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Fascinating & surprisingly resonant episode of Firing Line from 1966. The topic is extremism, & Buckley is interviewing the head of the ADL, an organization WFB says engages in defamation more than anti-defamation(!).
The ADL's sin, according to WFB, is exaggerating dangerous extremism on the right. "America suffers from a terrible national affliction, namely the conservative movement." WFB is angry that the ADL's work suggests that the Goldwater right, WFB's right, is linked to the far right.
WFB is quite taken aback that "It is the sublime historical duty of the ADL to expose and resist" people like himself. WFB's first question is if the ADL has any plans to write a book about the extreme left. Bothsidesism goes way back, folks.
It's stunning how defensive WFB is during this discussion. When the guest points out (correctly) that there were many far right organizations that avidly got behind Goldwater, Buckley insists that Goldwater was supported by the same people as Eisenhower.
To use the terminology of the day, this is "poppycock." WFB is struggling mightily to undermine the findings of this book, Danger on the Right, published in 1964. Today's GOP is, to some extent, the future that book foresaw. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/25/archives/an-arsenal-of-facts-danger-on-the-right-by-arnold-forster-and.html
At 9:45 Schary makes a key distinction/observation about Goldwater and the far right. He says the far right was enthusiastic about Goldwater because they thought he would "tolerate their presence in the party."
Around 11:30 they get down to what WFB calls "the nub of the problem." He's angry that Schary has referred to him and Russell Kirk as "extreme conservatives." WFB calls that rhetorically reckless.
WFB is quite angry that he's been lumped in with the far right. At 15: 30 Schary reminds him that the ADL views the "incipient antisemitism of the far right" with great alarm. "Such a cause, under the guise of being anti-left" has been murderous.
WFB, who is friends and co-workers with a host of antisemites, is angry that the ADL's work implies that conservatives like him are "latent antisemites." WFB is far more concerned about being called an antisemite than fighting antisemitism. Sound familiar?
WFB attacks the ADL as indiscriminately leftist, and unfairly tarring conservatives like him with the brush of antisemitism if they don't share their leftism. Schary's response here at 18:00 is brilliant. Discrimination against others is of concern to us.
Schary says he supports the black civil rights movement, and criticize anti-Japanese bigotry in California because those bigotries are often tied together with antisemitism, especially on the right. That Goldwater drew so much support from segregationists is not irrelevant here.
At 20:35 WFB is pursuing the point that the ADL, according to him, goes too soft on leftist extremists ("communist front groups") like "Women Strike for Peace" and SNCC. Ouch, that last one especially is not a good look for WFB in hindsight.
At 23:45 WFB is angry that Schary refers to the "America First" movement of the 1930s as the radical right. WFB knew lots of American Firsters who were very fine people.
WFB is appalled by the claim that the radical right of the late 50s and early 60s & Goldwaterism can trace its roots back to the America First movement. Well, as @pastpunditry documents in this book...those connections are complex, but indeed quite robust. https://www.amazon.com/Messengers-Right-Conservative-Transformation-American/dp/0812248392
WFB: "So do you understand why people are a little edgy about your organization."
Schary: "Some people are edgy who have no reason to be edgy except for the fact that they've been exposed."
Ouch.
Schary: "Some people are edgy who have no reason to be edgy except for the fact that they've been exposed."
Ouch.
At 26:00 WFB asks why Schary never mentions any of the strengths of the John Birch Society.
Schary: "I don't think it has any strengths."
Schary: "I don't think it has any strengths."
Around 32:40 things get heated during a discussion Fred Schwartz, the organizer of the Anti-Communist Crusades that were a huge thing in 1966. The far right loved these events. WFB is a fan of Schwartz's.
There's a hostile question about why someone from the ADL refused to shake hands with someone from the John Birch Society. Schary clarifies that this is because there were cameras around and it was feared that this picture would be misused by the JBS.
All of this just feels so contemporary. The nasty right claiming that the center-left is being uncivil and unfair; feeling aggrieved, all the while desperately trying to get the approval (or appearance of approval) from that center-left.
At 39:00 WFB makes clear that he agrees with many of the objectives of the John Birch Society, he just disagrees with their analysis of the source of the problem.
WFB ends with this revealing, parting shot. "Thanks for coming Mr. Schary, and I do hope you'll keep me any my 27 million friends out of your next book."
Apologies for the language in this picture. It was taken at an AL segregationist rally in 1965 and features some of those 27 million friends of Goldwater & Buckley's. Note the sign on the bottom right "B'nai Brith is anti-Christian." B'nai Brith was ADL's organizational sponsor.
Fast forward to 9 years later, 1974 in South Boston, where some of Nixon's silent majority gathered to protest school integration. When I see photos from Trump rallies, or see Trumpers flashing the white power hand symbol, it puts me in mind of photos like this.
In sum. What Buckley is doing in this 1966 Firing Line episode resembles what Tucker Carlson has been doing lately--to first deny that the racist right is a threat, and then to mock the idea that the racist right has any connections to the GOP. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/business/media/tucker-carlson-white-supremacy.html
