James L. Buckley obit

James L. Buckley, R.I.P.

 

He was not on the list.

Sad news came down to us this morning: James L. Buckley, statesman, judge, writer, and brother of William F., has died at age 100. On the occasion of his centenary earlier this year, National Review ran many tributes to this great man. Matthew Continetti wrote one for the magazine. Neal B. Freeman, Jack Fowler, and Kathryn Jean Lopez honored him on the website. Neal’s tribute was an elaboration of one he had written in 2020, which you can find here.

Throughout the day and in following days, we will post more tributes to James Buckley, updating this post and the website as they are published. We invite our readers to join us in honoring this historic individual. Further tributes below:

Buckley served in the United States Senate as a member of the Conservative Party of New York State in the Republican caucus from 1971 to 1977, and in multiple positions within the Reagan administration. He was also the Republican nominee in the 1980 Connecticut Senate race, but was defeated by Democrat Chris Dodd.

In 1970, Buckley was elected to the U.S. Senate as the nominee of the Conservative Party of New York; he won the race with 39 percent of the vote and served from 1971 until 1977. During the first Reagan administration, Buckley served as Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs. He was also President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1982 to 1985.

Buckley was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on October 16, 1985. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 17, 1985, and received commission on December 17, 1985. Buckley assumed senior status on August 31, 1996. He is one of the few people in modern times to have served in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Federal government.

James Lane Buckley was born on March 9, 1923, in New York City, to Aloise Steiner and William Frank Buckley Sr., the fourth of ten children to the couple. He is the older brother of the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. and the uncle of Christopher Taylor Buckley. He is also the uncle of Brent Bozell III and political consultant William F. B. O'Reilly. His mother, from New Orleans, was of Swiss-German, German, and Irish descent, while his paternal grandparents, from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, were of Irish ancestry.

Buckley attended Millbrook School, and in 1943 earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University, where he was a member of Skull and Bones. He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942, and during World War II he participated in the battles of Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Okinawa. Buckley was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant (junior grade). in 1946. After receiving his Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School in 1949, he was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1950 and practiced law until 1953, when he joined The Catawba Corporation as vice president and director. In 1965, he managed his brother William F. Buckley, Jr.'s campaign for Mayor of New York. Meanwhile, in May 1953, he married Ann Frances Cooley, with whom he had six children before her death on December 30, 2011.

On March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party for the 1968 presidential election. After winning four primaries Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, California, on June 6.

Kennedy's death left a vacancy in the United States Senate that would be filled through an appointment by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. John W. Gardner, John Lindsay, Burke Marshall, C. Douglas Dillon, Charles Goodell, Ogden Reid, and Whitney Young were all mentioned as possible candidates for the appointment. On August 11, a spokesman for Rockefeller stated that the main choices for the appointment were Gardner, Goodell, and Reid. On September 10, Rockefeller appointed Goodell, a member of the House of Representatives from the 38th congressional district, to fill the vacancy.

On April 6, 1970, Buckley announced that he would seek the Conservative Party's senatorial nomination again. The Conservative State Committee convened inside Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan, New York City, on April 7, to select the party's nominees in the general election. Kevin P. McGovern attempted to force a primary campaign between himself and Buckley but failed to receive the 25% of delegate votes necessary for a primary. Buckley received nearly ninety percent of the delegate votes and the remainder was split between McGovern and abstaining delegates.

On June 20, F. Clifton White, Buckley's campaign manager, announced that Buckley's campaign would circulate petitions in an attempt to gain another ballot line named the Independent Alliance Party. Enough valid signatures were collected to gain the additional ballot line, but Secretary of State John P. Lomenzo ruled that the Independent Alliance's emblem, an outline of New York with Buckley's name inside, was illegal as New York's election law limited the number of times that a candidate's name could appear on a ballot line to one. Lomenzo later allowed the party onto the ballot after the emblem was changed to a shield with the letter "I" inside.

During his tenure in the United States Senate Buckley's political affiliation was referred to as Conservative-Republican of New York (C-R-N.Y). The Republican caucus in the Senate voted 36 to 3 in favor of admitting Buckley into their caucus, with Senators Jacob Javits, John Sherman Cooper, and William B. Saxbe all opposing Buckley's admittance to the caucus.

In 1971, Buckley was appointed to the air and water pollution, roads, and economic development sub-committees within the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Buckley supported Richard Nixon during the 1972 presidential election and called for the Conservative Party, which had not supported Nixon during the 1968 presidential election, to support Nixon.