Pat Buckley: Den Mother to the Conservative Movement
The greatest influence on the conservative public intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr, after his father, was his wife PAT BUCKLEY, a devoted spouse, a socialite, a demon fundraiser, and much more than that.
The Vassar roommate of a younger sister of Bill’s, Pat married Bill in 1950, and stayed married to him for 57 years. Bill knew he was a great man, and acted the part. But Pat was a personage too: tall, slender and strong, with an exquisite figure which she kept under superb control.
She wore clothes made by the top designers, and from 1978–1995 chaired the Metropolitan Museum’s annual benefit for the Costume Institute. She was confident, articulate, exacting in what she wanted from people and witty and often outrageous in her comments. She once said, “I’ve got the best legs in the business.”
She expected her house guests to be interesting, reasonably optimistic, and employed in improving the world in some way. She preferred them when they were also witty and quick.
In return, she was solicitous and vigilant on their behalf and invited them to stay for long periods. Having people around brought out something protective in her. Over time, she went from being a sort of a den mother to the Buckley’s friends to being a den mother of the whole conservative movement.
When she was appalled by something said or done, she might deliberately offend — but she almost never offended accidentally. In the winter time, the Buckleys leased an old monastery, the Chateau de Rougemont, near Gstaad, Switzerland. One year, the devoted Senate liberal Ted Kennedy, came visiting, and asked if he could borrow their car to motor into Gstaad.
“Certainly NOT!” said Pat Buckley. “There are three bridges between here and Gstaad.” Kennedy’s blundering drive off the Chappaquiddick Bridge, which had caused the drowning of his female passenger, was not usually referenced by social friends.
It might seem odd that Ted Kennedy would turn up in Switzerland to visit the Buckleys, but they lived easily with such contradictions; the political party they worked zealously for, the Republicans, was aggressively homophobic, but there were always gay men around the Buckley home, even in the bad old days when, for their own protection, they were called “confirmed bachelors.”
Told once that the gay population of America was only 10%, Bill Buckley remarked: “If that’s the case, then I’ve met them all.”
Gay men hung around the Buckleys because many gay men in the wealthy, conservative set loved Pat Buckley, loved the way she looked and dressed, got her humor. She loved them back, partly because they dressed so well, and knew about décor and food, and clothes and moisturizers. Pat was appalled by the way her husband dressed when she wasn’t around to oversee his wardrobe.
Pat and Bill made it a point to know interesting people, who did bold and daring things. Even the tenant who lived over their garage, Charles F. Blair, Jr., was a top pilot for Pan Am, worked for the CIA on the side, helped train Francis Gary Powers to fly the infamous U-2 spy plane that was shot down over Russia, and married the actress Maureen O’Hara.
If someone like Francis Gary Powers, who was so obviously “a good egg,” got in serious trouble for flying a patriotic American spy mission, Pat would say: “Well, if you ask me it’s all too ridiculous for words.”
Her full name was Patricia Aldyen Austin Taylor Buckley, and she’d been raised in a grand house in Vancouver, Canada called “Shannon,” surrounded by 10 acres of English gardens. Her father was an industrialist, a lumber and mining magnate, and one of her grandfathers had been chief of police in Winnipeg.
It was a grand childhood, but in a provincial Canadian way, and yet as an adult she competed with hostesses of “better breeding” and with far more money to spend, and most of the fashionable people liked Pat Buckley’s house better.
Pat had contempt for people who were “glued to the telly all day,” people who couldn’t think vigorously.
Her own thinking was curious, confident and clear, though she was not always aware of her own biases. She was not much of a book reader, but she read good newspapers with care, and noticed everything.
When she met people, she quickly formed strong and usually accurate views about their strengths and weaknesses. She remembered what people had said, noted things NOT said, and could detect even small changes of mood in a person and sense whether it was something internal or a reaction to something in the room.
Her son Christopher was sure she would have made a great spy.
Pat had strong ideas about propriety, the importance of things done correctly. You did NOT call friends early on Sunday morning. When the phone in the Buckley home rang early one Sunday morning and the White House operator told Mrs. Buckley that “The President is calling,” Pat Buckley demanded, “President of what?”
“Our country, ma’am,” explained the operator.
When Pat observed someone doing something wrong — and this happened quite a bit — she always had an expression handy. “The mind boggles,” was one. Another favorite: “It’s beyond comprehension.”
Or if things were particularly dire: “Have you completely taken leave of your senses?” Or: “She is driving me to drink.”
Pat Buckley was merciless when someone she disliked told a “preposterous untruth” — yet she told whoppers herself, such as that when Pat was a girl the King and Queen of England always stayed with her family at Shannon when in Vancouver.
When she lied at social events, she lied regally, and brooked no contradictions. Her manner of speech, her opinions and exacting standards, never failed to influence the drift of conversation around her.
Bill Buckley liked to say, “Industry is the enemy of Melancholy,” and he never sat still. Believing ‘The show must go on,’ he gave thousands of speeches, in the midst of all manner of family turmoil or health problems. Traveling, speechifying, happily being contrary, resisting the liberalizing times in which he lived, Bill Buckley stirred things up with a smile.
But since Bill Buckley wasn’t naturally well-organized, and had little interest in logistics, providing for Bill, keeping him in clothes and food and pocket money, and arranging his transportation from dozens of airports every month was for Pat almost a full-time job.
She was not a very spiritual person. It was enough for her to be den mother to the conservative movement. There was an urgent practicality about her, and her desire for tangible evidence didn’t mix well with meditation and prayer.
She felt that WE are responsible for our lives, and was impatient with people who spoke of ‘putting our lives in the hands of a higher power.’ Though Bill Buckley was quite Catholic, Pat’s lack of religion was never discussed. But then for two such public people, Bill and Pat were both somewhat private.
Her lack of religious faith made Pat’s last days harder than they might have been. Smoking cigarettes for 65 years had done her circulation no favors. A skiing accident in 1965 had left her hip vulnerable and, over the years, she went through four hip replacements.
The last time she entered the hospital, in 2007, she suffered an infection during an operation to put a stent in her leg, and after seven days she died, with her son Christopher by her side. She was 80 years old.
Pat had been properly skeptical of many of Bill’s decisions: founding the magazine National Review; signing up with a lecture agency; writing nonfiction books; writing novels; writing a weekly column; wanting to winter at that chateau in Switzerland; running for mayor of New York…
Yet once Bill dove into these ventures, Pat took part in each and every one of them, and if her humor was a little tarter than usual along the way, she remained an enthusiast, a great admirer of her husband as well as an astute critic. They shared an interior spark that kept their marriage buzzing.
And Pat Buckley noticed things her husband didn’t, won over people who were useful to him, and helped clear the way for many of his grand ambitions to be realized. She was a great lady, as she would have told you herself.