Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement

Richard Brookhiser wrote his first cover story for National Review at age fourteen, and became the magazine’s youngest senior editor at twenty-three. William F. Buckley Jr. was Brookhiser’s mentor, hero, and admirer; within a year of Brookhiser’s arrival at the magazine, Buckley tapped him as his successor as editor-in-chief. But without warning, the relation ship soured—one day, Brookhiser returned to his desk to find a letter from Buckley unceremoniously informing him “you will no longer be my successor.”

Brookhiser remained friends and colleagues with Buckley despite the breach, and in Right Time, Right Place he tells the story of that friendship with affection and clarity. At the same time, he provides a delightful account of the intellectual and political ferment of the conservative resurgence that Buckley nurtured and led.

Witty and poignant, Right Time, Right Place tells the story of a young man and a political movement coming of age—and of the man who inspired them both.

Excellent biography of an ingenious gentleman, who also loved peanut butter.

I share this liking for PB, as well as for Buckley's vocabulary and wit. Such biographical data, on Buckley, are practically non-existent, so thanks much for the book, "Right Time, Right Place".

This was well worth the $1.24 it's selling for now, due to some local 60s color in the beginning, but it quickly becomes unreadable except as an unconscious account of what's wrong with so-called "conservatism."

Brookhiser is one of those guys whose "conservatism" is not a matter of principles [that would be 'dogmatic' and 'old-fashioned'] but simply some adolescent impulse to gain-say whatever the Times or the cool kids at college say, then eventually giving in years later. His "conservative" odyssey starts by supporting The War by making stencils and throwing paint at hippies [rather than, say, going to Vietnam himself] but never gives any apparent reason for it.

As the book continues Brookhiser acquires no principles [but does acquire a New York City Jewish psychoanalyst as a wife, which gives you some idea of his "conservatism"] but quite to the contrary, rather than learning anything he simply follows Buckley like a puppy dog as the latter continues his self- [or CIA] appointed task of neutering the "conservative movement." Everyone with ideas that might offend the Liberal Zeitgeist is first offered a place at the table so as to shock the Liberal Elite and then purged one by one when they get uppity; the ones who are already gone appear to Brookhiser only in the form of newsletters still mailed in from 'nuts' and 'racists' and 'anti-Semites;' more appear during his tenure at National Review, driven out in turn by Buckley or himself, until finally its his own turn, at which point he suddenly discovers Buckley is an unprincipled scoundrel.

At no point does any actual idea occur, to say nothing of argument or refutation; instead, old friends suddenly become embarrassing at cocktail parties and so must disappear.

I confess I stopped reading after the purge of Joe Sobran; really, anyone who takes "supply side" economics seriously [the economic equivalent of Brookhiser's unprincipled "conservatism": a non-theory promoted by non-economists to win elections against "da liberals"] is ill-qualified to denounce Sobran's harmless private hobbyhorse of Oxfordism as equivalent to "paranoia" and of a piece with antisemitism. I assume he still has the Jewish psychoanalyst to remind him of "the conservative movement"?

In its own way, useful to future historians as an account, and even more, an example, of what Yockey [one of those 'nuts'] called America's "cultural retardation."

We have come to expect good writing from Brookhiser and this is no exception. But while Brookhiser usually writes about historical figures---all of these short, succinct biographies of founding fathers are worth reading---in RTRP he describes in great detail a modern figure, Bill Buckley, for whom he worked and acknowledges as one of what George Will called "the most consequential Americans" of the 2oth Century. Brookhiser has a great capacity for capturing the essence of great figures without the need to take hundreds of pages and thousands of words to do so. He not only describes Buckley's great contributions to modern American conservative thought but he gives a wonderful sense of the man, while not flinching from pointing out some of Buckley's odd foibles. While Christopher Buckley's book about both his parents is witty, I prefer this book as both personal, thoughtful and insightful. Time for one book on WFB, go for this one.

The relationship between mentor and apprentice is a fascinating one, and Mr. Brookhiser's compulsively readable memoir captures the nuances of this dynamic better than just about anything else I have read. The fact that the mentor in this instance was the larger-than-life Mr. Buckley makes this work of great interest to the two+ generations who counted Buckley as a constant presence on their TV screens and bookshelves. We benefit from the immediacy of this work: one gets the sense that the wounds of rejection (Buckley appointed and then dismissed--seemingly arbitrarily--Brookhiser as his "successor" at National Review) are still raw, which makes for a particularly searing read. And yet this is not a hatchet job: Brookhiser loves WFB as a son would love his father. Their relationship and, by default, the inner workings of National Review across four decades, is described in novelistic detail. The many conversational asides are always enlightening and often amusing, and overall the narrative flows along effortlessly. My only issue is with Brookhiser's strident defense of the Iraq war at the very end--a lapse into polemics in a book that is ultimately above all that. Recommended.

An insider's view of National Review and William F Buckley Jr. from the late 60s through the death of WFBJr. Nostalgic and appealing for an outsider who watched during much of this period. Not likely to appeal to someone who has never heard of National Review or of WFBJr.