Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater.

Flying High

Remembering Barry Goldwater

WRITTEN BY William F. Buckley, Jr.

PUBLISHED BY Basic Books, New York, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-4650-0836-0, Softcover, pp. 304, $27.95 CND

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William F. Buckley was a lifelong and devout Catholic, but he was not above writing acerbically about his Church; for example, this in 1979: "As a Catholic, I have abandoned hope for the liturgy, which in the typical American church, is as ugly and as maladroit as if it had been composed by Robert Ingersoll and H. L, Mencken for the purpose of driving people away. The next liturgical ceremony conducted primarily for my benefit, since I have no plans to be beatified or remarried, will be my own funeral, and it is a source of great consolation to me that, at my funeral, I shall be quite dead, and will not need to listen to the accepted replacement for the old Latin liturgy."

William Buckley died at his home in Stamford, Connecticut on February 28, 2008 at the age of 83. Now, posthumously, we have his last book, and it is not polemical, or even particularly "controversial" (a word synonymous with Buckley's career), but rather an affectionate memoir of a particular time in American politics, and of a candidate whom Buckley befriended and respected. The candidate was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater who in 1964 ran for President as the Republican candidate.

Born into a family of wealth and privilege, William F. Buckley knew that to whom much is given, much is expected; he lived his life accordingly. In 1955 Buckley founded the weekly magazine National Review under whose auspices a resurgent American conservatism was born. His weekly program Firing Line established a record for television longevity (1966-99). His thrice-weekly newspaper column was syndicated in hundreds of newspapers and helped educate a generation of young conservatives.

Now where does Barry Goldwater fit into all this? Well, Goldwater was Buckley's friend. By recounting the story of their friendship, Buckley gives a brief history of recent American conservatism. The book is intensely focused on the events of one political campaign and unless the reader has a retentive memory, or a strong interest in the details of the 1964 election, interest may flag.

In the end, Barry Goldwater lost the election to Lyndon Johnson by a 2 to 1 margin. Goldwater temporarily left politics, then in 1968 successfully ran again for the U.S. Senate. He died in 1998. And what is the point of remembering Goldwater now?

"[He] defied American taboos by running for President without compromising his principles .No one else comes to mind who sustained for so long a comparable reputation for candor and courage," writes William F. Buckley.