NATIONAL
REVIEW

150 East 35th Street
New York 16, N. Y.

Phone: ORegon 9-7330

March 29, 1963

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

Publisher:
WILLIAM A. RUSHER

Editors:
L. BRENT BOZELL
JAMES BURNHAM
WILLMOORE KENDALL
FRANK S. MEYER
WILLIAM F. RICKENBACKER

Managing Editor:
PRISCILLA L. BUCKLEY

Assistant Publisher:
J. P. MCFADDEN

Advertising Manager:
MICHAEL M. MOONEY

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
6 Divinity Ave.
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

Perhaps you have yourself had to write in the past, perhaps you will have to do so in the future, to your friends and soul-mates, to advertise the necessities of your hospital, or your college, or your Red Cross, or whatever, and no doubt you find such letters as difficult to compose as I do this one, which is written in behalf of *National Review*. I write anyway - as you may have done - because I feel that what I write to try to secure is worth the humiliation involved in asking others to make sacrifices; and because I feel that in the end it is demonstrable that the contribution I write you to ask for is an act of faith in the future of that most extraordinary nation which God was so good as to make us heir to.

I speak of the troubles of *National Review*. A year ago I wrote to those who had regularly contributed to our annual fund drive, in a spirit of cautious economic ebullience. I said, not that *National Review* would be on its feet in 1963, or even in 1964, but that the indices were flatteringly optimistic, what with the rise in circulation and advertising revenues. One day, I wrote elatedly, I might face the exhilarating duty of writing to say that all was well, that the magazine our readers had so patiently subsidized over so long a period had finally become

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self-sufficient. It is my just punishment to have to write to all our readers
today, with the heavy heart that comes from reading our adamantine financial
statements, to say quite frankly that the future of *National Review* is more
gravely threatened than at any time during the past four years.

You will ask, as I should do if I were receiving this letter, Why?
Why on earth? A fair question, in search of an answer to which I and my
associates have spent many painful hours. Our circulation remains up - we
are the largest journal of opinion in America. Our advertising revenues are
up. Our influence is demonstrably greater. And yet our operating deficit
is larger this past year, by far, than the year before.

Question. Have we mismanaged the magazine's affairs? I hope you
will resist the temptation to believe that this automatically is the conclu-
sion to be drawn. What happened is this. During 1961 we had an extraordinary
rise in circulation. Between September (1961) and December alone, we had an
increase of over 35 per cent. On the basis of that increase I wrote rhap-
sodically to declare that in the future we might hope to play in green
pastures. Then, during 1962, we inherited the liability of servicing 1961's
subscriptions. Costs rose. Postage rose. Printing and paper rose. And
renewals did not come in at the rate we had become used to, let alone at the
rate necessary to underwrite higher costs. A difference of ten per cent in
the renewal rate means fifty-six thousand dollars to us!

The result was the exposure of a delusion. You can receive a
million subscriptions in December, on the basis of which you will figure you
are on top of the world; but if by the next December you have not received a
consistent number of renewals or new subscriptions, or complementary advertis-
ing revenues, you will find that during the year you have spent a great deal
of money requiting year-old obligations - and that you can end up flat broke.

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As we have done. So acute was our situation in early January that I had to turn to the banks for a loan of fifty thousand dollars. I was able to get it by posting securities owned by my brothers and sisters. It was a costly sacrifice; but without the money to pay our most highly abused creditors, *National Review* would have had to suspend publication. And now, before the end of March, we shall have to negotiate with our printers, as we have done during the past four years, to suspend billing us until August - the cumulative amount then due being paid out of the results of this fund appeal, if the money is forthcoming. The alternative is bankruptcy. An un-American word, I once heard someone say jocularly. He was quite wrong, of course. Bankruptcy is a part of the free enterprise system - if an enterprise, whether a shoe factory or a blood bank, cannot get the support it needs to continue in operation, it must close down; and the melancholy question before the house is whether *National Review*'s eighth year is to be its last.

*The Nation* magazine, which for several generations has done its absolute best to make America uninhabitable, recently announced an increase in its annual subscription rate to $10.00. *Human Events*, the excellent conservative newsletter, ran into precisely the same problem we ran into this year, and has had to beseech its readership, of whom I am a grateful member, to come to its rescue, or face its discontinuance - even though its circulation is at an all-time high. The whole publishing business is sick. The *New York Times* during the first nine months of 1961 grossed eighty-three million dollars - and ran a net loss of three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars! (Perhaps the Kennedy Administration will come around belatedly to *National Review*'s reiterated position on the *Times*, that it is a Depressed Area.) *Collier's* with its three million readers, and *Coronet* with its three and one-half million, went out of business. Most publishers have had to go

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into corollary enterprises, and *National Review* continues to hope its two
little radio stations will some day provide for it. But meanwhile. . .

*National Review* hopes - and fully intends - to work miracles in public affairs; but it cannot pay the printer, as we had to do last year, eighty-five thousand dollars more than the year before, or the post office, as we had to do, twenty-seven thousand dollars more than the year before, without the continued aid of those of our readers who believe that a dollar invested in this journal will go at least as far as a dollar invested in the local political unit, or in the local college or philanthropy, towards preserving a nation fit for free men to live in.

One is naturally tempted to wonder - I certainly wonder from time to
time, as do the editors and writers and those others who work so very hard for
the enterprise - is it all worth while? Are we getting anywhere? If we are
not, I pray the Lord so to inform me, that I may retire from a grisly effort
in irrelevance, and give myself the great relief of ceasing to bother you.

But we must wring despair by the neck until she is dead. *National Review* is worth one hundred times the effort. The cumulative impact of the mind and heart, wit and passion of James Burnham and Frank Meyer, Brent Bozell and Russell Kirk, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn and William Rickenbacker, of Stan Evans and the other hundred persons who wrote in *National Review* last year, is hardly wasted on an impassive, unyielding destiny, of the kind that dominates the world of the Marxist.

Recently I made note of some of the public references to *National Review* over a single thirty-day period. That month's issue of *Encounter*, the most influential monthly in the English-speaking world, published in London, reported on the American right wing, and noted that "*National Review*. . . is

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regarded as perhaps the main intellectual pillar of Right wing conservatism."

... *Harper's* editor William White wrote in his column that "... *National Review*. . . is the best reasoned and best-bred voice, however much one may dissent from its conclusions, articulated in much the best English style among all the organs of the Right." ... Stan Evans' book, *Revolt on the Campus*, appeared with the following passage: "Asked to name individuals or publications that have been most effective in crystallizing their views, the students [polled] pointed to two influences in particular, Senator Barry Goldwater and his book, 'The Conscience of a Conservative', and *National Review* magazine. Asked to name the materials which they read most frequently, the students singled out *National Review* (74%), *Time* (50%), *U. S. News and World Report* (40%)." ... The Research Report of the august Opinion Research Corporation (Vol. XX, No. 1) questioned American college students from coast to coast: "Whom do you regard as important leaders and spokesmen for the conservative viewpoint today - in politics, journalism, or education?"

Senator Barry Goldwater 88%
National Review 63%
Senator John G. Tower 39%
...etc.

... Said the *New York Times* Magazine for April 8, 1962: "The doctrinal wrench the 'liberals' are seeking to give the Republican Party, however, is mild compared to what the 'new conservatives' propose. Here the argument is carried by Senator Barry Goldwater with some brilliant assistance by the editors of *National Review*." ... Said Senator Tower on the floor of the Senate: "National Review magazine [is] a leading exponent of and spokesman for the growing strength of political conservatism in America. . . and I wish to associate myself with it. . ."

These are indices, nothing more. They tend to confirm only a single thing, that the editors of *National Review* have made some headway in adver-

tising to a world dominated by Liberals that there is now another presence in
the room where the discussions go forward, that that presence is sustained by
bright and wise and devoted men and women who will write their hearts out to
save this country, and to pass on to our children the free institutions we
love, without which the salt of existence is gone. We can do what we can,
our very best, some of it not good enough; always we need to do more and
better, in our labor to write for America the kind of testimonial she deserves.
But we are helpless without you. It is in your power to make us dumb, to cut
off the tongue of "the principal instrument of the American conservative
renaissance." We can only hope and pray that *National Review* means enough to
you to cause you to make yet another sacrifice, a very special and painful
sacrifice in this very blighted year; to make it possible for us to continue
to work in your behalf, and the nation's, and ours; that you will indicate
that you believe the struggle is worth making, that so long as you are stand-
ing, and we are too, we are not down, nor is America.

Forgive me my importunities, but understand they are made with a
deep regard for your privacy, and for your generosity; and that I violate the
one, and appeal to the other, only because we are in dire straits, as is the
free world.

If you wish to help *National Review* to survive, please fill out the enclosed pledge form and return it in the enclosed business reply envelope.

We should know by the first of April whether we can go on publishing.

Needed: 25 persons to pledge $1,000      $25,000
100 persons to pledge      500            50,000
750 persons to pledge      100            75,000
                              ______
                              $150,000

There is no way in which we can adequately express our appreciation,
but the Board of Directors has voted to send as a small token of our gratitude
to all who contribute $100 or more, a copy of Mr. Buckley's new book, "Rumbles
Left and Right", which he will be happy to autograph, and on which he will
remit the royalties to National Review.