William F. Buckley, Jr.

This late 1980's work was the first biography (or biographical examination) of Buckley, written by Judis, a liberal. Buckley for whatever reason freely allowed Judis access to his papers, offices and other resources. What resulted was a mild attack piece that portrayed the student Buckley as having possible futures of either academic seriousness or media slumming, unwisely taking the latter. This is not completely convincing, as WFB built a position for himself and postwar (ww2) conservatism that did two things. First, his abilities and output helped form some kind of intellectual basis that helped his movement weather the lean years of the 1960's. Second, prior to the rightist preachers of the 1980's he established precedent for religious underpinnings of rightist thought, as opposed to the 1950's situation in which a voter on the right could be an Eisenhower Republican with no necessary connection to religious issues. Judis suggests these matters but leaves it to later commentators to look deeply. This book was, however, the first basically biographical attempt to show Buckley in high relief.