Remembering William F. Buckley

Ater the Feb. 27 passing of conservative commentator William F. Buckley, IU faculty and Bloomington residents reflect on the historically-significant ideology his influence left on Bloomington.\nBob Tyrell, editor of American Spectator magazine, said Buckley will be remembered as one of the founders of the modern conservative movement.\nIn 1968, Buckley visited Bloomington to give a speech and meet the staff of the newly-founded magazine The Alternative, which later gained great fame as The American Spectator. At the time, the conservative movement was dwindling in strength, accumulating only miniscule amounts of members, Tyrell said.\n“I was known as a conservative, and there were a handful of conservatives on campus but we all read Buckley’s magazine,” said John Von Kannon of the Heritage Foundation and early publisher of The Alternative. “Sometimes I was criticized by my professors, but nothing too unfair.”\nBuckley became a voice for conservatism during a time when it was unusual.\n“He was the person who turned ‘conservative intellectual’ from an oxymoron into a serious phrase,” said Leslie Lenkowsky, IU professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies. \nBuckley’s strength lay not only in his writings, but in his charismatic personality and ability to sway people.\n“In public, Bill was quite a showman,” Lenkowsky said. “He cultivated the haughty persona that was even mocked in the movie Aladdin. In private, however, he was a gentleman and helped to mentor a lot of young people.”\nBut Buckley’s generosity went beyond that of just helping to mentor people, Von Kannon said. He went out of his way to perform acts of kindness.\n“In the late ‘70s, I had leukemia and was in the hospital,” Von Kannon said. “Even though we had only met four to five times, he would Fed Ex a copy of the National Review to me every two weeks with a hand written note for me. Out of all of the thousands of people he knew he always seemed to remember me. He did things like that all of the time.”\nVon Kannon said he saw a side of Buckley that most Americans never got to see. Buckley believed whole-heartedly in helping others and was an avid advocate of national service.\nLenkowsky agreed.\n“National service to him was giving young people that may have graduated from college a chance to work for a year for a charity organization such as helping people with student loan problems,” Lenkowsky said. “He wanted to create a culture where people felt an obligation to do something for our country.”