reminisce a 
bit about Bill Buckley, whom I have been privileged to know for more 
than 40 years, and to pay tribute to a devoted and patriotic American, 
a remarkably creative and eloquent man of letters, a person with an 
extraordinary sense of humor and a kind of spirit to him that infused 
anyone around him.
  He was a person who believed in the power of ideas and loved the 
exchange of ideas. He lived a remarkable life, with great effect for 
this country that he loved, and a tremendous impact on people who read 
his novels, his books, and his columns in the National Review, or 
watched him for so many years on that wonderfully thoughtful, cerebral, 
provocative TV program ``Firing Line,'' which was open not just to 
conservatives such as Bill Buckley, but to people with all shades of 
opinion who were willing to engage him--Bill Buckley, WFB--on the field 
of ideas. A remarkable man.
  I was privileged to get to know him more than 40 years ago when I 
became the editor--at Yale, of course, editor wasn't a good enough 
title. I was called the chairman of the board of the Yale Daily News. 
And there was a gentleman at the Yale Daily News named Francis 
Donahue--Tackie Donahue--and he had been there forever as the permanent 
business manager. I remember the day after I was chosen, he told me he 
had informed Bill Buckley of this in one of his regular memos back and 
forth to Buckley. I was fascinated by this and began a communication 
with Bill Buckley at that time, and he took a wonderfully warm, kind of 
brotherly interest in those who were at the Yale Daily News, as he had 
been in the early 1950s. He invited me and a couple of our friends from 
the news to come to his house in Stamford, CT, for a dinner or two, 
which were stimulating, thrilling evenings.
  Our friendship went on, and I will come back to that, but Buckley's 
life is an extraordinary life. He came out of Yale, became very well 
known for a book he wrote about what he thought was the hostile 
environment at Yale toward people of faith, toward people who were 
conservative, et cetera, et cetera, ``God and Man at Yale.'' He went 
from that to starting the National Review in the mid-1950s. I believe 
it was 1955. I remember reading once that he had said in the founding 
issue that the publication would derive from original ideas of the 
moral order.
  Bill Buckley was a person who studied history, studied literature, 
learned from it, and also was infused with a deep and profound 
commitment to his Roman Catholic faith. That, I think, was the origin 
of the moral order which he gave expression to in all that he did in 
writing for the National Review and speaking out and conducting himself 
as a provocative, loving American. He believed that ideas mattered, and 
they did.
  The National Review, in some sense, gave birth to the modern American 
conservative movement. But it wasn't always a Republican movement. His 
was a matter of ideals and ideas and philosophy--conservatism. 
Incidentally, he rejected extremism. To his everlasting credit, he took 
on the extremists of the John Birch Society, which wasn't popular for 
him to do at the time he did it.

  I am just remembering words of Buckley. He said he was a conservative 
ideologically, not always favorable to Republican candidates. I 
remember reading about an editorial he wrote in the National Review 
endorsing General Eisenhower for President. While everyone else was 
echoing the slogan ``We Like Ike,'' Buckley's editorial said, ``We 
Prefer Ike.'' So it was a relative judgment that he made.
  He was thrilled, of course, much more by the candidacy of a former 
Member of this body, a distinguished Member, Senator Barry Goldwater, 
and most of all by the candidacy of President Reagan. At one point, in 
the mid-1960s, he ran for mayor of New York. And again as a kind of 
joyous, thought-

[[Page S1235]]

provoking, elegant, eloquent exercise in being involved in the 
marketplace of public ideas, perhaps most famous, though perhaps not 
the most substantive thing he said in that campaign, is when they asked 
what he would do when he was elected. Bill Buckley famously said: I 
will demand a recount. And that is a good message for all of us when we 
approach campaigns.
  Well, I continued to be involved with him in communication in many 
ways. My wife and I had the privilege of spending wonderful evenings 
with him and his late wife Patricia at their home in Stamford, CT. 
These were classic evenings of great food, some drink, and good 
spirited conversations--cigar and brandy to follow--but always open to 
ideas and always with a ready willingness to laugh. In fact, he passed 
away earlier today, apparently in his study in his magnificent home on 
Wallace Point in Stamford, CT, probably working on a column or some 
other piece of writing.
  I was particularly grateful to him for all that I learned from him, 
all the good times I had with him, and in some sense, you might say I 
would not be a United States Senator were it not for Bill Buckley, 
although Buckley would not say that. When I ran for the Senate in 1988, 
let's just say with the diplomacy that marks this Chamber that Bill 
Buckley was not a fan of the incumbent Republican Senator, and he 
called me up and said--I wish I could impersonate him--Joe, I'm 
thinking of endorsing you. Do you think that will help?
  I said: Well, now, that's very good of you. Then he interrupted and 
said: Please understand this is the only time I am likely to endorse 
your career. So I said that it probably would; what do you have in 
mind?
  Well, he actually wrote a column, a very good column in the National 
Review, and I think in his syndicated column. He also, with the 
puckishness that was part of him, started something he called Buck PAC, 
which was, he said, a PAC open to anyone in Connecticut whose name was 
Buckley and who was committed to the defeat of the incumbent Senator at 
that time. He printed bumper stickers and the like and helped out in 
the campaign.
  I said to him after I won that election--and I won it by very 
little--that I thought that in a close election--as the Presiding 
Officer of the Senate knows, there are so many reasons one is 
successful--but I said: You have reason, Bill, to take part of the 
credit. I won by less than 1 percent of the vote. And I said: You know, 
I would go so far as to say you played a rabbinical role for me in this 
campaign.
  Well, what do you mean by that? So I said: Your endorsement of me and 
the columns you wrote said to Republicans in Connecticut who really 
didn't like the incumbent Senator, it is kosher to vote for Lieberman. 
And he laughed. I remember that well.
  There is so much I could say about his contribution to our country, 
to his openness to ideas, to his civility. One could disagree with Bill 
Buckley, as I did quite frequently, and never lose respect or 
affection, dare I say love, for a wonderful human being. We would all 
benefit from that.
  I perhaps would close this impromptu tribute to Bill Buckley, 
mourning his loss today, by offering condolences to his family: Chris 
Buckley, his son, who is a wonderful writer and confuses me as well as 
others with the multisyllabic words that he uses just as his father 
did; his sisters, Priscilla L. Buckley of Sharon, where the family has 
longed lived; Patricia Buckley Bozzell of Washington; Carol Buckley of 
Columbia, SC; his brothers, Judge James Buckley of Sharon, CT, and F. 
Reid Buckley of Camden, SC; and a granddaughter and grandson.
  I pray that they will be strengthened by their faith and comforted by 
good memories and pride and the extraordinary person in Bill Buckley.
  I think most fitting of all, I will end with a quote from President 
Reagan on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the National Review 
in 1985. Reagan says when he first picked up his first issue of 
National Review, he received it in a plain brown wrapper and still 
anxiously awaited his biweekly edition but no longer in a plain brown 
wrapper.
  But this is what Reagan said of Buckley:

       You didn't just part the Red Sea--you rolled it back, dried 
     it up, and left exposed, for all the world to see, the naked 
     desert that is statism. And then, as if that weren't enough, 
     you gave the world something different, something in its 
     weariness it desperately needed, the sound of laughter and 
     the sight of the rich, green uplands of freedom.

  I thank the Chair for giving me the opportunity to bid farewell in 
this Senate Chamber to a great American and a dear friend, William F. 
Buckley, Jr. I pray with confidence and the faith that Bill Buckley had 
that his soul will be taken up truly in the bonds of eternal life.
  I yield the floor.

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