Icon of modern conservatism considers his life and service

GLEANINGS FROM AN UNPLANNED LIFE: AN ANNOTATED ORAL HISTORY

By James L. Buckley

Intercollegiate Studies Institute, $25, 308 pages, illus.

REVIEWED BY WILLIAM F. GAVIN

Sen. James L. Buckley … no, that’s Undersecretary of State James L. Buckley … no, maybe I mean Judge James L. Buckley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Or perhaps I’m talking about President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty James L. Buckley.

After reading the entertaining and informative “Gleanings From an Unplanned Life,” I am not quite certain what title to use for my friend, one-time boss and all-time conservative hero. But of one thing I am positive: This book should be read by anyone, liberal or conservative, seeking to learn more about the impact of conservatism on American politics in the last 40 years. Jim Buckley was present at the creation of modern conservatism and remains an articulate, informed and experienced defender of conservative principles.

In a series of unplanned events, which the word providential is not too strong to describe, he has turned up exactly where the action is, in the Senate, in the executive branch and the judiciary. He performed each job with the painstaking thoroughness, high principle and the genial disposition that earned him the nickname “Gentleman Jim.” He may be the only American alive who has served in a high office of each branch of the federal government.

A few years back, he once more found himself facing an unexpected challenge. As part of a program commissioned by the Historical Society of the District of Columbia to record the lives of district judges, Mr. Buckley sat for a series of interviews with Washington attorney Wendy White.

I say challenge because although he has lived and worked in Washington for almost 40 years, Mr. Buckley is not given to talking about himself or his accomplishments. But Ms. White prove to be an excellent interviewer, and the result is a rich, detailed portrait of an extraordinary man and the extraordinary times in which he has lived.

The interviews are graced by his own “annotations,” opportunities to correct or comment on the topics of the interview, or to offer opinions. And he has strong, unapologetic and at times unexpected opinions on topics including the environment, campaign election laws, judicial activism and abortion.

He talks about his birth in an elevator in a New York City hospital, his idyllic life growing up, in more than comfortable circumstances, as part of a large, lively family in rural Connecticut, his years at Yale, his service as an officer on an LST (Landing Ship Tank) in the Pacific during World War II, his experiences as a world-traveling lawyer for his family’s oil exploration business and then, of course, his life in public service.

He discusses private and public matters, (mostly public, because he still retains the wonderfully old-fashioned notion that there are things that are nobody’s business but his own), in a style combining candor, prudence, wit, civility and a quality unique to him, at least in my experience. I like to call it radical innocence, and the best way to describe it is by quoting him. In a passage dealing with his work at the Department of State, he tells of a meeting he chaired which resulted in a leak to the press. About the leak he says:

“I still don’t understand why presumably responsible adults holding sensitive positions of responsibility find it so hard to keep a confidence.”

At first, that statement seems naive in the extreme. We are, after all, talking about Washington. Everybody leaks to the press in Washington. It is not only a right, we are told, but practically a duty. Why all the fuss?

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