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1. The Telegraph Company shall not be liable for mistakes or delays in the transmission or delivery, or for non-delivery, of any message received for transmission at the unrepeated-message rate beyond the sum of five hundred dollars; nor for mistakes or delays in the transmission or delivery, or for non-delivery, of any message received for transmission at the repeated-message rate beyond the sum of five thousand dollars, unless specially valued; nor in any case for delays arising from unavoidable interruption in the working of its lines.

2. In any event the Telegraph Company shall not be liable for damages for mistakes or delays in the transmission or delivery, or for the non-delivery, of any message, whether caused by the negligence of its servants or otherwise, beyond the actual loss, not exceeding in any event the sum of five thousand dollars, at which amount the sender of each message represents that the message is valued, unless a greater value is stated in writing by the sender thereof at the time the message is tendered for transmission, and unless the repeated-message rate is paid or agreed to be paid and an additional charge equal to one-tenth of one per cent of the amount by which such valuation shall exceed five thousand dollars.

3. The Telegraph Company is hereby made the agent of the sender, without liability, to forward this message over the lines of any other company when necessary to reach its destination.

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5. No responsibility attaches to the Telegraph Company concerning messages until the same are accepted at one of its transmitting offices; and if a message is sent to such office by one of the Telegraph Company's messengers, he acts for that purpose as the agent of the sender; except that when the Telegraph Company sends a messenger to pick up a message, the messenger in that instance acts as the agent of the Telegraph Company in accepting the message, the Telegraph Company assuming responsibility from the time of such acceptance.

6. The Telegraph Company will not be liable for damages or statutory penalties when the claim is not presented in writing to the Telegraph Company, (a) within ninety days after the message is filed with the Telegraph Company for transmission in the case of a message between points within the United States (except in the case of an intrastate message in Texas) or between a point in the United States on the one hand and a point in Alaska, Canada, Mexico, or St. Pierre-Miquelon Islands on the other hand, or between a point in the United States and a ship at sea or in the air, (b) within 95 days after the cause of action, if any, shall have accrued in the case of an intrastate message in Texas, and (c) within 180 days after the message is filed with the Telegraph Company for transmission in the case of a message between a point in the United States and a foreign or overseas point other than the points specified above in this paragraph; provided, however, that this condition shall not apply to claims for damages or overcharges within the purview of Section 415 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended.

7. It is agreed that in any action by the Telegraph Company to recover the tolls for any message or messages the prompt and correct transmission and delivery thereof shall be presumed, subject to rebuttal by competent evidence.

8. Special terms governing the transmission of messages according to their classes, as enumerated below, shall apply to messages in each of such respective classes in addition to all the foregoing terms.

9. No employee of the Telegraph Company is authorized to vary the foregoing.

4-54

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DAY LETTER (DL)

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LETTER TELEGRAM (LT)

For overnight plain language messages, at half-rate. Minimum charge for 22 words applies.

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Economical overnight service. Accepted up to 2 A. M. for delivery the following morning; at rates lower than the Telegram or Day Letter rates.

SHIP RADIOGRAM

For messages to and from ships at sea.

quickly enough.

P. 2. Your basic proposal is not practical

New York, New York
120 East 32nd Street
National Review
William F. Buckley, Jr.

Henry A. Klaasinger

Warm regards,

here.

Please get in touch next time you are down

then.

College, and will drop a word in the right ear
I am soon going to speak at the National War

to write me.

impropriety will not keep you from continuing
reply to your earlier letter, and that my
I hope you will forgive me for my failure to

Thank you for your letters.

Dear Bill:

September 13, 1969

to Henry Kissinger

Confidential

Dear Henry:

You have not acknowledged mine of a month ago. I hope that that
is simply because you have been busy, not because it has fallen into alien hands.
At any rate, advise me if you will, and let me know whether my mind should
turn in a different direction.

Meanwhile, I write to remind you that the ban by the National War
College against anti-Communist speakers should be suspended. I go out of my
way to avoid non-commercial speaking dates (as you know!), and you will not
therefore, I hope, make the mistake of thinking that I have in mind to be
re-invited. I have in mind to do something about the ban that was imposed
(Schlesinger was the agent of it, or so the rumor goes), after Drew Pearson
published a column, circa 1961, "War College Last Haven of McCarthyites."
That resulted, e.g., in James Burnham never being invited again, even though
he had been a regular since the founding of the College. I think we agreed the
last night we met that little matters like this are of some symbolic significance,
and in any case, it is good to undo the damage done by doctrinaires on the other
side. It amuses me that the military-industrial complex cannot summon the
power to invite as a speaker someone who is less than neurotic on the powers
of the military-industrial complex.

I have just read the galleys of Galbraith's forthcoming diaries.
It is a very amusing book. You will be shocked to learn that, to be sure for
different reasons, he was horrified by the intransigence of the State Department.
Here are a couple of quotes.

From a letter to JFK, September 1961

"It is very important, indeed absolutely indispensable, that we begin
to understand what is wrong with the Department.

"It is not that people are dull although I quit a few are. Nor are they exceptionally conservative although there is a widespread feeling that God ordained some individuals to make foreign policy without undue interference from presidents or politicians. The far more serious problem is that the Department is simply too large. And with size has come an inflexibility that is as inevitable as it is incredible. The reason is simple: there are more people on C Street than there are problems. Nothing is so serious for a crypto-Talleyrand as unemployment. By common understanding, therefore, everyone insists on, and by common consent everyone is accorded, a finger in every important pie. Every civilized group acts in some degree by unanimous consent. So one cannot get agreement on anything new. When a deadline approaches everyone repairs hurriedly to what was agreed several years ago. Accordingly, the sheer size of the Department freezes it to all of its antique positions."

"The problem here is a serious one. Nothing in my view is so important as to get the Department back to managable size. The Pentagon is not nearly so bad. For while it is larger and much too large everyone is concerned with operational problems. In State the multitude must all make policy. When I was back this time one of my assistant secretary friends attended the Secretary's staff meeting from nine fifteen till ten. Then he had a meeting with the Under Secretary on operations until ten-thirty. Then he took until eleven-thirty to inform his staff of what went on at the earlier meetings. Whereupon they adjourned to pass on the news to their staffs. This is, I am told, communication."

And, on April 15, 1963, a summary:

The State Department has four faults:

1. Rusk is an amiable Chairman of the Board, but not a leader. And he is singularly devoid of any desire to accomplish anything.

2. Individuals are intelligent. But they are so numerous that they cancel each other out.

3. The senior officers preside but do not work. Thus telegrams and papers get drafted by cautious subordinates and approved by superiors. One should not dream of delegating even the first draft of an important cable.

4. Finally, there is an endless faith in oratory and high level representation. I have put in some fine cables on this. I have just noted in a telegram that they have now reduced letters from the President to Nehru to the level of Confederate currency. The President will see and remember this.

How are you, my influential friend?

As ever,

NATIONAL
REVIEW

150 East 35th Street
New York, N.Y. 10016

Phone: ORegon 9-7330

Editor-in-Chief:

WM. F. BUCKLEY JR.

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ARLENE CROCE
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J. P. MCFADDEN

Advertising Director:

PATRICK D. MAINES

October 8, 1969

Dear Henry:

How do you like the enclosed for an opener?

It was wonderful to see you, as always, and I do
so much appreciate your diligent and spontaneous courtesies.
I wish you had better news to report, but as they say, whoever
said we were supposed to have it easy in this vale of tears?

More anon.

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger,
The White House,
Washington, D.C.

NATIONAL
REVIEW

Phone: ORegon 9-7330

Editor-in-Chief:
Wm. F. BUCKLEY JR.

Publisher:
WILLIAM A. RUSHER

Editors:

Managing Editor:
PRISCILLA L. BUCKLEY

October 22, 1969

Dear Henry:

I note from the Philadelphia Bulletin, October 9, a story by Paul Grimes on USIA. Deep down, the sentence "He (Shakespeare) is known to fret about 'naive liberals' who he feels have made their way into even the Nixon administration. He is known to regard Dr. Henry Kissinger, the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs with somewhat less than admiration."

Said Frank Shakespeare to me about a month ago: "If you never do another thing for your country, your introducing Henry Kissinger to the Nixon people will still qualify you as a hero."

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
The White House Office
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

ON THE RIGHT --- by William F. Buckley, Jr.

For Release Saturday or Sunday, November 8 or 9, 1969, or thereafter

NOTE TO EDITORS: If received in time, this column may be used Thursday, Nov. 6, in place of the column mailed Monday for release on that date.

THE SPEECH

It was said of Mr. Nixon's speech moments after he had delivered it that it contained nothing new. What the critics meant was that the speech did not have in it a surprise of the kind they'd have welcomed. Mr. Nixon did not announce that American troops would be withdrawn within 12 months no matter the consequences. He did not announce a cease fire followed by a pray-in that the enemy would itself cease firing. He did not announce that he would no longer support or consult with the government of President Thieu.

Nor did he have any surprises of the kind that others among his critics might have been grateful for. He did say that he recognizes that the Soviet Union has been provisioning the enemy for years, and did say that he had had a number of secret conferences with representatives of the Soviet Union. He did not take the occasion to say that he was finally prepared to take steps to prevent the flow of materiel from the Soviet Union from reaching the enemy. He did not announce that he would resume the bombing of North Vietnam in order to intensify the pressure there. He did not announce that an expeditionary force would enter North Vietnam, or close down the Ho Chi Minh trail; or that a naval blockade would close down the harbor at Haiphong.

No: the President stuck by his course. It is a course based, he insists, on a plan, the exact specifications of which he cannot divulge without risking the plan's success. The plan calls as we all have known for many months, for the "Vietnamization" of the war. In due course, he will be able to pull back all American combat troops. When? He will not say. Because, he says, to divulge the timetable would encourage the enemy to hold out until that day. Here was a flaw in presidential logic. Presumably, if we define Vietnamization as the transfer of military responsibility to the South Vietnamese, then it makes no difference that the enemy should know by when that transfer will be accomplished, because, if we succeed, the enemy would not know the difference. That the shot fired at the Viet Cong infantryman was triggered by a South Vietnamese rather than by an American soldier will not affect its lethalness. If the Presidential timetable is orderly, the enemy will feel an altogether consistent pressure, whether exerted by American soldiers as at present, or by Vietnamese soldiers in the future.

- MORE -

THE WASHINGTON STAR SYNDICATE, INC.

444 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. 10022

["THE WASHINGTON STAR-ANDCITV. INC.", "N.Y. 1933\nWASHINGTON AVE., N.W.\nNew York, N.Y.", "- MORE -", "soldier in the future.\n\n'Another ex-soldier by American soldiers as at present,' Dr. Miettunes\nqulcral timespiele is orderly, the enemy will feel an afterglow consistent bres-\nrerher than by an American soldier will not affect its influence. In the best\nthe spot fixed at the Aftet Cong. inlantrixman was frightened by a South Miettunes\nIfied,' because, if we succeed, the enemy would not know the difference. That\nno difference that the enemy should know by when that transfer will be accom-\npany the transfer of military reasonability to the South Miettunes,' then it makes\nwas a flaw in presidential logic. 'Preeminently,' it is clear the Miettunesation as\nqulify the timetap would encourage the enemy to put out until that day. Here\nall American combat troops.' When he will not say. Because, he says, to\n'the 'Miettunesation' of the war.' In the course, he will be able to fill up\nthe blank's success. 'This blank calls to us all have known for many months,' for\non a blank, the exact specifications of which he cannot disclaim without risking\nTo: the President授权 by his course. It is a course passed, he indicates,\nago would close down the harbor at Hamburg.", "enter North Miettunes' or close down the Gli Milti staff, or that a vast pack\nof the pressure there.' He did not announce that an extraordinary force would\nnot announce that he would resume the mapping of North Miettunes. In order to inten-\nvate the flow of materiel from the Soviet Union from reaching the enemy. He did\nnot take the occasion to say that he was finally prepared to take action to pre-\nnipon of secret conferences with representatives of the Soviet Union. He did\nUpton has been brokering the enemy for weeks, and did say that he had had a\nmight have been grateful for. He did say that he recognizes that the Soviet\nNot did he have any exsbrtiss of the kind that he wrote about some of the critics\nor consult with the Government of President Thien.\nwould itself cease firing. He did not announce that he would no longer subordi-\nnate. He did not announce a cease fire followed by a break-in that the enemy\nthat American troops would be withdrawn within 15 months no matter the consid-\ner in it a surprise of the kind they'd have malfoamed. Mr. Nixon did not announce\ncontained nothing new. What the critics meant was that the shewch did not have\nIt was said of Mr. Nixon's speech moments after he had delivered it that it\nTHE SKETCH", "that date.\n\nof the column waited Monday for release on\ncolumn may be used Tuesday,' Mr. P. in his speech\nMANK TO EDITOR: It received in time, says\n\nFor Release Saturday or Sunday, November 8 or 9, 1933, or thereafter.", "ON THE RIGHT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ON THE RIGHT by Wm.F.Buckley,Jr. -2- For Release 11/8-9/69 or after

Perhaps the president was intentionally vague. It could be that the sched-
ule of Vietnamization presumes a constant pressure from the enemy which, should
it intensify, would require the commitment of additional American firepower,
whether on the ground or in the air. That threat was made explicit when Mr.
Nixon warned the enemy that should American casualties mount, or the rate of
infiltration rise, so also would the intensity of American resistance rise.

Was the speech successful? Did it indeed speak for the silent majority whom
Mr. Nixon directly and by name addressed?

It is a tactic of Mr. Nixon's critics to allege now that that majority, whose
existence was never doubted through the turbulent political campaigns of 1968,
no long exists. It is worn down, they say, by attrition. They cite Mr. Hubert
Humphrey who, the scales having fallen from his eyes since he left public office,
now reveals that he had no idea of the extent to which the American people are
"sick" of the Vietnam war. Thus the critics insist that Mr. Nixon does not recog-
nize that he is forlorn in his adamant determination on Vietnam.

That is an important contention, though by no means a conclusive one. Mr.
Nixon was not elected as commander-in-chief for the duration of the people's
pleasure, but for a term of four years, and our republic was not constructed to
accommodate spastic changes in the public mood. Still, it is a great question
of enormous importance whether the American people are willing to consummate our
great endeavor in Southeast Asia. Mr. Nixon, having reflected deeply on the
matter, having consulted the men around him whose lives are devoted to the
acquisition of such skills as are designed to keep America a free and independent
nation, recapitulates essentially the same analysis as moved Presidents Eisen-
hower, Kennedy, and Johnson: we must win this little war, in order to minimize
the chances of engaging in a much greater war. The President has asked for
public support from a silent majority which need not stay silent. As one
American, I shall wire him today my support, and hope earnestly that you too
will be moved to do so.

- END -

THE WASHINGTON BAY BROADCASTING INC. 111 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10015

- FMB -

will be moved to go so. American'. I shall wire him today my answer, and hope eventually that you too happy subsoil from a affect majority will need not again affect. As one the chances of engaging in a much Greater war. The President has asked for power, Kennedy, and Johnson: so must we with this little war. In order to minimize nation' receive information essentially the same information we moved President's election of such skills as are desired to keep America a free and independent matter, bearing concertined the men around him whose lives are devoted to the Great seagoing in Southeast Asia. Mr. Nixon' having reflected deeply on the of enormous importance whether the American people are shifting to consummate our accommodateшаble changes in the happy mood. Still, if it is a great question pleases, put for a term of four years, and our representative was the successor to Lyndon B. Johnson, I should think it would be a good one for the administration of the people's

That is an important contention, should be so measured a constructive one. Mr. Vice President that he is performing in his adequate determination on Vietnam. "Sick," of the American war. True the criticism that that Mr. Nixon does not recognize now reposes that he had no idea of the extent to which the American people are haphazard who, the scales pay衡 fallen from his eyes since he left public office, no long exists. It is much does' they say, 'p. a. station.' They cite Mr. McNamara existence was never depicted through the transparent political cabaret of today. It is a tactic of Mr. Nixon's criticism to allege now that that majority, instead Mr. Nixon directly and by name addressed?

Was the speech successful? Did it pass sheath for the silent majority when infiltration rises, so also would the intensity of American resistance rise. Nixon earned the enemy that should American casualty be, or the rate of whether on the ground or in the air. That threat was made explicit when Mr. it intensity, would reduce the commitment of additional American forces. The role of Americanization broadens a consistent broadest from the enemy which, above all else, the president was intentionally agnostic. It could be that the above-

OF THE RIGHT, PA. Mr. F. Bracken, Jr. -2- For Release: 11/28/93 08:00 A.M.

NATIONAL REVIEW·150 East 35th Street, New York, New York 10016

Tel. 679-7330

WM. F. BUCKLEY JR.

Editor in Chief

January 3, 1972

Dear Henry:

I am about to violate my pledge, taken upon your ascension, not to write you communications more than two hundred words long. But I shan't violate it by much.

1. I enclose my reply to a very angry telephone call I had from Peter Flanigan. The reply along with the enclosures are self-explanatory. I am surprised at Peter.

2. I learned that you were struck down by the flu, and trust you are recovered. I find sickness sickening, as you must do, and when it afflicts me I find myself heir to a great listlessness. I snap back only when I am substantially provoked. Fortunately, I never need to wait for very long, and of course you do not. Alas, in your august position you are not situated so as to permit you the psychic satisfactions of hitting back. Chalk that up as another sacrifice you have made for your country.

3. Speaking of which, I deeply understand your dilemmas, personal and professional. Yes, it is always exciting, and one thinks of FDR, wanting another and another and another term as president. But you have the gift of the historian's perspective, and are thus less easily tempted than most. Disengagement will always be painful. But it is not as if you quit before the Sistine Chapel was completed: your work of art will never be completed. Even so Burke reminded us that there are no permanent victories, any more than there are permanent defeats.

And then the professional problem. More and more time struggling

[LC]

-2-

against the institutional organisms that seek reconciliation, seek to eject the
antibody which is: you. As a conservative, in the sense in which we are using
the word, you understand that there is something wrong in a situation in which
the President is saved from the shambles of policies as administered by his
chosen Secretary of State -- only because of the presence of the antibody. But,
as a historian, you know also that we are a highly pragmatic country, and that
which works, works. The question that so depressed you the other afternoon was
obviously: will it continue to work? In part because every time you succeed, you
are slightly weakened. And then, to quote the anecdote you gave me, at some
point you recognize that you are spending more time defending yourself, than
executing your projects.

Well, you asked my advice.

The time has not yet come for you to leave. I say this as an observer
who is largely on the outside, but not altogether ignorant of what is happening
on the inside.

-- You are not in public danger of disabling criticism on the basis of
the power you exercise.

-- Within the government, you are of course widely resented. But (here
I give you only a layman's opinion, which after all is the only kind you would
expect from me), you are not wounded to the point of having attracted public
opinion.

Now: taking this all together, I proceed on grounds that would appear to
many people as being simplistic: but not to you, which is a reason for the
affinity we feel for one another.

...

[lc]

-3-

It may very well be, as you and others have suggested, that we are
not going to make it. I have been haunted for many years by a statement to
that melancholy effect, made to me by Whittaker Chambers in a letter which I
began by dismissing as Weltschmerz, but which I find it harder and harder to
forget. He wrote me in 1955,

"...it is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western
civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do
little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful
of ashes from the faggots, and bury them secretly in a flowerpot against the
day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was
once something else, that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence of
what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the
great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of hope and truth."

You sounded a little like Chambers on Christmas Eve, and I can understand
why. My own disposition is objectively pessimistic, subjectively optimistic, the
latter being not the state of mind at which I arrive by intellection, but by
spiritual necessity.

Now it would be easy to say to you that you should stay if one had the
feeling that from the White House one can hear, however indistinctly, the tones
of the tocsin. I do not hear them. Instead, one hears a great deal of Wilsonian
flaccidity, which did I not know about the Aesopian imperative, I'd pounce on it,
as hypocrisy especially unpalatable under the circumstances.

...

The circumstances being what I know -- in part because you have described them to me. Mr. Nixon has not given us any intimation of the nature of the threat, and your candor, so remarkable and so appreciated, fails somehow to wrestle with that anomaly. All the traditional explanations -- Congress will not oblige, the public is not ready, the unconsummated experience in Vietnam stands in the way ...strike the ear wrong, as if the edges of the reverie were beginning to numb your own senses. More likely, that the polls tell you: Henry, you need to realize that there are political problems in the matter of the Presidency concerning which you simply are not expected to be familiar.... And we get that strange, inscrutable acquiescence -- concerning a matter that so frightened you in the spring of 1969 that rather than delay the communication of it to me, you sent up a White House jet to bring me down.

So. The inferences gradually crystallize. You must stay where you are.
We must do what we can to bring hammer-blow against the bell-jar that protects
the dreamers from reality. The ideal scenario is that, pounding from without,
we can effect resonances which will one day -- and quite quickly -- crack through
to the latent impulses of those who dream within, bringing to life a circuit that
will (am I exaggerating?) spare the republic. At least for a while, mon vieux:
but for long enough to put me, and my son, into debt to you, beyond even that
which I already acknowledge.

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Confidential

Château de Rougemont
Rougemont, Vaud
Switzerland

Most estimable (and therefore, but not necessarily,) esteemed Sir:

Your servant did as you suggested. Perhaps you have already got the report from New York. I found NR most affable, and most candid. Here is what it comes down to. He thinks he has a shot at getting the support of the Liberal Party. Now, even if he doesn't get that support, he wonders whether the endorsement of the Conservatives would net hurt or help. I told him that it is my own opinion that the time has come for electing a major Republican figure in each New York politics to baptize the Conservative Party, even as almost everyone has baptized the Liberal Party. I told him that I see many Democrats knocked loose from their own Party, looking for a querencia outside it, distrustful of New York Republicanism for a combination of reasons: the traditional antipathy, plus the ideological kinship between N.Y. Republicanism and the Party they are wresting their way free from. Many of them are poised in and around the C. Party. Time to bring them on over, I think. He meditated this, and appeared interested, though he wondered what had happened to Marchi in New York City--a kind good enough question for a technician to ask. He explained most carefully his position on Gooddell, which you have probably guessed.

Anyway, it was left after one hour that I would ask Dan Mahoney, the chairman of the Conservative Party, to give him a ring. I talked with Mahoney and gave him a run-down. He is a most intelligent young man, as you probably have heard. But he does not see any easy solution. It is easiest to summarize this way: if NR wants the Conservatives, he is going to have to do a little wooing. This, so far, he is unwilling to do. He does, however, believe in the patriotic imperative of his own reelection. I stand ready to help in any way, and let him, and Dan, know that.

I saw in Joseph Kraft's column this morning (in the Paris Tribune), a dark reference to you and Our Leader. I have a horrible suspicion that it will imminently be discovered that you are anti-Communist.

I am, at this moment, at work on an essay on Revolution for the Britannica Great Books Yearbook. I have seen the contribution of Arnold Toynbe. He is indeed that "wretched creature of historicity" that Whittaker Chambers disgustedly referred to himself as being, in the volume of letters I sent you which I do not doubt you haven't had the chance to read. Some day, Not soon, I hope; because for the foreseeable future I hope that you will continue at the Right Hand, and that you will count on the resolute obedience of

Your devoted servant,

PS I had a nice letter ("Dear Bill") from Mel Laird, whom I have never met. He found my columns from Vietnam "incisive and useful" and he read them "carefully." How useful it would be to know whether that kind of thing is mere bullshit. Perhaps one day we can have a Presidential Commission to Inquire Into Whether Letters from Important People to Citizens are Mostly Bullshit?

On The Right

Wm. F. Buckley Jr.

Greatness At Bay

Much of the criticism that has come in of Mr. Nixon's Cambodian declaration is of the assertion that America must not become a second-rate power. Mr. Paul Harvey, for instance, the mid-west broadcaster whose following is very great among people who have tended to back Mr. Nixon's Vietnam policies, broke absolutely with the President on this one. "Mr. President," he intoned, "I love you." Pause. "-- But you are wrong." Mr. Harvey then informed the President that it isn't worth it to be a first-rate power if the cost is to be as high as is suggested by his decision to fight in Cambodia; and besides, he said, the mothers of the United States cannot bear enough male offsprings to sustain United States' efforts on such a scale as is being suggested.

Others, in their own way, are saying one or another variation of the same thing. Senators Fulbright, Hatfield, and Proxmire. XXXXXXXXXXXX The whole, it would seem, of the American Academy. XXX And surely Shelley Winters will be heard from. The implicit challenge is to the assertion that America needs to be a first-rate power.

That is a central question, strangely unexamined. We look about us and recognize that there are a great many second-rate powers which are somehow muddling through this century. They have their preoccupations -- one XXXXX thinks, for instance, of the English; but they XXXXX have also their domestic felicities. And they are not called upon, XXXXX anymore, to fight extensively in far off lands, or to bear the brunt of everybody's animadversions who feels that if he were President of the United States, the world would be so very much more congenial. The joys of being a second-rate power are very considerable. We tasted them fully during the 19th century. It would be totally desirable if every power in the world were a second-rate power. But unfortunately, nature decrees

- 2 -

On The Right

Wm. F. Buckley Jr.

that there shall always be at least one first-rate power. And just
United States steps down, should it ever elect to do so, it does not follow that so
would the Soviet Union. Or Red China.

It isn't mere bombast that Mr. Nixon is talking. What he said in his well-
structured speech wasn't that it is fun to go and die for the good-old glory of a
good-old first-rate power. He wasn't Prince Harry at Agincourt, bringing the fighting
blood of his countrymen to an elated boil. He does expect, and is entitled to expect,
that thoughtful Americans understand what it is that happens when a first-rate power climbs down from
greatness in a world where other nations, of hostile disposition, will inherit the
position of primacy.

It wouldn't greatly matter if we became a second-rate power yielding, let us
say, to Great Britain, which was a first-rate power in the 19th century, providing with
her navy the shield needed for our brilliant gestation. But if we lose now it is in
the Soviet Union that we will lose to. And the Soviet Union desires to preside over a
world which is quite horrible to contemplate; desires, by whatever means, to extend the
Soviet system, recently described by a correspondent of the New York Times as the "great-
est assault ever mounted on the human spirit." What is happening in Indo-China is a
contest of wills. Ours has been bent on establishing that a modest, nonaggressive
alliance, continues to be tenable in a remote part of the world, suggesting that our
other alliances, in closer parts of the world, will also prove tenable. The enemy is
bent on not only on simple aggression, but on proving that the United States cannot
dispatch a responsibility she willingly and intelligently entered into. If the
communists establish that the United States cannot do that, then, and as of that very
moment, the United States abdicates as a first-rate power. Humiliation, of course: but
we can endure humiliation. The French did, after all. But the French were spared

- 3 -

On The Right

Wm. F. Buckley Jr.

worse humiliation -- by the presence of a friendly first-rate power in the world -- the United States. Let those who wish to abandon Mr. Nixon at this moment force themselves to say: what will make us convincing, tomorrow, when facing the mid-east, we tell the Soviet Union that we desire a balance of power there, the survival of Israel? What prestige will we bring to the Organization of American States when we discuss the virtues of stability in Latin America? The advisability of continuing America's responsibility for the Panama Canal? What, a very few years after our collapse in Asia, will our partners in Europe think when the Soviet Union presses its advantage, and elaborates its Brezhnev doctrine to authorize, say, the occupation of West Germany?

These are questions to which manifestly Richard Nixon has given very great thought, and if he prevails, history will owe him a great debt. If he does not prevail, he has nevertheless earned the great debt from those bound together in spiritual unity against tyranny.

-END-

April 8, 1971

Dear Carter:

I address you in my capacity as a journalist. I have read that you are the majority owner of *The Village Voice*. I should like to know whether a) you were aware of the articles published by *The Village Voice* on Henry Kissinger, by Noel Parmentel. In the event that you were not aware of them before they were published, I should like to know b) whether, on reading them, you have taken steps, privately or publicly, to disown them. I plan to write about these articles in a week or so, and would appreciate your writing or calling me, so that I shall not be guilty of any unwarranted injustice.

With best wishes,

Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

The Honorable Carter Burden,
City Hall,
New York, N.Y. 10017

b.c. Mr. Henry A. Kissinger

THE COUNCIL
OF
THE CITY OF NEW YORK
CITY HALL

CARTER BURDEN
COUNCILMAN, 4TH DISTRICT, MANHATTAN
303 EAST 79TH STREET
NEW YORK, N. Y. 10021
219 EAST 116TH STREET
NEW YORK, N. Y. 10029
535-4104

April 19, 1971

CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE
ON PENAL AND JUDICIAL REFORM

William F. Buckley, Jr.
NATIONAL REVIEW
150 East 35th Street
New York, New York 10016

Dear Bill,

I am flattered by your implied inclusion of me in the ranks of "journalists", particularly since my principle qualification for the title is the fact that I was once an editor of the *Harvard Lampoon*.

I have far too much respect for the profession to assume that the title of journalist can be acquired simply by one's ability to purchase stock in a publication. And that, of course, is the extent of my connection with *THE VILLAGE VOICE*.

I am not only unqualified -- but specifically excluded by the terms of my purchase agreement -- from any involvement in or control over the editorial policy of *THE VILLAGE VOICE*. I am never aware in advance of anything that is going into the paper, whether by Mr. Parmental or anybody else.

I am sure, as a journalist, that you appreciate the importance of the principle of journalistic autonomy, and that you recognize the distinction between an "Editor In Chief" like yourself and a mere stockholder like myself. So the point is really not whether I "have taken steps -- publicly or privately" to disown -- or endorse -- Mr. Parmental's articles, but whether or not he should be free to write them without any interferences from me or any other VOICE stockholder who does not have any specific editorial or operational responsibilities.

Frankly, there are many things in *THE VOICE* which I would like to disown -- particularly some of the comments which have been made about me.

Willaim F. Buckley, Jr.

April 19, 1971

-2-

and about certain personal friends and colleagues. It would be a grave
disservice, however, to the integrity of the paper and its staff if I were to
presume that the mere ownership of stock gave me a special right to do
so. The appropriate remedy for me is the same as yours -- to write a letter,
to answer publicly -- but not to manipulate behind the scenes while
carefully preserving a facade of independence and journalistic autonomy.

That is not to say that I do not recognize the responsibility which is
inherent in any stock ownership -- and I fully accept responsibility for the
right of Mr. Parmental, or Mr. Newfield, or Mr. Hentoff to write what they
choose, free from the interference of meddling stockholders (particularly
those with political axes of their own to grind). I do not accept responsibility
for agreeing with what they say; only for their right to say it.

I realize this is a somewhat novel position to take, given the fact that,
in too many cases, stock ownership is considered a legitimate basis for
editorial interference. I'm sure, however, that as a journalist who cherishes
his own independence, that you will agree that it is the correct position for me
to take. I do, in any case, greatly appreciate your writing me and I hope
your concern for avoiding any unwarranted injustice will extend to giving my
position in this matter a complete airing, should you choose to raise it in
connection with your contemplated articles.

Best regards.

CB/j1

BOSTON GLOBE, 26 April 1971

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.

Voice behind 'The Voice'

It was recently rumored that the ownership of "The Village Voice," a New York weekly journal which is sort of underground-manque, the constant companion and fons et origo of the Bohemian smart set, has changed hands.

"The Voice" is the kind of paper that should be owned by a young Norman Mailer, or an old Gloria Steinem, or maybe by a cooperative, of which Dwight MacDonald would be a dissenting member. But the rumor was that "The Voice" had been bought by a young and ambitious millionaire, a Roman Catholic aristocrat, a former aide to Robert Kennedy, a councilman of the City of New York who has his eyes on higher office and could certainly count on the aid of the New York Establishment, in which he is a heavy stockholder.

So that the word that Carter Burden owned "The Voice" shattered the swingers, as if the Holy See had bought controlling interests in "Playboy." What do we do about it, if we are the editors of "The Voice?" We exhibit our independence of the owner, Burden. The best way to do this, of course, is to be more outrageous than ever. To this end, presumably, the two articles recently published on Henry Kissinger.

They are written by Noel Parmentel, an amusing verbal brawler who is probably the most tasteless polemicist in America. The tone of the articles is best suggested by the description of them given by the author himself.

He said of the first installment that it was "mainly a speculation into whether a public trust could become a public trust." And indeed the article goes on endlessly on the theme that Henry Kissinger is physically revolting and that therefore the notion that he could be attractive to women is a Portnoyan fantasy.

Offhand, I would say that 5000 words of the series are devoted to this extraordinary theme. Most of the balance is devoted to an extensive ribbing of Kissinger's Jew

ishness, on and on and on about how he's ashamed of it, how he is really nothing more than a social-climbing little kraut whose Prussian instincts serve him well in his capacity as cold-war enthusiast.

Then a few thousand words of anonymous slander, allegedly by ex-professors, associates, friends, all of whom, seriously, sound exactly like Parmentel: and that is it—the sort of thing that gets excused by the intellectuals if the victim is an associate of Richard Nixon.

I say gets excused, because I waited a couple of weeks to spot protests against this extended scurrility by, say, any old Harvard professor: but the legions who used to rise, inflamed, against Joe McCarthy because he had said that Prof. Harlow Shapley belonged to 25 Communist fronts, when everyone knew he belonged to only 20, have been strangely silent.

Accordingly I wrote to Burden. I have back from him a quite extraordinary answer. It is that it is none of his business what runs in "The Voice." He says something which, so far as I know, is absolutely novel in the theory of business, namely, "It would be a grave disservice to the integrity of the paper and its staff if I were to presume that mere ownership of stock gives me a special right to" protest its policies.

He advanced a meaning for the word "responsibility" which is, I think, absolutely unique: "that is not to say that I do not recognize the responsibility which is inherent in any stock ownership — I fully accept responsibility for ("The Voice's" authors) to write what they choose." Rescued from the litotes, that sentence says that the owner of a newspaper has a responsibility to publish anything anybody wants, never mind taste, judgment, the libel laws.

So it comes down to: if I can make a buck by publishing an article that trades in anti-Semitism, sex-talk, and slander, I consider it my "responsibility" to do so. That young man will go far.

not to distract from his message. Some of the exiled musicians, taking emprise, never returned; which is what happens sometimes with musicians, if they feel unwanted. But then the Chicano leader had gone on and on not about the Vietnam war, which after all was the reason for the protest, but about other things—many other things.

It was very badly arranged, the students said. There was no planned climax. In fact, although the local television station had scheduled coverage from 2 P.M. until 5 P.M., the rally ended shortly after 4 P.M., in a rather inconclusive way. There was no Martin Luther King there to dream a dream that would send the participants home dizzy with pride and resolution.

There was a high point, they agreed. It was Dick Gregory, who although he spoke for only ten minutes, turned in a dramatic pledge. He would not again eat solid food, he said, until the Vietnam war was over. Several years ago Mr. Gregory gave up meat, in protest against the killing of animals. He is now escalating, and he greatly moved the crowd.

Congressman Pete McCloskey, who is the anointed leader of the antiwar group during this season (it is he who will be dispatched to challenge Richard Nixon in New Hampshire), was present. But there is disagreement about why he did not actually speak. And some disagreement, even, about the exact circumstances of his disappearance. Suddenly, according to one student, he simply walked off the stage: and was not seen again. There are those who interpreted his walkout as in protest against the obscenities being uttered by the man who had the microphone at that moment. Others guessed merely that McCloskey did not find the conditions auspicious for saying what he wanted to say. And through it all, or at least the exciting parts, author James Baldwin sat, passive. Either he was not asked to speak or, if he was asked, he declined.

It was then that the question was blurted out: Did I think that the demonstrations had any effect on Mr. Nixon? I replied I did not know, adding that I am qualified only to say what are the demonstrations that affect me. I was affected, I said, by the White House sponsored Youth Conference which just now finished meeting in Colorado Springs. The newspapers inform us the students voted for three things, and very nearly unanimously: 1) a fixed-date retreat from Vietnam, 2) legalized pot and 3) legalized sex in any variety between, or for that matter I suppose among, consenting adults. What is interesting is that the participants of this congress were picked as nearly as possible by scientific means. It isn't just the bellicose doves, who swarm in to any scheduled demonstration. It was young America, the same young America that Mr. Nixon and Mr. Agnew and so

many of the rest of us have assumed is in silent, but acquiescent, equilibrium.

That—I venture—is news, in the sense that 300,000 students in Washington or San Francisco to hear the 300,000th speech by Coretta King, is not news. If indeed we finally have fully representative expressions of student opinion. Or—is it possible?—did the students, having arrived so innocently at Colorado Springs, find themselves easy pawns of the ideological hustlers? It has happened before.

At any rate, the sap is running. We shall know soon whether the bustle is merely a seasonal imperative, or whether the students—though as regards Vietnam, like Dick Gregory, they feed on less and less—are prepared to heighten their manifestations of dissatisfaction to correspond with Mr. Nixon's deceleration of the cold war. ☐

## THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF CARTER BURDEN

New York, April 30—It was recently rumored that the ownership

of the *Village Voice*, a New York weekly journal which is sort of underground-manqué, the constant companion and fons et origo of the bohemian smart set, has changed hands. The *Voice* is the kind of paper that should be owned by a young Norman Mailer, or an old Gloria Steinem, or maybe by a cooperative, of which Dwight Macdonald would be a dissenting member. But the rumor was that the *Voice* had been bought by a young and ambitious millionaire, a Roman Catholic aristocrat, a former aide to Robert Kennedy, a councilman of the City of New York who has his eyes on higher office, and could certainly count on the aid of the New York Establishment, in which he is a heavy stockholder.

So that the word that Carter Burden owned the *Voice* shattered the swingers, as if the Holy See had bought controlling interests in *Playboy*. What do we do about it, if we are the editors of the *Voice*? We exhibit our independence of the owner, Burden. The best way to do this, of course, is to be more outrageous than ever. To this end, presumably, the two recent articles on Henry Kissinger.

They are written by Noel Parmentel, an amusing verbal brawler who is probably the most tasteless polemicist in America. The tone of the articles is best suggested by the description of them given by the author himself. He said of the second installment that it was "mainly a speculation into whether a public trust could become a pubic thrust." And indeed the article goes on endlessly on the theme that Henry Kissinger is physically revolting and that therefore the notion that he could be attractive to women is a Portnoyan fantasy. Off-hand, I would say that

five thousand words of the series are devoted to this extraordinary theme. Most of the balance is devoted to an extensive ribbing of Kissinger's Jewishness, on & on & on about how he's ashamed of it, how he is really nothing more than a social climbing little kraut whose Prussian instincts serve him well in his capacity as cold-war enthusiast. Then a few thousand words of anonymous slander, allegedly by ex-professors, associates, friends, all of whom, seriously, sound exactly like Parmentel: and that is it—the sort of thing that used to appear in *Confidential*, and gets excused by the intellectuals if the victim is an associate of Richard Nixon.

I say gets excused, because I waited a couple of weeks to spot protests against this extended scurrility by, say, any old Harvard professor: but the legions who used to rise, inflamed, against Joe McCarthy because he had said that Professor Harlow Shapley belonged to 25 Communist fronts, when everyone knew he belonged to only twenty—have been strangely silent. Not a word—that I have seen—from such moralists and former colleagues of Kissinger as Arthur Schlesinger, or George Wald.

Accordingly I WROTE TO Mr. Burden, asking whether he was aware of the articles before they were published; and if he wasn't, had he now "taken steps, privately or publicly, to disown them."

I have back from him a quite extraordinary answer. It is that it is none of his business what runs in the *Voice*. He says something which, so far as I know, is absolutely novel in the theory of business, namely, "It would be a grave disservice to the integrity of the paper and its staff if I were to presume that mere ownership of stock gives me a special right to protest its policies." He advanced a meaning for the word "responsibility" which is, I think, absolutely unique, "that is not to say that I do not recognize the responsibility which is inherent in any stock ownership—I fully accept responsibility for [the Voice's authors] to write what they choose." Rescued from the litotes, that sentence says that the owner of a newspaper has a responsibility to publish anything anybody wants, never mind taste, judgment, the libel laws; never mind whether the writers are demanding the impeachment of Earl Warren, a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, the elimination of the Jews, or the deportation of the Negroes. (Mr. Burden, by the way, is among the Earth-types who hold business responsible for polluting the atmosphere.) So it comes down to: if I can make a buck by publishing an article that trades in antisemitism, sex-talk, and slander, I consider it my "responsibility" to do so. That young man will go far. ☐

(Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.)

MAY 18, 1971 557

Tel. 679-7330

WM. F. BUCKLEY JR.
Editor in Chief

January 3, 1972

Dear Peter:

I found you, over the telephone, strange, and strangely misinformed.

The latter is easier to clear up:

1) I asked whether you had seen the statement in National Review (copy attached). No, you said; and anyway, down there you consider that National Review is the instrument of Bill Rusher. Well, it isn't. Bill contributes to the editorial policy, but final decisions are necessarily mine, and in fact he did not see, before its publication, the editorial in which we made the crucial point that John Ashbrook had promised that he would not oppose Mr. Nixon in a general election.

You are apparently the only man in Washington who is unaware that I personally opposed the idea of John's entering the race. But the NR statement made the distinction between _sponsoring_ his entry into the race, and _endorsing_ him once he was entered. Since what has now developed in New Hampshire is a popularity contest between the Republican left as led by McCloskey, and the Republican right as led by Ashbrook, you could hardly expect that National Review would fail to urge its followers to vote for Ashbrook.

I regret that you led me into hit-and-run arguments concerning individual policies of Mr. Nixon. It would be a waste of your time, and certainly of mine, to dwell on these. If you are unaware that there is conservative dissatisfaction, or more accurately apprehension, then you have become dangerously insular, and you have neglected more than the current issue of National Review.

[1c]

On the day before you called me, I sent out my column (copy attached) wherein I recounted the essential analysis done by the conservatives in discussing Ashbrook's candidacy. Where my own preferences lay is not heavily disguised. If you expected that I should now denounce Ashbrook's candidacy, then you expected more than I think you have reason to expect; reason being -- I remind you -- what prompted Nixon to support Goldwater after his nomination in San Francisco in 1964.

2) Speaking of which, mon vieux, I know that politics does strange things to people, but men of your breeding ought really -- if politics has so seized you -- to try to leave certain things *implicit*. Not only did you not do so, you moved in lasciviously, suggesting that it is wildly ironical that only forty-eight hours before my name was used by Ashbrook, I had telephoned you to endorse an ambassadorship for Ed Korry. I thereupon reminded you that I have never commended to your attention a basketcase, that on the very few occasions when I have endorsed someone to you, it has been someone whose services I thought Mr. Nixon's Administration could profitably use. To which observation I hope you have permitted yourself to forget the response you gave, namely, that in the light of my endorsement of John Ashbrook, how could you really and truly believe me when I told you I thought someone would render effective service to Mr. Nixon's Administration? The inference is that I would recommend men who would *subvert* his administration.

And then, dear Peter, you remind me that it was *you* who had the decisive influence in persuading Mr. Agnew to come to New York to speak for my brother! I hope you do not think me ungrateful for reminding you, a) that the altogether admirable objective of the Nixon Administration was to defeat Charles Goodell,

[1c]

-3-

my brother's election being an incidental benefit; b) that my brother, following
the dictates of his own conscience, has performed very satisfactorily from the
point of view of the Nixon Administration; and that c) I have attempted to
cultivate conservative values, in my own way, for twenty years, and I would not
have dreamed it possible that any favor done by you to someone with whom I have
biological ties -- or by Mr. Agnew, or by Mr. Mitchell or Mr. Kissinger or by
Mr. Nixon -- carried the implication that I was thereupon bound, athwart the
interests of my own conscience and constituency, to adopt the role of a double
agent.

Yet I don't know, I don't know. . . Maybe that is _exactly_ what you do think. Maybe I should be grateful that you did not remind me, over the telephone, that, after all, I did receive an invitation to the Inaugural Ball.

Well, there we are. You know my present feelings about next November.
You know also the consternation I feel, along with many other friends of Mr. Nixon,
about the implications of some of his policies. However, you may feel free to
call me at any time, about any problem, without running the risk that I shall
seize the opportunity to rehearse before you the list of _my_ contributions to the
cause of Richard Nixon which, we shall all struggle to see to it, will remain
co-extensive with the cause of the republic.

With all good wishes,

Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

Mr. Peter M. Flanigan
Assistant to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C.

P.S. Don't forget Korry.

c.c. Messrs. John Mitchell, Henry Kissinger, Robert Haldeman, Frank Shakespeare
James Buckley

White Chauvinism and Racism, Gay Newspapers, Gays and the Military, Gays in Small Towns, Gay Youth, Counseling Gay People, Cuba, Gay Political Activism, Gay Liberation and Radical Politics, Gay Poetry and Culture, Gay People and the Law, Gays and Religion, Bisexuality." Whee.

* Ladies and Gentlemen of Radical Chic, scrap your Christmas cards and run to 425 5th St. S.E., Washington D.C. where the brand new Bangla Desh Information Center has a breathtaking new line of Deck-the-Halls: Poems by Nobel Prize-winner (circa 1910) Rabindranath Tagore, illustrations by Bengali artist Qamrul Hasan.

* Religion and Society is a conservative little magazine, described by its editor, Angus MacDonald, as "intellectual without being academic." It contains both secular and religious articles; its religious orientation is Christian, but nondenominational. Some of the contents of a recent issue: an article on the causes of the 1970 recession; an article on democracy in the Colonels' Greece; an article on the nonsense written through the centuries, by historians and theologians, about Jesus; an article on the anti-Russian underground in post-Dubcek Czechoslovakia, followed by fifteen poems by one of the Czech students who immolated themselves in 1968 to protest the Russian invasion. Not great poetry, but, as the author of the article says: "These poems add the human dimension to our understanding of a crucial historical event (think if Dubcek and the Czechs had prevailed!)

... How easy it was to forget the Czechoslovakia rendered by the antiseptic prose of *Time* and *Newsweek*. How hard to forget the Czechoslovakia rendered by the verse of a boy who, in his deep anguish, could think of no more fitting reaction to his world than to take his own life as a protest." *Religion and Society* is published bimonthly, at 1415 North Second Street, Stillwater, Minnesota 55082. Subscriptions are $8 a year.

* NOTES TOWARD THE DEMOLITION OF CULTURE (Gang-Banging Richard Nixon Div.): We already have Mill-house, Emile de Antonio's viciously anti-Nixon flick; and *Our Gang*, Phil "Onan" Roth's ditto ditto novel. Come spring we will have a play, *An Evening of Richard Nixon*, "built around a number of public statements made by the President throughout his political career" by that old masterbuilder, Gore Vidal; and a musical based on Joe McGinniss' *The Selling of the President*. Whatthehell, it beats working, right, Phil, Emile and Gore?

* Must have lost something in translation: Fania Jordan, Angela Davis' sister, reports she was deeply moved when thousands of Young Pioneers in Moscow serenaded her as follows:

*We shall free Angela*

*We shall free Angela.*

*Oh deep in our hearts we do believe*

*We shall free Angela some day!*

(To the tune of "We Shall Overcome")

## In Re New Hampshire

The rumbles you hear, in the *New York Times*, the *Washington Star*, the *Washington Post* and elsewhere, have to do with the impending decision of Congressman John Ashbrook (R., Ohio) whether to enter the New Hampshire Presidential primary in opposition to Richard Nixon. Last summer, twelve conservatives met in New York and "suspended" their support for Richard Nixon, in protest against the drift of his foreign and domestic policies. Among the twelve who met on that occasion were three editors of *NATIONAL REVIEW*, and its publisher.

Meeting again in late November, the question arose whether encouraging a conservative dissenter to enter the New Hampshire primary race would be the best means for putting on record their concern over the Administration's direction and for reminding the President of the pledges he made in his campaign for office and the role conservatives played in making his election possible. On this question of means, the group was divided, but the majority voted in favor, and the proposal was in due course put to Mr. Ashbrook, who will announce his decision some time very soon after Christmas Day.

Those in favor urged the race not merely as the most

effective way to state the conservative case in 1972 and give expression to conservative opinion, but because they felt it wrong and deceptive that the tendencies in the Republican Party as presented to the country by the New Hampshire primary should be seen as divided solely between Nixon and a maverick from the Left, Congressman McCloskey. They believe that a lightning rod is needed to attract the real dissent among Republicans, so that Mr. Nixon can feel the shock.

Those opposed feared not only the possible futility of a rather hastily conceived venture without any organized backing, but the fallacious impression a meager result might give Nixon (and the nation) that the conservative wing within his own party is either decimated or decplacent.

*NATIONAL REVIEW* is not sponsoring Mr. Ashbrook's candidacy. On the other hand, if he runs we will of course endorse him (a longtime friend and colleague) as most closely embodying the opinions of this journal. Mr. Ashbrook does not intend, under any circumstances, to enter his name as a rival Presidential candidate in the general elections.

—THE EDITORS

National Review

DECEMBER 31, 1971

1449

ON THE RIGHT by William F. Buckley, Jr.

For Release Tuesday, January 4, 1972, or thereafter

ENTER ASHBROOK

Concerning the candidacy of Congressman John Ashbrook for the
Presidency, a few observations:

1) There are those who, seeking the same ends, believe that Mr. Ashbrook's entry in the New Hampshire primary was tactically sound, those who think it was not. In the long deliberations that preceded his decision to run, those who took the first line stressed their fear that the Republican conservative strength would be underestimated if Mr. Ashbrook did poorly in a primary.

Nobody has any right to doubt that the majority of Republicans are
to the right of center. For instance, if one added Mr. Nixon's delegates
to those of Mr. Reagan at the convention in 1968, you'd have got 64%, a
not inaccurate estimate of conservative strength within the party. If Mr.
Ashbrook got, say, only 10% of the vote in New Hampshire, statistic-nuts,
of whom there are a great many, would deduce that there is very little
right-minded concern about some of Mr. Nixon's policies.

On the other hand -- said those who encouraged Mr. Ashbrook to run --
better even 10% than 0%, and better Ashbrook than a campaign primary in
which the only man opposing Richard Nixon within the Republican ranks is
Congressman Paul McCloskey, who is to the Republican party at the present
moment approximately what John Lindsay was to the Republican party over so
many painful years of anomaly, at the end of which he finally changed his
affiliation and settled down comfortably on the left of the Democratic
spectrum. They argued further that inasmuch as Mr. Nixon is a Presidential
incumbent, it is altogether reasonable to expect that he will predominate
in the primary.

Sophisticated psephologists, in other words, would magnify the 10%
substantially in assessing the potency of the dissent. Moreover -- they
pursue -- in New Hampshire you have the very important institution of Mr.
William Loeb, whose newspaper blankets the state. Mr. Loeb has said that
he would support Mr. Ashbrook, and Mr. Loeb's support tends to be about as
plain spoken as the face of Mt. Rushmore.

-MORE-

THE WASHINGTON STAR SYNDICATE, INC., 444 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. 10022

ON THE RIGHT - William F. Buckley, Jr.
For Release Tuesday, January 4, 1972, or thereafter

Moreover, there is the strange nature of the McCloskey vote. Researchers discovered, much after the fact, that the vote for Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 New Hampshire primary was greatly swollen by hawks who were dissatisfied with Lyndon B. Johnson for waging the war in Vietnam so lackadaisically and expensively. By the same token, there are those, it is reasoned, who would have voted for McCloskey not because their sympathies are to the left of Nixon, but because their sympathies are not with Nixon. Now they can refine their dissent by voting for Ashbrook.

2) The second faction prevailed, and the first will, with few exceptions, move dutifully to consolidate with it in backing Mr. Ashbrook. This, by the way, they will do with enthusiasm for the candidate himself, who is among the world's most charming, intelligent and natural men, who would not intentionally deceive even Pete McCloskey. But inevitably the question arose: what about after New Hampshire?

Everyone who knows Mr. Ashbrook knows that he would not under any circumstances press his opposition to Richard Nixon on through to a Presidential candidacy under an independent party label. Most of those who are supporting him expect that, as a Republican official, he will endorse Mr. Nixon's reelection. How warmly he does that would of course depend on Mr. Nixon's statements and his policies between now and next fall.

A minority -- a very very small minority, I judge from my own explorations -- are so fed up, they would as soon Mr. Nixon lost the election. They take the quaint position that the republic could survive four years of a Democratic President. Under the circumstances, they hope that Mr. Ashbrook's dramatization of the shortcomings of Mr. Nixon's policies will undermine the support without which he cannot be reelected.

3) In an attempt to reconcile these analyses and refinements of them, Mr. Ashbrook hedged when asked the question directly, would he support Mr. Nixon after his renomination. He replied something to the effect that he did not think it wise prematurely to "bargain away" his leverage in the White House. That reply will satisfy some, dissatisfy more, I expect. There are many voters in New Hampshire who wish to say something to Richard Nixon, but who do not want to associate themselves with someone who is dallying with Republican mutiny. Well, as the saying goes, the situation will clarify. Meanwhile, the New Hampshire primary has suddenly become exciting.

-END-

WASHINGTON STAR SYNDICATE INC. 444 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022

Dear Henry:

I have thought a great deal about our conversation. I have spoken with Frank Shakespeare and with John Mitchell. I did not speak with them in order to confirm your misgivings: I take them as <u>axis</u>, <u>militarist</u> postulates. I wanted to ventilate the proposal I am now making, and did not want to wait to do so until your return from Paris.

If I read you correctly, the republic is in very considerable peril. Shall we let it go at that, since there is no point in my playing back the luridities you so eloquently rehearsed to me that evening?

What can be done.

1) We need, as you point out, strong pressure, extra-governmental pressure, brought on public policy. On the President, on Congress, on the opinion-making community, on the bureaucracy. That pressure, <u>unlimited</u> although its provenance would in fact be from what one might call the American Right, is best exerted by those who are not in any way professionally related to the American Right. Ideally, from quarters which are not suspected as being integral to the American Right. That pressure must come in manifold forms. Studies, analyses, manifestoes, speeches, publicity, full-page advertisements.

2) The ideal man is Nelson <u>Rockefeller</u>. He has the resources and the prestige.

3) I envision a meeting, preferably secret, between the President and Rockefeller. At that meeting the President would urge Rockefeller to resign the governorship in order to devote himself fully to a thorough examination of major problems of national and international security. Over a period of nine months to one year, Rockefeller would release one after another a series of reports issuing under his close personal supervision from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundations beaming in on whatever subjects you and the President desire most pointed support on. For instance <u>ABM</u>.

For instance American intelligence. For instance American interests in the Pacific area. As these reports are issued, ad hoc committees would form urging Congress and the President to take appropriate action. Books, full page ads, speeches, pressure on Congress, the works.

4) In approximately one year, the President, gratefully recognizing the selfless work of Nelson Rockefeller and approving his general analyses, appoints him Secretary of State, M. Rogers having meanwhile been elevated to the Supreme Court.

* * * * *

If you were one degree less intelligent than you are, this memorandum would be ten times as long. I make only this elucidation, namely that if Rockefeller's reports are unsatisfactory, the President is released from his commitment. And I repeat what I told you the other night, which is that the New York political situation is such as almost to guarantee that Nelson Rockefeller will not succeed in being re-elected.

I give you this proposal because you asked me to Think Big. We must do so, you also convinced me, if we are to arrest our gadarene stampede into chaos.

If the plan is too big, or unfeasible for whatever other reason, call me back, and we'll have to think smaller. A lot smaller, I warn you.

My blessings.

PS I thought the piece on you in LOOK disgraceful.

Our Man Hoppe

43

# The X-Rated Election

Arthur Hoppe

THE FORD FAMILY'S "refreshing candor" about its sex life drove the Democrats into deep gloom. There was no question the voting public couldn't wait to scan the front pages each day to see what Jerry, Betty, Susan, Jack and Liberty, the golden retriever, had, or had not, been up to.

In a futile attempt to capture equal space, Senator Scoop Jackson issued 42 position papers, Senator Humphrey delivered an eight-hour major address on a girl he had kissed in a rumble seat at the 1923 Kenosha Pumpkin Fair, and only Senator Kennedy maintained silence on the subject, insisting he was not an active candidate.

It was that well-known dark horse, Hector (Hec) Goodbody, the folksy, Harvard-educated rabbit farmer, who correctly assessed the political winds. He promptly divorced his wife of 35 years, Norma Jean, married Linda Lovelace, and purchased 30-second spots extolling his qualifications for President which television stations refused to show before 10 p.m.

HIS CAMPAIGN literature, mailed in plain wrappers, featured a charming family photograph of his whip-carrying daughter, Hotbreath, his manly son, Jocko, his new wife and himself having fun at one of his No-Host Cocktail Party and Virgin Sacrifice Fund Raisers.

He was easily distinguishable from the others by the fact he was wearing socks. "I've always had this

thing about socks," he said with refreshing candor. "They really turn me on."

His most brilliant speech, entitled "Berlin and Other Erogenous Zones," was delivered to an American Legion Stag Smoker in Cleveland. In it, he came out vigorously in favor of foreign affairs, "particularly in Paris," and recounted his experiences with 23 different women (illustrated by color slides) the previous Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, the other members of the closely-knit family worked hard for his election. Hotbreath, in an exclusive interview with The Ladies Home Companion, told of her dreams and ambitions, saying it was her "insatiable desire to do something for others" that had led her to become a happy hooker.

At the same time, Jocko was telling Sports Today that his father's campaign was "a real shot in the arm" for the Winnetka Closet of the Gay Liberation Front, of which he was sergeant-at-arms.

THE FORDS were relegated to the back pages. Goodbody appeared a shoo-in. Across the land, registrars placed signs on the voting booths reading, "No one under 21 admitted without parental guidance."

But the mood of the voting public is mercurial at best. And when the ballots were counted the surprise winner was a write-in candidate, E. G. Brown Jr., a lifelong Trappist monk.

44 San Francisco Chronicle

Fri., Aug. 29, 1975

Terrence O'Flaherty
Views TV

Will Cash Love Cable?

Hollywood

"THE NAUGHTY LADIES of 'The Barbary Coast' will still be naughty but they won't be dirty," said William Shatner, the co-star of the new ABC series which will occupy an hour of "family" viewing time on Monday nights at 8 o'clock starting September 8. "We are all very conscious of the hour.

William Shatner

"It's an action adventure but our intent is to make it lighter entertainment than most such shows. Doug (McClure) and I are actors who enjoy our work and we're hoping to make this show fun. I keep hearing about actors who are tired of their jobs and tired of being in a series but, neither one of us feels that way," said Shatner.

"Bill is going to carry the heavy part of the show. I'm going to have the fun," said McClure.

"What actor can resist a series that allows him to wear all sorts of disguises to get the villain?" said Shatner. "In the pilot I play eight different people — including a Chinese laborer and a priest — but mostly I'm undercover agent Jeff Cable ..."

"Yeah, and I'm dashing casino owner Cash Conover," said McClure.

"We work together to combat criminal elements with humor and camaraderie, just as it says in the ads. Doug wanted to change the

— 6 A.M. —

③ Rhyme and Reason

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