Dazzler

National Review, March 24, 2008 by Jeffrey Hart

THE first time I saw Bill Buckley, in early 1955, I knew something was about to happen. Until then the established idea of a conservative was Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, a man of intellect and integrity but so lacking in charisma that he made Herbert Hoover look like Rudolph Valentino.

In 1955 I was stationed in the Naval Intelligence office in Boston but living in Cambridge near Harvard Yard. Buckley, then famous for God and Man at Yale, was scheduled to debate James Wechsler in the auditorium of Lamont Library. I managed to find a seat in the packed hall.

All heads turned when Buckley and his wife, Pat, walked down the center aisle. She was tall, carried a leopard-skin bag, and wore a large leopard-skin hat. She stole the show until Buckley's first remark after he was introduced.

"I see Professor Schlesinger there in the third row. His books would be dangerous if they weren't so boring." Above his bow tie Schlesinger didn't smile. But the auditorium full of Harvard students roared. They loved this effrontery.

This was Harvard, after all. Harvard! Where all the red bricks in the buildings and even the cracks in the pavement knew that Arthur was a Great Man. Buckley's aristocratic bravura dominated the "debate."

Wechsler never had a chance. I had not known that Buckley had been a champion debater at Yale. Wechsler was only the most recent victim.

Much later Buckley remarked of Wechsler that he was so perfectly predictable a specimen of the liberal that he should be on exhibition. On that evening at Harvard it became evident--no, spectacularly obvious--that this was no boring, green-eyeshade, Bob Taft conservatism. This was intelligent, surprising, and fun. Something was changing in the world, but we didn't know how much.

Mr. Hart is an NR senior editor.