Multimedia

Memorial Service for William F. Buckley

- Video, C-SPAN, April 4, 2008.
Summary: A memorial service for William F. Buckley was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Only a portion of the service was shown, featuring eulogies by former Secretary Henry Kissinger and Mr. Buckley ‘s son Christopher.

An Appreciation of William F. Buckley

- Video, Charlie Rose, February 28, 2008.
Summary: William F. Buckley died on February 27, 2008. Buckley was an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, and hosted the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999.C

Tribute to William F. Buckley

- Video, C-SPAN, October 6, 2005.
Summary: On the 50th anniversary of National Review, the magazine’s founder, William F. Buckley, Jr. was honored by President Bush. The president paid tribute to Mr. Buckley and the magazine’s influence on political thinking and the conservative… More

Future of Conservatism

- Video, C-SPAN, December 9, 2004.
Summary: William F. Buckley, Jr. and his son Christopher Buckley made their first joint stage appearance to consider the future of American conservatism in a mock episode of Firing Line, William Buckley’s former television program. Christopher Buckley… More

In Depth with William F. Buckley Jr.

- Video, BookTV, C-SPAN, April 2, 2000.
Summary: Mr. Buckley talked about his body of published works, people who have influenced his thinking, and his political philosophies. He also responded to viewer telephone calls, faxes, and electronic mail. He founded the National Review in 1955 and was… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley “Professor Galbraith Names Names”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 18, 1999, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: John Kenneth Galbraith Summary: John Kenneth Galbraith had just written, Mr. Buckley tells us, a book of “biographical sketches of mighty men and women he has known,” which was dubbed “Name-Dropping” as a “neat job of… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley “Kissinger’s Years of Renewal”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on April 15, 1999, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: Henry Kissinger Summary: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s latest volume of memoirs, “Years of Renewal,” covers the period from Richard Nixon’s departure from the White House in August of 1974 to Gerald Ford’s… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley “Tom Wolfe and His Critics”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 19, 1999, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: Tom Wolfe Summary: Tom Wolfe had just published his first novel in 11 years, “A Man in Full,” to significant, but not universal, acclaim. Amongst the negative review were ones by John Updike and Norman Mailer because, according to Wolfe,… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley “Is New York City Out from Under?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 13, 1999, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: Rudy Giuliani Summary: Mr. Buckley reminds us, that Theodore White once wrote that New York City was ungovernable. Prior mayors proved White correct. Then Ed Koch took over, followed by Rudy Giuliani, and things were looking up. Mayor Giuliani begins… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Goldwater Revisited”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 9, 1998, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: Barry Goldwater Summary: Senator Goldwater had died at the age of 89, in his beloved Phoenix. Before showing clips from his last Firing Line appearance, Mr. Buckley recalls his old friend and comrade in arms: “He was a considerable figure in… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Looking Back on Bosnia”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 9, 1998, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: Richard C. Holbrooke Summary: “Bosnia” in this show’s title is a synecdoche for the whole explosive region of the Balkans, of which Kosovo was currently the likeliest to erupt. An absorbing session with Richard C. Holbrooke, who,… More

A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the ACLU Is Full of Baloney

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 4, 1998, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guests: Lino A. Graglia, William A. Donohue, Robert H. Knight, Ira Glasser, Nadine Strossen, Leon Botstein, Barry W. Lynn Summary: Nadine Strossen starts by stating that, “The ACLU’s mission is unique and critically important: to defend all… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Did Camelot Have a Dark Side?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 13, 1998, uploaded to YouTube on March 4, 2015.
Guests: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Thomas C. Reeves Summary: Seymour Hersh had just published “The Dark Side of Camelot,” about John F. Kennedy’s private life. On this show a Kennedy loyalist and a former Kennedy loyalist offer a deeply… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Problems of Gay Life”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 23, 1997, uploaded to YouTube on March 4, 2015.
Guest: David Brudnoy, Arianna Huffington Summary: David Brudnoy, a veteran libertarian journalist (and frequent contributor to “National Review”), is also a homosexual who, it having become widely known that he had nearly died of complications of… More

A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Social Security Should Be Privatized

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 4, 1996, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guests: Pierre S. Du Pont, John C. Goodman, Peter G. Peterson, Henry J. Aaron, Robert Eisner, Robert Kuttner, Theodore R. Marmor Summary: Is the Social Security system a Ponzi scheme that can’t long survive the retirement of the last baby-boomers, as… More

A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That All Immigration Should Be Drastically Reduced

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 6, 1995, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guests: Peter Brimelow, Daniel Stein, Arianna Huffington, Leon Botstein, Ed Koch, Frank Sharry, Ira Glasser Summary: Moderator Michael Kinsley starts out by drawing attention to the text of the resolution: “Note that word ‘all.’ This debate… More

A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Women’s Movement Has Been Disastrous

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 7, 1994, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guests: Betty Friedan, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Arianna Huffington, Helen Alvare, Karen S. Burstein, Camille Paglia, Kathryn Kolbert Summary: Anyone who thinks “the women’s movement” is monolithic should watch this show. Come to think of it,… More

A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That the Death Penalty Is a Good Thing

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 24, 1994, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guests: Ed Koch, Walter Berns, Susan Boleyn, Ira Glasser, Leon Botstein, Stephen B. Bright, Bryan Stevenson Summary: Many of the arguments regarding the death penalty are familiar: the disproportion between the number of murders and murderers executed; the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Why Are We in a Recession?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on October 6, 1992, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guest: John Kenneth Galbraith Summary: Mr. Buckley and his old friend and adversary, John Kenneth Galbraith, occasionally have such a good time slanging each other that they have to remind themselves to get back to the show’s primary topic, the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “New Insights on the Russian Revolution”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 13, 1990, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guest: Richard Pipes Summary: A gripping look at the Soviet Union, with Richard Pipes, a man who has spent all his adult life studying it. Pipes: “There are signs that the right-wing groups are becoming very impatient with all of this, and it’s… More

A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That Free-Market Competitiveness Is Best for America

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 13, 1989, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guests: Jack Kemp, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Newt Gingrich, George S. McGovern, Gary Hart, Pat Schroeder, John Kenneth Galbraith Summary: In his introduction for this debate on the free market, moderator Michael Kinsley explains: “I don’t think you… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Dirty Rock Lyrics”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 9, 1988, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guests: Tipper Gore, Doug Simmons Summary: This inaugural episode of Firing Line in a half hour format features a discussion of censorship, freedom of expression and the American music industry, with cofounder of the Parents Music Resource Center Tipper Gore… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Textbook Controversy in Tennessee”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on October 10, 1986, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guests: Michael P. Farris, Timothy B. Dyk, Vicki Frost, Faye P. Taylor Summary: An illuminating look at a deep division within our society. The case being referred to as “Scopes II” had been set in motion three years earlier, when Vicki Frost… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Terrorism: Viewed from Abroad”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 30, 1986, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guests: Benjamin Netanyahu, Claude de Kemoularia Summary: What is terrorism? Can we accept Benjamin Netanyahu’s definition–“the systematic and deliberate attack, the murdering, maiming, and menacing of innocents, civilians, for political… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Bill Buckley and Firing Line Get Roasted”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 14, 1986, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guests: Jeff Greenfield, John Kenneth Galbraith, Harriet F. Pilpel, Henry Kissinger, Eugene J. McCarthy, Tom Wolfe Summary: This interrogation of Mr. Buckley by favorite guests John Kenneth Galbraith, Harriet F. Pilpel, Henry Kissinger, Eugene J. McCarthy,… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Where Is the GOP Headed?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 11, 1985, uploaded to YouTube on November 11, 2011.
Guests: Newt Gingrich and Bill Green Summary: Mr. Gingrich was already a leader of the conservative wing of the GOP, and Mr. Green was prominent among the remnant of “Rockefeller Republicans.” Ronald Reagan having just become, barring the repeal… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Election: A View from New York”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on August 31, 1984, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guest: Ed Koch Summary: Mayor Ed Koch surveys the political scene as the dust settles from the national conventions. One sample: “I drive people in my own party crazy-angry with me, because I will say I disagree with President Reagan’s philosophy;… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Confidence and Betrayal”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on February 22, 1983, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guests: Florence Cohalan, Harriet F. Pilpel, Norman R. Tamarkin Summary: A profound discussion among, as Mr. Buckley puts it, “a very thoughtful lawyer, a very thoughtful doctor, and a very thoughtful priest”–Harriet Pilpel, Dr. Norman… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Economy and the Blacks”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 13, 1982, uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2015.
Guest: Jesse Jackson Summary: Operation PUSH was holding its annual convention, on the theme “Black America: An Economic Common Market,” emphasizing the “means of using black purchasing power to stimulate economic activity and… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Is Modern Architecture Disastrous?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on October 1, 1981, uploaded to YouTube on May 2, 2011.
Guest: Tom Wolfe Summary: A rip-roaring attack on the shibboleths of modern architecture–and with a Firing Line rarity, visual aids (illustrations from Wolfe’s book). Wolfe: “The irony of this is all these forms were created for the workers… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Question of Namibia”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 17, 1981, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guests: Peter Kalangula; Aryeh Neier Summary: Father Kalangula’s organization in South West Africa (a/k/a Namibia) had won an internationally observed democratic election against the Soviet client group, SWAPO (the South West Africa People’s… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Do We Need a Foreign Policy Doctrine?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 15, 1981, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guest: George Ball Summary: Mr. Ball is a stern critic of the Reagan Administration, which he sees as viewing the Soviet Union as “the Antichrist threatening civilization with its pernicious doctrines.” But despite his background as a member of… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Are We Menaced by Moral Majority?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 22, 1981, uploaded to YouTube on March 5, 2015.
Guest: Jerry Falwell Summary: Whether or not one agrees with him on specific moral or theological points, Reverend Jerry Falwell ably defends his organization against accusations–by, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union and the President of… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Abscam Controversy”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 5, 1981, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guest: Michael Tigar Summary: It was a year earlier, as Mr. Buckley reminds us, that Abscam hit the front pages: “The modus operandi, now widely known, called for an FBI agent, posing as a sheik, or as a sheik’s representative, to offer money,… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Crime and Punishment: Gary Gilmore”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on October 11, 1979, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Norman Mailer Summary: A low-key and thoughtful appearance by the usually boisterous author of “The Executioner’s Song.” This new novel–on the life and death of Gary Gilmore, the murderer who demanded to be executed by the State… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Human Rights in Vietnam”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 6, 1979, uploaded to YouTube on November 11, 2011.
Guests: Joan Baez and Ginetta Sagan Summary: Miss Baez had just taken out a full-page ad calling on Hanoi to stop its imperialism and its torture of political prisoners; 88 of her old antiwar comrades had co-signed the ad, but another dozen–including… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Television Machine”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 29, 1979, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guests: Dorothy Fuldheim, Ben Stein Summary: Is the most remarkable thing about present-day television, as Ben Stein maintains in this vivid exchange, its pervasive left-wing, anti-business bias? Or is it, as Dorothy Fuldheim argues, the fact that through… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Mission of the Pope”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 6, 1978, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Malachi Martin Summary: The new pope being discussed on this show is not John Paul II but his predecessor, John Paul I, who would die a month after his election. Nonetheless, Malachi Martin gives a detail-filled account of why Pope Paul VI had sought… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “G. Gordon Liddy: An Enigma”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 11, 1978, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: G. Gordon Liddy Summary: G. Gordon Liddy had spent 52 months in prison for his role in Watergate, and had applied his tough-minded view of the world to life behind bars. Amongst other insights, in prison, he tells us, informers are regarded as the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Ten Years of Firing Line”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 20, 1976, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guests: Richard Howard Stafford Crossman, Germaine Greer, Harold Macmillan, Clare Boothe Luce, Mary McCarthy, Dame Rebecca West, Norman Mailer, Stephen Spender, Hugh Kenner, George S. McGovern, Morris K. Udall, John Enoch Powell, Ian Douglas Smith, Sir Oswald… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Tom Wolfe and The Painted Word”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 9, 1975, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Tom Wolfe Summary: “The Painted Word” had angered whichever portions of the intelligentsia had not previously been hostile to Tom Wolfe. As Mr. Buckley points out, the book mercilessly dissects “a social phenomenon, the hold of a few… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Feminism”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on March 31, 1975, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Clare Boothe Luce Summary: The peg for this show was the Equal Rights Amendment, at the time stalled in the state legislatures. But the discussion between these two old friends soon deepens in surprising ways. Clare Boothe Luce: “Do you think… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Integrity and Journalism”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on March 10, 1975, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guests: Tom Wicker, William Safire Summary: This conversation among a card-carrying liberal, a card-carrying conservative, and a Republican moderate winds up centering on the revolt at Attica Prison three years earlier–the subject of Tom Wicker’s… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Democratic Culture”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on November 15, 1974, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Leslie Fiedler Summary: Democracy per se doesn’t get into this rich discussion of culture much, with the much-admired and much-criticized American critic, Leslie Fiedler, but the American character does, as we go from Mark Twain to soap operas to… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Amnesty, with Ramsey Clark”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 3, 1974, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Ramsey Clark Summary: Another go at the debate over whether to offer unconditional amnesty to draft dodgers and deserters, in a high-energy exchange between our guest, Ramsey Clark, who feels that this is “a decent, important thing for this… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Should the United States Disarm?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 10, 1974, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Les Aspin Summary: Rep. Les Aspin had been, as Mr. Buckley reminds us, “one of Secretary McNamara’s whiz kids in the Pentagon,” and was now one of the Pentagon’s sharpest critics. Host and guest agree that, as Rep. Aspin puts… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Revisionist Historians”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 23, 1974, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Dean Rusk Summary: Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, reviled at the time by the elite press and revisionist historians, was exiled, as his Ivy League friends saw it, to the wilds of the University of Georgia. A rich discussion starting with the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Tax Reform”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 21, 1974, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Stanley S. Surrey Summary: A thoughtful discussion of the federal tax system between Mr. Buckley and Stanley S. Surrey; both men have spent much of their professional lives studying it, and are able to explain it to people who have not done so.… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Heredity, IQ, and Social Issues”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on October 16, 1973, uploaded to YouTube on March 25, 2011.
Guest: Thomas G. Bever, Richard J. Herrnstein Summary: The second show in the series on human behavior, this one on the explosive subject of heritability of IQ. “Explosive,” because of its implications for social policy. Mr. Herrnstein had stirred… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “What Now for the Ghetto?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 24, 1973, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Thomas Bradley Summary: Thomas Bradley was the first black mayor of a predominantly white major city; previously he had been a Los Angeles policeman, and sat on the City Council. This discussion begins, inevitably, with the question of race, but… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Proposals for Welfare”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on April 23, 1973, uploaded to YouTube on December 19, 2012.
Guest: Jimmy Carter Summary: This show was the first nationally televised appearance of Jimmy Carter. In this encounter, Governor Carter sounds quite conservative in talking about welfare and incentives, and specifically the advantages in having job-training… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “What to Do about the Post Office”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on April 23, 1973, uploaded to YouTube on March 2, 2015.
Guest: Ernest F. Hollings Summary: The spirited conversation with Senator Ernest F. Hollings–who strongly opposed the way the quasi-privatization of the Post Office had been done–ranges from permitting real competition in postal services, to the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Radical Chic”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 17, 1970, uploaded to YouTube on January 13, 2014.
Guest: Tom Wolfe Summary: Tom Wolfe–one of the leading exponents of New Journalism–was now, with his white suits and his dramatic manner, becoming a prominent public figure. “Radical Chic,” describing Leonard Bernstein’s party for the Black… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Muhammad Ali and the Negro Movement”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 12, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 16, 2010.
Guest: Muhammad Ali Summary: When Mr. Clay joined the Black Muslims, his draft board reversed its earlier determination (made in order to keep him out of the Armed Forces so that he could continue to box) that he was not sufficiently intelligent to serve.… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Republic of New Africa”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on November 18, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guest: Milton Henry Summary: “The Republic of New Africa” is not a new name for, say, South Africa: it refers instead to a proposal by a group of American blacks who “don’t believe,” as Mr. Henry puts it, “there’s… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Politics and Show Biz”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on October 7, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on February 9, 2011.
Guest: Orson Bean Summary: Another look, deliciously offbeat, at artists’ tendency to go left. One sample from Mr. Bean: “The principle of love is one thing, and love is another. Anyone who is capable of loving has to be capable of hating. And… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Cold War”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 23, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on February 9, 2011.
Guest: Zbigniew Brzezinski Summary: A splendid discussion of the Cold War with a man whose views are informed by his Polish upbringing, his academic studies, and his experience at the Policy Planning Council of the State Department. One sample: WFB: “I… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Money Troubles”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 9, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on February 9, 2011.
Guests: Joseph Barr, Arthur Edward Burns Summary: The federal deficits were becoming a matter of serious worry, and not only to Republicans. Although Mr. Barr is a member of the Johnson Administration and Mr. Burns is a lifelong Democrat, both agree–and… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Hippies”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 3, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 15, 2010.
Guests: Jack Kerouac; Ed Sanders; Lewis Yablonsky Summary: Hold onto your hat for this free-for-all among four men who aren’t simply coming from different directions–they’re in different universes. Sanders: “The problem with terms like… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Rib Uncaged: Women and the Church”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 24, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on February 11, 2011.
Guests: Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sidney Cornelia Callahan Summary: This show proves to be less of a bare-knuckle battle and more of a conversation than one might have expected, ranging back and forth from the historical development of… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Armies of the Night”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 28, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 15, 2010.
Guest: Norman Mailer Summary: This surprisingly genial conversation starts with the subject of Norman Mailer–as most conversations with Norman Mailer do–and goes on from there. Buckley: “Oh, sure, I’m very anxious to discuss [Mr.… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Avant Garde”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 7, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 15, 2010.
Guest: Allen Ginsberg Summary: Some installments of Firing Line would not lose much if the video faded out, but this one is an exception: Ginsberg’s hair (as Buckley puts it, “he will wear his hair long until everybody else does; then he will cut… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Culture of the Left”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on February 26, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Malcolm Muggeridge Summary: “He calls himself,” says Buckley in his introduction to the first of Muggeridge’s several appearances on Firing Line, “a man of the Left. . . . His apostasies from the Left are, however, so numerous… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Philby and Treason”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on February 26, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Rebecca West Summary: Dame Rebecca, who had recently published The New Meaning of Treason, was invited on Firing Line to discuss Kim Philby and his spectacular defection to the Soviet Union. For connoisseurs of a certain sort of British intellectual,… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Wallace Crusade”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 24, 1968, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: George Wallace Summary: Mr. Buckley had sharply criticized Mr. Wallace in print, both for his once-adamant attachment to segregation and for his New Deal statism, and Mr. Wallace came on Firing Line determined not to give an inch. Wallace: “Name… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Was Goldwater a Mistake?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 14, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on April 7, 2011.
Guest: Mark Hatfield Summary: Senator Hatfield, from the liberal side of the Republican Party, positions himself perfectly in his opening answer: Goldwater wasn’t a mistake in a parliamentary sense, because “the Republican Party deliberately… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Mobilizing the Poor”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on December 11, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on March 28, 2011.
Guest: Saul David Alinsky Summary: The common aim of all Mr. Alinsky’s organizations is to mobilize the poor–mobilize them by whatever means comes to hand (marches, sit-ins)–to demand decent housing conditions or whatever the local need may… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Struggle for Democracy in Brazil”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on November 13, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on February 23, 2011.
Guest:Brazilian statesman Carlos Lacerda Summary: Mr. Lacerda had been known for decades as a vigorous opponent of most of Brazil’s political class. Today’s discussion focuses on the difficulties of establishing democracy in a region traditionally… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Medicare”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 25, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guest: Wilbur Cohen Summary: Mr. Cohen’s public career had begun, as Buckley reminds us, in the Roosevelt Administration, where he was research head of the Committee on Economic Security, which drafted the original Social Security Act. In this return… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Future of the GOP”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 14, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Richard Nixon Summary: Nixon, attempting to come back after losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California gubernatorial election in 1962, casts his remarks so as to hold onto conservatives who had voted for Goldwater without losing the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “A Foreign Policy for the GOP”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 11, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guest: Charles Percy Summary: Senator Percy is a bit given to the stump-speech mode (“I truly believe that we will fight Communism just as effectively, if not more so, [by not] fighting it just in Havana and in Hanoi. We have to fight Communism in… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Is the World Funny?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 7, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on May 7, 2010.
Guest: Groucho Marx Summary: The exchanges are frustrating at times, Mr. Marx being so relentlessly, well, Groucho. But it’s fun and sometimes illuminating to see this mythic figure on someone else’s turf. (The answer to the title question, by the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Is It Possible to Be a Good Governor?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on July 6, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Ronald Reagan Summary: This first appearance of Ronald Reagan on Firing Line took place six months after he had been sworn in as governor. “There is much speculation,” Buckley begins, “on the subject of his future, speculation which I… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Decline of Anti-Communism”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 29, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Fred Schwarz Summary: Buckley introduces his guest as a full-time anti-Communist who “has never made it easy for his critics. He is infuriatingly sober and . . . he has shown an understanding of the humorous dimension of it all.” This show… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Vietnam Protests”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on June 26, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Benjamin Spock Summary: Dr. Spock, Mr. Buckley begins by recounting, has said that the threat to our children from “nuclear annihilation” is “a thousand times greater than all the dangers from the usual children’s… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “How to Protest”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 1, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Dwight Macdonald Summary: Mr. Macdonald had recently been an organizer of the “Step Out Movement”–that is, to step out of a hall where Vice President Humphrey would be speaking, in protest against the Vietnam War. This show offers a… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Regular in Politics”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 1, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Carmine De Sapio Summary: De Sapio was the Tammany Hall “boss” defeated in 1963 by a young “reform Democrat” named Edward Koch. Buckley attempts in this hour to explore how party leaders actually wield their power, but De Sapio… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Censorship and the Production Code”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on April 10, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2010.
Guest: Otto Preminger Summary: A discussion of artistic freedom and censorship with a leading producer, one of whose films (The Moon Is Blue) had run into trouble with the Motion Picture Production Code. A spirited discussion with a man who, despite the… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The World of LSD”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on April 10, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 29, 2010.
Guest: Timothy Leary Summary: We all remember Dr. Leary as a proselytizer for LSD; we’ve mostly forgotten that he had started out as a doctor of clinical psychology and that he had made LSD the basis of a “new religion.” On this show, he… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Is There a Role for a Third Party?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on March 8, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 29, 2010.
Guest: Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. Summary: Despite his own defeat, Mr. Roosevelt answers the title question with an emphatic yes. “I think that the role of the third party has been, especially the Liberal Party. It has been often said in jest that its… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Black Power”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on March 7, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guest: Nat Hentoff Summary: Mr. Hentoff had, Mr. Buckley tells us, written that “We must have black power to overcome white power.” What exactly is meant by black power? Does it matter whether the person talking about it is the Harlem teacher who… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Politics and the Press”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on March 7, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guest: Tom Wicker Summary: A colorful discussion of that already old topic, bias in the media, in this case starting with the question, “Would the New York Times ever refer to an ‘ultra-liberal Republican’?” Wicker:… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “LBJ and Vietnam”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on March 6, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guests: Vance Hartke and Dickerman Williams Summary: As Buckley introduces him, Senator Hartke “is perhaps best known, at this point in his career, as one of the leaders in the growing army of former friends and admirers of Lyndon Johnson.” This… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Future of the UN”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 19, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guest: Francis T. P. Plimpton Summary: The United Nations had been energetically debating the right of Rhodesia to declare independence unilaterally and the right of South Africa to continue to exercise its League of Nations mandate over South West Africa.… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Role of the Advocate”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 19, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guest: F. Lee Bailey Summary: An often surprising exploration of criminal jurisprudence with a guest who, as Mr. Buckley puts it, “if any of you should commit a murder. . . is your man.” Buckley: “Do you believe that the right to refuse to… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Academic Freedom and Berkeley”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 16, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guest: Harold Taylor Summary: We eventually get to Berkeley–where the Free Speech Movement and associated radicalisms had completely broken down academic discipline–but before that, we have a never-the-twain-shall-meet discussion of which views… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “LBJ and the Intellectuals”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on January 12, 1967, uploaded to YouTube on July 15, 2010.
Guest: Hans Joachim Morgenthau. Summary: A rich discussion of our political culture, starting with the Johnson administration’s confused objectives in Vietnam (Morgenthau: “Does it want self-determination for South Vietnam at the risk of a… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “Are Public Schools Necessary?”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 12, 1966, uploaded to YouTube on January 24, 2014.
Guest: Paul Goodman Summary: Buckley begins by saying of guest Paul Goodman, “Where he stands, ideologically, in conventional terms, it is hard to say. Probably no one would wish either to claim him altogether, or to disclaim him altogether.” And… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “The Playboy Philosophy”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on September 12, 1966, uploaded to YouTube on May 10, 2010.
Guest: Hugh Hefner Summary: Between these two antagonists one might have expected a heated debate, but what we get instead is a serious discussion of sexual ethics in the latter part of the 20th century. Hugh Hefner: “The philosophy really I think is an… More

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. “McCarthyism: Past, Present, Future”

- Firing Line Videos, Hoover Institution, taped on May 16, 1966, uploaded to YouTube on June 2, 2010.
Guest: Leo Cherne Summary: Mr. Buckley seeks, with his old friend and adversary Mr. Cherne, to explore, as he puts it, why Joseph McCarthy’s “oversimplifications were judged to be almost unique and highly damaging . . . whereas the contemporary… More