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Indeed, two of National Review's most controversial pieces had religious components, one regarding race, the other regarding a papal letter, or encyclical, written by Pope John XXIII. Various religious communities responded with an array of reprimands. In each case, Buckley withstood the criticism and remained unmoved.
From Barry Goldwater and Ayn Rand to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Buckley's spiritual compass guided his relationships with a variety of personalities circling the country's political sphere. When Howard Hunt, Buckley's old boss at the CIA, went to jail for doing Nixon's dirty work during the Watergate scandal, he and his wife, Pat, stepped up in their role as godparents, helping out when possible.
Even Buckley's fiction - he authored 11 novels - represented his faith and politics, interlaced. In his Blackford Oakes series, wherein Oakes is a disciplined James Bond-type CIA agent, his "goal in writing the Oakes novels was to ... make a polemical point ... [that] America was doing the right thing in seeking to destroy organized Communism." He wrote his most difficult, personal and poignant book, "Nearer, My God" because he simply felt he "owed it to God."
Via clips of transcripts or clever anecdotes, page after page, Mr. Lott's book makes a persuasive case, though even he admits early in the book, "It's possibleto lean too hard on Buckley's religion as an explanation for why he argued 'X' or did 'Y.' " That Mr. Lott does not do. If anything, on occasion, he seems to veer off-thesis, getting lost in the depth and breadth of Buckley's political experiences and ideologies. He also readily admits the book is by no means a comprehensive look at the life of this conservative giant, but it is a taste of Buckley, a chiseled piece of ice from the tip of the Buckley iceberg.
Nicole Russell has written for Politico, National Review Online and the American Spectator. She is this year's recipient of the American Spectator Young Journalist award.
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