Projo Politics Blog

William F. Buckley Jr., the syndicated columnist and intellectual whose studied mannerisms,
verbal flourishes and polemics energized the American conservative movement for a half-century, has died. He was 82.

And while most closely associated with Connecticut, Buckley did indeed have an Ocean State connection.

Buckley died overnight in his study in Stamford, Conn., according to the National Review Online. His son, Christopher, told the New York Times that Buckley had suffered from diabetes and emphysema, although the exact cause of death was not known. Buckley was found at his desk and might have been working on a column, his son said.

``If he had been given a choice on how to depart this world, I suspect that would have been exactly it: at home, still devoted to the war of ideas,'' said Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the Web site.

His wife, New York socialite Patricia, died in April 2007.

Buckley harnessed a belief in individual liberty, limited government and the defeat of communism into an organized voice of the right in the National Review, the biweekly opinion magazine he founded in 1955. He was also host of the Emmy Award-winning television program ``Firing Line'' for 33 years.

``I think it's a different country and world because of what he accomplished,'' William Rusher, publisher of National Review from 1957 to 1988, said in a phone interview today.

Buckley published more than 40 books, including ``McCarthy and His Enemies'' in 1954 and 11 spy novels featuring a James Bond-like protagonist, Blackford Oakes, partly inspired by his
own service with the Central Intelligence Agency.

A graduate of Yale, Buckley served in the CIA in Mexico for nine months in 1951 before becoming an associate editor at the right-wing American Mercury magazine.

His greatest passion, sailing, was reflected in his ownership of five boats, four transoceanic trips and multiple races from Newport, R.I., to Bermuda.

-- Bloomberg

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