All the President's Magazines

By Janice Castro

At 25, the National Review is the leading conservative voice

When William F. Buckley Jr. threw a splashy black-tie party for 650 of his friends at New York City's Plaza Hotel last week to mark the 25th anniversary of his conservative biweekly National Review, the event was marred by one disappointing absence: the guest of honor, President-elect Ronald Reagan, who was in Southern California trying to pick a Cabinet. "Reagan had no memory of the dinner," explained Buckley. "He was absolutely crestfallen."

Still, Buckley and his magazine have plenty to celebrate. As perhaps the leading voice of the nation's long-embattled conservative minority, National Review (circ. 91,000) saw its philosophy on the march on Nov. 4. Better yet, the new President is a faithful subscriber who has cited National Review as his favorite magazine, and once said he used it in preparing his radio commentaries and political speeches. Says Buckley, a longtime personal friend of Reagan's: "Obviously, if what you write is being read by the Chief Executive, you've got more power."

That power is an unaccustomed blessing for N.R. The fiesty little journal of opinion has spent most of its 25 years on the edge of financial collapse, making up each year's deficits --some as high as $500,000 --with regular eleventh-hour fund appeals and occasional subventions from Buckley. Yet the staff of 45, which operates out of rumpled Manhattan offices whose walls are plastered with Reagan stickers, is beginning to joke about being "an Establishment organ."

Buckley, now 55, founded the magazine in 1955, shortly after his God and Man at Yale was a controversial hit, with $450,000 raised from some 80 contributors, including his father. National Review had an initial circulation of 2,700, which grew to 10,000 the first year.

Armed with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Latinisms, literary allusions and intricate analogies, the pugnaciously polysyllabic Buckley wrote almost half the magazine himself in those early days. He also sought out aspiring young writers, not all of them conservatives. New Yorker Writer Renata Adler published some of her first articles for N.R., as did Novelist Joan Didion, Syndicated Columnist Garry Wills and New York Times Critic John Leonard. Says Leonard, hired in 1959 at age 19:

"Buckley didn't care whether you had a reputation if he liked the way you wrote."

From the beginning, Buckley's urbane and often sarcastic journal has reflected his blend of libertarianism, orthodox Catholicism and unwavering conservatism. N.R. has consistently opposed Communism, detente and wage-price controls, while supporting increased defense spending and the deregulation of virtually everything. Recent articles have scoffed at equal opportunity laws, asked why sex education, but not prayer, is allowed in public schools, urged the Republican Party to stand by its tough campaign plank on judicial appointments. Though N.R. is hardly one of the handsomest magazines around, it does exhibit a rare appreciation for the power and variety of language. As Ronald Reagan once quipped, "I have spent many happy hours in my favorite chair, National Review in one hand, the dictionary in the other."

If N.R. now appears to be bobbing in the political mainstream, Publisher William Rusher, 57, hastens to explain that it is not because the magazine has moderated any of its positions. Says Rusher: "The fact is the political center in this country has moved to the right."

This represents quite a change from the days when Buckley's hard-line intellectual journal was well to the right of the great majority of America's political thinkers. For years National Review did not even have the stimulation of any worthy competition. Says Buckley: "There was absolutely no journal of opinion for us types to write for. Over here [on the right] it was just plain Dry Gulch."

Today the gulch is flowering. Among the other conservative publications enjoying a new legitimacy:

Commentary (circ. 50,000). A publication sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, founded in 1945, this intellectual monthly has led at least three lives. It was liberal in the mid-'60s, then radical in the late-'60s. Since 1970, under Editor Norman Podhoretz, Commentary has espoused many conservative ideals such as a stronger defense posture and a permanent American military presence in the Persian Gulf.

The Public Interest (circ. 13,500). Edited by Irving Kristol, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Na than Glazer, this quasi-academic quarterly has since 1965 sought to influence legislation in Washington. To do so, Public Interest tailors its content to provide solid reference materials for congressional staff members. The winter issue, for instance, examines family policy, Social Security and crime in public schools.

The American Spectator (circ. 22,500). In 1966 Founder and Editor R. Emmett Tyr rell Jr., 36, sent Bill Buckley, whom he had never met, a check for $264,000 to pay off National Review's debt. Tyrrell, then 22, was an Indiana University graduate" stu dent with some $27 in the bank. Knowing a well-intentioned hoax when he saw one, an amused Buckley called him up and soon encouraged Tyrrell to convert his small, off-campus conservative newspaper into a witty, sprightly national monthly. The latest issue features Christmas book recommendations from former President Richard Nixon.

Policy Review (circ. 10,000). Editor John O'Sullivan, 38, describes this non-partisan quarterly from the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington as "broadly conservative." Yet besides articles on such subjects as curbing federal spending, it prints viewpoints from left of center, like Senator Edward Kennedy's 1979 pitch for normalization of relations with China.

Human Events (circ. 62,000). Ronald Reagan once said he reads every issue of this weekly "from cover to cover." Editor Thomas Winter, 42, describes his 36-year-old tabloid as more activist and consistently conservative than National Review.

Editor Winter says he will scrutinize the President-elect's actions for any signs of faltering ideological resolve.

Conservative Digest (circ. 85,000). Published by Richard Viguerie, the New Right's master fund raiser, this monthly calls itself "the magazine for the new majority" and talks tough about "neutralizing liberals" and putting prayer back in politics.

As the Republican Party sets about forging what Rusher calls "a new majority coalition" to enact Reagan's programs Bill Buckley expects to be kept quite busy in his chosen role at National Review watching, criticizing, correcting his fel low conservatives in the ways of the faith articulating new positions for them -- anc for Reagan. Says the editor of the President's favorite magazine: "I'm changing my entry in Who's Who. Under profession, instead of editor, I am going to put ventriloquist."

-- By Janice Castro. Reported by Elizabeth Rudulph/New York

With reporting by Elizabeth Rudulph

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