Columnists: The Sniper

(7 of 10)

Shocked Administration. After graduating from Millbrook at the head of his class, Bill studied briefly at the University of Mexico, then was drafted into the Army in 1944. Assigned to intelligence work along the Mexican border, he arrived the day the Japanese surrendered, and spent most of his time lecturing Mexican-American recruits on personal hygiene. After his discharge, he went to Yale, where he taught Spanish and toured with the debating team. Very large on campus (Torch Honor Society, Fence Club, Elizabethan Club, Skull and Bones), he became chairman of the Yale Daily News in his junior year and used its editorial column to disseminate his heterodox views.

Chosen class orator for alumni day 1950, Buckley submitted a speech rebuking the university for its aimless liberalism and lack of a sense of mission. It was turned down by a shocked administration. "They all figured I was a bright, facile guy who just didn't understand," says Buckley. "So, en passant, I mentioned it to a publisher. He was patronizing, but liked my brashness and said go ahead." In July 1950, Buckley married a Vassar Girl, Pat Taylor; in September, after a "hedonistic summer," he sat down and "batted out" God and Man at Yale.

God and Man rocked the Yale campus—and the world beyond. Buckley debunked "academic freedom" as a screen behind which the faculty was indoctrinating gullible students in liberalism and atheism; he even named the offending professors and exposed what he supposed to be their brainwashing techniques. The liberal academic establishment rose in wrath against this upstart. "As a believer in God, a Republican, and a Yale graduate," wrote McGeorge Bundy at the time, "I find that the book is dishonest in its use of facts, false in its theory, and a discredit to its author."

Professors on several campuses challenged Buckley to open debate—only to find, to their consternation, that the boy could talk as well as he could write. He left behind him some badly bloodied academic reputations. Taking the cue from Brother, Sister Patricia wrote a magazine article criticizing Vassar for being too leftist; another sister, Aloise, uncovered some "Communists" on the Smith campus and urged the alumnae to stop contributing to the college until the matter was investigated. Unlike the Yalies, however, the Smithies could not have cared less.