Host> Let me interrupt, Mr.

Buckley But I don't think Mr.

Palmieri wants to pass, do you?

(laughter) Host> Mr.

Buckley, you're certainly not here as an economist.

I take it you're here for your symbolic value.

(laughter) Mr.

Palmieri> Will you blame Mr.

Galbraith for his act... William Buckley> It's not inconceivable.

I know more about economics than you?

(applause) >> Tonight is a very special and very exciting occasion for all of us, because we have with us tonight a man whom we have tried to convince to come on the show since the very beginning, he's one of the most intelligent, erudite, knowledgeable, articulate, charming, delightful and controversial men who has ever consistently refused to appear unlaughing.

>> With us, now is the lovely, talented, intelligent, erudite, knowledgeable, articulate, charming, delightful and controversial, William F. Buckley.

(applause) Host> William, we're very delighted to have you on the show with us tonight.

William> As I know, that was a rehearsal.

I'd like the early, (laughter) >>...but we're going to go.

You know, so much of your own show is, question and answer.

We're not going to try and debate with you because we don't, we feel you're handicapped.

(laughter) But we, we decided to make you feel at home.

Are you comfortable there?

We thought we might go to some questions and answers.

If that's, okay with you.

William> Sure.

>> Recently, Mr.

Buckley, you did an interview for Playboy magazine.

Now you're on our show.

Would this indicate you're becoming, more hip?

Have you decided to loosen up, a little bit?

You are becoming a swinger, as they say.

William> Well, I did, an interview with, Playboy because I decided it was the only way to communicate my views to my son.

(laughter) >> So many people ask us about you.

Narrator> The particular combination of voice, gesture, posture, and facial expression is known to millions of television viewers as William Frank Buckley Jr, one of the most articulate spokesmen for conservative, American, political thought, today.

William> I have someone who... ♪ ♪ Narrator> The zest with which Mr.

Buckley stimulates the communication and growth of conservative discipline is well known.

Yet, this zealous debater and wordsmith of the right adheres to the same gusto in his daily work and life style.

The interests of William F Buckley extend far beyond his work as speaker, author, editor and television host.

He thrives on a keen enjoyment of sailing, skiing, and occasionally dodging Manhattan traffic astride a Honda.

His taste for the earnest pursuit of life and foods, an intense appreciation of Johann Sebastian Bach, which has led him to become an accomplished clavichord performer.

Thus, Buckley, the activist and artful aggressor in television debate has been described by an associate as the kindest man I know, Witty, gentlemanly, devout, studious and tirelessly dedicated, Mr.

Buckley has grown up from an unusual heritage to impact on the American scene in a unique way.

Born in 1925, William Buckley is the product of a southern family.

His grandfather, John Buckley, helped maintain law and order in the state of Texas by serving as county sheriff.

His father, William F Buckley, Sr., sustained a lucrative oil business as well as real estate ventures.

The senior Mr.

Buckley soon gained the hand of Alois Steiner, the daughter of a well-established New Orleans family.

From this union emerged William F Buckley Jr, the sixth child of a family of ten.

The family maintained a residence in Sharon, Connecticut, and later bought a home in Camden, South Carolina.

The Buckley clan then spent part of each year in their South Carolina home.

♪ After his early schooling in England and France, Young William graduated from Millbrook School in New York.

Most of his college years were spent at Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News.

The position gave him a forum for his writing skills, often to the delight or the dismay of his Yale contemporaries.

After graduation, with honors and service as a Spanish instructor at Yale, the prolific writer moved into the magazine field.

Following a short tenure with the Old American Mercury, Mr.

Buckley founded the National Review in 1952.

The Magazine, which is known for its conservative opinion, is still edited by Mr.

Buckley.

On the right, a syndicated newspaper column created by Mr.

Buckley in 1964, now appears three times a week, in over 300 newspapers nationwide.

Buckley has also authored numerous books, including "God and Man at Yale", "The Unmaking of a Mayor", "Cruising Speed" and "Four Reforms".

Television soon became William F Buckley's newest format, and in 1966 he began hosting the weekly Firing Line.

Five years later, the program moved exclusively to the Public Broadcasting System and is produced by the Southern Educational Communications Association, headquartered in Columbia.

"Firing Line" has prompted comments by admirers and critics.

William F Buckley Jr, a colleague and friend, is perhaps the most articulate aristocrat to hit the public scene since John Randolph of Roanoke enlivened Congress 150 years ago.

The public Buckley persona is a wondrous thing haughty, witty, devilishly charming, and angelically perverse.

Love him or loathe him, it's hard to ignore him.

Who said that educational television must be dull.

Buckley will Never Bore You, With Buckley, Performance Counts and Buckley explains change to Public TV.

♪ Essential to Firing Line's success is producer/director Warren Steibel, having worked with NBC, ABC and CBS.

Steibel is also the producer of several television documentaries and a feature length film.

Mr.

Steibel, who has been associated with "Firing Line" since 1966, is the man behind the scenes who virtually makes the series run.

>> How often can you get together with Bill Buckley and where?

Where do you have your sessions when you're talking about... Steibel> Mostly on planes, trains, cars and airports because he's always going somewhere.

>> You don't you don't meet him in the office daily?

Steibel> Yes, I do, I do, but he's usually writing his column, publishing a book, or do or editing his magazine, but he's always available... actually, unless he's in the air.

In other words, if, as we're trying to get Kissinger and we're supposed to get a call back from Mr.

Kissinger saying he is going to do the program in the next two weeks, whether he does or not, I can't say, but, the second he calls back, I have to be able to find Bill to say, yes, we're going to do Secretary at 2:15 next Tuesday or whatever it is, and he's always available unless he's on the air.

But, but, but he's a very busy man and he's got so many things that he's doing.

An airport is a pretty good place to talk.

You get bored waiting for the plane anyway.

Reporter> How does he go about getting the guests ready for the program?

Does he talk with them beforehand very much?

Steibel> I don't think so.

He...you know, he's a very, again, very polite and very pleasant.

And he makes them feel at home, But he doesn't talk to them too much because it's a very spontaneous program.

And, and most of the people who are on are not professional performers as he is in that sense.

And he wants a spontaneous program, and he wants the ideas to arise out of the whatever or an idea is presented.

And then I don't think he knows it at the beginning of the program where the end will come, because it depends what the person's answers are to the first question, and it comes from that.

William> Nice crew you got here.

Transition.

So I feel like that rather than the other day over the camera.

Oh did you see, I haven't seen the sketches.

Mexico.

Thank you.

Steibel> Bill, Ready?

...on camera two, give Bill a cue.

Let's go.

♪ ♪ Although Bill Buckley lives in New York with his wife, Pat, his mother still resides in Camden.

Often, the family gathers in the Camden home, Kamschatka William Buckley Sr purchased the home in 1937, and since then the family has spent the winter months in South Carolina.

The quiet town became a retreat for the Buckleys.

Mrs.

Buckley Sr.> Gentle Chestnut Hill to find houses.

This was the last one.

He called it his hunting lodge, and he named it Kamschatka because he said, it was so far away from Camden, Camden having been done then just above Mulberry, you see.

And he said, it was so cold on that damn hill.

So it was like Russia.

Oh, so then this Mrs.

Palmieri said, I wish we'd talked it over.

So, there were people and many who had houses here.

And we've decided you and Mr.

Buckley must have...Kamschatka Well, I said I would love it, but the only thing is I need one bathroom.

And it didn't have any lights except one in the...hall, which was one of these platted waxed pieces.

And one little bulb.

That's all they had.

Now, the kitchen and the dining room were on the second floor.

I think they must have had a bedroom or so on the third floor.

And, the staircase was just a little sliver.

So we tore that out and put in a staircase, and we moved in.

♪ ♪ ♪ Narrator> In a recent visit to the Buckley home in Camden, "Profile" host Jim Welch had these questions for Mr.

Buckley.

♪ Jim Welch> Going back to your youth in Camden, how much time did you spend here?

And what are some of the memories that you have of Camden, South Carolina?

Well, I think my, I think my most cherished memory is the 26th installment movie on the Life of Zorro, which played every Saturday night and ended with a situation so impossibly full of suspense that the other six days of the week went by very fleetingly until you could pick it up again.

Did you have that experience with the Life of Zorro?

Jim> With Roy Rogers, I guess.

William> Oh, right, right.

Yeah.

Jim> But you went to the Camden movie house down here.

You didn't have the film shown here in the in Kamschatka?

William> No, no, no, we went down to the old Hegler theater and, as I say, that was a Saturday night, ritual.

Here I went, we went to school with my sisters and I, and, I think I think we occupied this house for the first time in 1937, because it took 3 or 4 years to build it or to rebuild it.

But, it's an old house.

And, we had a couple of tutors, a man and an English woman, and a music teacher Jim> What about horses?

Camden is a great horse country.

William> Yeah, we wrote a great deal.

And, and hunted the- They have a wonderful track out here.

We hunted twice a week, right up until the war, which of course changed everything, I guess.

I guess, I was here about five, 5 or 6 years running until, that's where I picked up my southern accent until,... I went to school, prep school and then on into the war.

Jim> I remember one, one incident, when you were going to school in England, you flew the American flag at that school, your mother mentioned.

Do you remember that?

And would you do it again?

William> Well, when you're 13, you're awfully chauvinistic.

I'm 49 and pretty sure of chauvinistic right now.

And so you can imagine how intolerable I was then.

But actually, there was a certain amount of nationalism in the school.

There were, oh, there must have been 20 IRA buttons among 80 boys.

They didn't know what an IRA really was, but it had something to do with Irish freedom.

And about 20% or 30% of the boys were steadfastly Irish, this Catholic school, Jesuit school.

I was the only American.

I didn't want to lose track of that.

Apparently it turned out, which I was not informed until after I left the school... that I was hanging the flag, in a way that violates not only protocol, but suppressed great national distress.

(laughter) Jim> Did you do anything like that in Camden in terms of, I might say devilish, goings on?

William> Well the, Camp Camden was and to a certain extent still is one of those oases of serenity and quietness, relaxation.

It is...I've never known any place that is so lacking attention here.

It doesn't matter at all, really, where somebody comes from.

There's a presumptive suspicion against people who come from the north, but, it's easily overcome.

Jim> They raised some eyebrows when the Duponts first came up, when the plant came, the DuPont plant, I guess a few eyebrows were raised.

Jim> Maybe the story was would be challenged.

William> It was.

Correct And also a way of life was...threatened.

And for instance, not long after they started to pave all the roads when, when we were here the first 7 or 8 years, most of the roads that are now macadamized, out here with sand and you would see great big signs that would say, please show every respect to the horsemen.

Well, that that's gone Jim> because there's no paved road in front of Kamschatka.

William> Yeah.

I don't know whether that's an operation of ours or neglect by the city or if it's sort of benign neglect.

The, I don't, I don't suppose everything is macadamized, but I imagine 2 or 3 times as many roads now are as were then.

But Camden, and Camden has, I think the totally healthy attitude towards people.

There are nice people and less nice people, and it has absolutely nothing to do with background, wealth, or occupation.

It doesn't make the slightest bit of difference whether your business is garbage collection or the manufacture of, bonds.

There's no, there's no inbuilt sense of hierarchical prestige that attaches to any particular position.

And, in that sense, it seems to me that Camden, even though it has an aristocratic southern tradition, has accomplished a degree of classlessness that 20 years of militant socialism have not introduced into Great Britain.

So, so I think it's one of the most fascinating places in the whole world.

Jim> It means a lot to you.

Do you get to come back here very often?

William> I don't get to go anywhere often, unfortunately, except my office.

But, I come here to visit my mother a couple of weekends a year.

She's here for 7 or 8 months.

The... I have a sneaking suspicion she would like to be here for 12 months more.

Jim> In a recent column you mentioned, we reiterated, talked about five of the most important things in your life.

Would you reiterate those now?

Five most important things in your life.

William> That doesn't sound like me.

Jim> No?

William> Can you can you give me a hint?

Jim> Time.

William> Oh!

I, I would be rude or facetious, not about God.

I don't believe being facetious about him.

You might retaliate for one thing, but, I was I was poking fun of somebody who suggested that there is an obligation on the part of all editors to identify something in the background of a writer that might explain his position concerning a particular thing.

In his case, he wanted it emblazoned at the bottom of any column in which I discussed the CIA, that I was once in the CIA, which I was, for about 6 or 7 months, doing rather humdrum things.

And that was 45 years ago.

I questioned the notion that, because you came from the South, you weren't necessarily pro-south.

I don't think there's anything pro-south about Tom Wicker.

He came from the South, or that because you graduated from Yale, you necessarily for Yale.

I wrote an anti-Yale book.

So I followed that logic.

And I said, look, if you want a complete taxonomy of my hierarchy, I like God.

I like my family, I like my friends, I like, Johann Sebastian Bach.

I like, peanut butter, and I like good English, in roughly that order.

Theoretically, practically anything in my address would require them to stick in one of these addictions of mine in order to explain, you know, an anti-marmalade campaign.

Jim> Expanding a bit on...your book "God and Man at Yale", what prompted you to write that?

William> Well, I think what prompted me to write that, is, a certain restiveness I usually feel in the face of, an unremarked hypocrisy.

Yale was being and is being supported, by people who think of it, as an institution primarily devoted, where values are concerned to stimulating, a continuing devotion to Christianity, and a devotion to, human freedom in the private sector.

free enterprise.

And yet, in fact, the value impact of the education of Yale, urges one towards skepticism, towards agnosticism, and towards, federal solutions for everything.

So, you know, I thought it odd that the constituency of Yale should be loyal to it on the assumption that it was doing something, which was completely opposite from what in fact, it was doing.

It was certainly worth writing a book about.

Jim> How did your father react to the book when you called and told him that you had...written it, or when he first heard about it?

William> Well, he was very enthusiastic because, my father was usually usually felt at home on the polemical offensive, against, against the people who were critical, or destructive of values, he believes strongly in.

Jim> Christopher's at Yale today.

Is that by his choice?

William> Yes it is.

He was accepted at Yale, Harvard and, Stanford.

I, I put a certain amount of pressure on him to go to Yale for only one reason, not for sentimental reasons, but Yale was 45 minutes from where my wife and I live.

Harvard is three hours and Stanford is six hours by dread.

So, we figured we'd see him more.

Jim> When you get a chance to spend much time with your son, or did you, when he was growing up?

William> Fair amount.

He was away at school a lot, and I travel a great deal, but, I saw a fair amount.

He's the only child.

Jim> What prompted you to contribute to the Beatles book?

But you're a Bach fan, you mentioned Bach has been one of the favorite things in life.

Jim> Is Christopher having you do that?

William> Why did I contribute to the Beatles book?

As an act of contrition, because I wrote a searing essay about how awful the Beatles were after listening to them once or twice, which resulted in the largest volume of mail I've ever received, including threats against my life by 14 year old girls.

And then, a year or two went by and because I couldn't escape it, I was stuck in a social situation that required me to listen to a new album by the Beatles, which I thought was very good.

So I wrote, for "The Saturday Evening Post", a piece called "How I Came to Rock".

I probably overdid it.

Jim> What, What about your interest in the clavichord and harpsichord?

How did you learn to play and, your interest- William> I'll never learn how to play it.

Jim> But you have you own more than one.

William> Yeah, I it's I'm absolutely devoted to harpsichord music.

And my brother Reed gave me for Christmas, a small harpsichord about five years ago.

Up until then, I just have fooled around a bit on piano, but not I take, I take it, but not, but not myself very seriously.

And, try to play about a half an hour day.

Jim> Do you want to catch that now?

William> No, no.

I was just getting the noise out of your way.

Jim> Was your father, a tremendous influence in your life.

William> Oh, yes, indeed.

Jim> Was he perhaps the most important?

William> I should think so.

These, these are, these are thoughts that one, you know, that I would have about you and you would have about me, but you probably wouldn't have about yourself.

And I don't have about myself.

I've never, I never gone on one of those proofs in, examinations of what it was that influenced me.

I'm influenced all the time, but it's terribly hard to know tomorrow what it was that influenced you yesterday, but it'll show up in what you think or say a week from now.

So it's very, very hard, I think, to, to track back.

I've never been to a psychoanalyst.

So maybe there are techniques Jim> You have, you have never visited a psychoanalyst?

William> No.

That'll horrify a lot of people who think that might bring instant improvement.

Jim> How did you meet your wife?

Where were you at the time?

William> She was a roommate of my sister at Vassar, and broke her back in the wash room, so, left Vassar.

But I had seen a fleetingly and something had stirred.

So, on a summer where I was working for my father in Alberta, I popped across the Rockies and, became engaged.

Jim> Have you ever been wrong William> Have I ever been wrong?

Jim> Have you ever been wrong?

William> Yeah.

But, there again, I'll have to scratch my memory to remember when.

Jim> Do you remember when she was right and you were wrong?

William> I said to Arthur Schlesinger one time, when after I read to him one of his hawkish passages about the Vietnam War that he specialized in 4 or 5 years ago, I said, don't worry about it, Arthur.

You know, if you're got to be wrong, I'm sure it'll happen to me one of these days.

Jim> Do you get, feel you get enough privacy today, because of your show on television.

William> Right, you don't get, You don't get privacy when you're crossing Grand Central Station, but you get privacy at home.

My wife is terribly amusing, modest company.

And, oddly unaffected by politics.

The other, the only reason for being a public figure, Malcolm Muggeridge says, is that you get a bigger slab of meat from your butcher.

And I think that's, that's maybe Jim>...credit at the grocery store where today it's very, William> Yeah, that's right.

Jim>...very important.

One final question, because I know that you don't get to Camden that often and want to visit some with your mother and the rest of the family that's here.

And that last question, William> And the telephone.

Jim> And the telephone that probably John Kenneth Galbraith called.

Have you mastered the instant television smile?

William> No, I haven't, but, but my friend Warren Steibel who's the producer of "A Firing Line", Never, never demanded it.

I look, I look often at my guests when they come on and you say, So I'm now introduce our guest today, Mr.

Jim Welch, and the.

And people can do it very naturally.

Some people do it very naturally, and I admire them, but I if I ever go to a psychoanalyst, it'll be to teach me how to do the instant smile.

Mrs.

Buckley Sr.> There was a young man who came back from Vietnam.

This was not very long ago, about a month before the war was over.

He was shot in the face and the Army told him that he was blind in both eyes and, that he would never see again.

And he was from Texas, and he was sent to the United States, hospital there.

And the doctors would come and examine, give him drops and do things and say, Well, it's too bad because you really are a young man.

And then they had these pink ladies do the Corps.

They'd go by and read to you.

Well, one day one came by and this young man said, you know, is there a National Review here?

And she was so surprised.

She said, what do you want that for?

Oh, he said, I never missed it when I was in Vietnam.

He said, I love that magazine.

He said, I'm a great conservative and I don't know Mr.

Buckley, but I do admire him.

And he said, gee, if I could just shake his hand once, I wouldn't care about my eye.

He said, I've faced that.

I know.

So this young pink lady, was Bill's cousin, you see, my husband was a Texan and she went immediately and told her, she said, how close are you to your cousin Bill?

She said, well, I'm not very close because we never see one another.

And she told him this story.

Bill was down there the very next day with permission to visit this young man.

And they talked and they laughed.

And he said, you know, the thing that kind of upsets me a little bit, said the Army said that I was completely blind.

But just before I came down, my mother made me see her eye man and this eye man said that he felt he could perform an operation which would give him a little sight.

And he said, of course we can't afford it.

He wasn't asking Bill for anything.

Bill said, who is this man?

Well, Bill went to him and this man said, Mr.

Doctor, I think he can see in one eye at least.

Bill said, "Well, I know the greatest eye man" (indiscernible speech) So Bill telephoned, Ramone.

He said, Come up with him, Bill.

Bring him up.

And Bill said, remember, I'll, I'll take care of the expenses.

You know that guy who said he's also a great, he said, you'll do nothing of the sort.

If I can help him, I'll pay for it.

Bill brought the young man up.

They operated on him.

Put in a new cornea.

That man has a big job now, He's married, has a child or two.

Now.

Isn't that lovely?