William F. Buckley
The Richwine Atrocity: How Come Only The Left Retrieves Its Wounded?
I have an unusual personal perspective on the Jason Richwine atrocity. William F. Buckley's breakthrough book was his first, God and Man at Yale. In the early 1950s, he scoured Manhattan for a publisher, without success. This caused him to go far afield and contact a small Midwestern house then located in a walk-up office in a Chicago suburb. The publisher was my uncle, Henry Regnery.
And the rest is history—save for two incidents.
The book not only made Buckley's reputation but also certainly added luster to my uncle's struggling firm. However, the Henry Regnery Co. suffered an offsetting financial blow when, at the behest of Mortimer Adler, the contract to publish the Great Books series for the University of Chicago was withdrawn because of the Buckley book.
Regnery issued Buckley's next book, McCarthy and His Enemies,co-authored with his brother-in-law, Brent Bozell. But there would be no hat trick. By then, Buckley was a bankable literary commodity and could cut a better deal with an established New York house. So he did.
My uncle was a kinder sort than I am, and I remember him recounting the break without rancor and more the kind of bemusement that implied "that's just Bill…”
I had a darker take on Buckley’s selfishness and treachery, which was borne out by subsequent events. But unfortunately, Buckley’s traits are now dominant in what VDARE.com calls “Conservatism Inc.” or the “Respectable Right.” In this respect, perhaps Buckleywas indeed, as we are incessantly told, “the father of modern conservatism.” . . .
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