Cspan nearly 40 times and over the next five hourswere going to share some of those programs with you. First up tonight in 1993, Mister Buckley sat down to discuss a collection of his essays from his book happy days are here again. Here he is on cspans Interview Program from 1993, book notes. On the cover of your new book it says reflections of a libertarian journalist. Do you always call yourself a libertarian western mark. Off and on. As i of course do, its something called the movement was encouraged by me in National Review during the late 50s and the idea was to put out to the straight libertarians and conservatives how much they had in common and how effective this symbiosis would be between them. So from time to time i stressed the fact that every now and then that im a libertarian and in most of what i write theres a certain amount of it that is does not augment or diminish human liberty. Did i remember you saying maybe when you ran for mayor of new york that this may not be yo
[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good evening, folks. We are going to ahead and get started. If you havent gotten a copy of the book outside, please do so. First of all, welcome to the open Society Foundation in new york city. Its our pleasure to host you for what promises to be a terrific event for the boldly titled book, the end of White Christian america. Its my honor to introduce tonights events. I grew up in the way to sit in the United States committed beautiful state of maine and the United Church of christ of this conversation hits close to home for me and professionally. Id like to thank robert jones was known for robbie for several years and Sam Tanenhaus for joining us that id like to think Elizabeth Berg newcomer nathan mckie and the society team for putting the event together. In addition to the foundation, tonights event is cosponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of new york, Ford Foundation and the new world foundation. Im a longtime fan of robert jone
In my garage april 30. I typed out a onepage letter that said dear friend, please read this book today and then buy enough copies to send to your delegates for the 1964 Republican National convention. I typed it on my typewriter. I headed mimeograph machine in the basement i went down to the basement and put the stencil on the round thing and ground out a hundred letters. One of those letters, which was read by a friend in california who called up and said, i read it and im going to a convention this weekend, united republicans of california. Put me off 5000 copies, so i loaded them up in my Station Wagon and took them to the airport and a sent them out and that weekend we had statewide distribution in california. That california primary was the first week in june and we sold over a halfmillion copies between the first of may and the first of june in california. Where did the title come from . Barry goldwater use the title and the minutes i heard it i knew that was it. Watch this and o
You are for me with the story. The late 1950s, a young attractive president ial candidate, scion to financial fortune, a one man force field of celebrity good looks and charm, fresh off a loved one victory in his home state in the northeast and patient with the status quo under president eisenhower, itching to get the country moving again and encountering his main impediment to the white house in the form of richard m. Nixon. That description applies of course the john f. Kennedy but equally fits our subject tonight, nelson a. Rockefeller. In fact, the resemblance is more uncanny when comparing the two men intellectual interest, in the arts, the vibe, the future of latin america individual belief in Government Action to improve working conditions, advance of rights and promote nuclear disarmament. Im not interested in what i cant do rockefeller reminded his age. I want to know how i can do what i want to do and it is your job to tell me. Richard norton smith said governor rockefeller c
[inaudible] its a very good read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And tonight Sam Tanenhaus has agreed to interview randy and call out for him aspects of the biography, so its my pleasure to welcome them bothful thank you. [applause] am i good here . I can shout, so i probably dont need one of these. So Randy Boyagoda youre a novelist, and youre writing about Richard John Neuhaus. How did we get to this topic, first of all and why . Right. I started i started working on this book in some ways without even realizing it in 2009, so shortly after neuhaus died. I wrote a profile for a torontobased magazine called the walrus. Im from toronto, and it was basically an essay that argued heres the most influential canadianborn intellectual in the past 50 years that none of you have ever heard of. So i wrote this interview and i kind of left it at that. At that point i was in the midst of a terribly unreadable second academic monograph and as a rescue from that sort of project, i realized that here rea