A Novel Individual: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr. on his Fiction

As I've noted here before, I was influenced by William F. Buckley Jr. when I was a teenager. I enjoyed his newspaper columns, his magazine National Review, and his PBS TV show Firing Line. I later enjoyed his spy thrillers. 

Buckley, who served briefly in the CIA in Mexico, was unhappy with the negative portrayal of the CIA in novels and movies. He believed, as I do, that the CIA was a force for good in the world. So, he wrote a series of thrillers that showed the CIA in a postive light.    

The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal offers a 1996 interview with William F. Buckley Jr on his series of Cold War spy novels. 

He was Interviewed by William F. Meehan III. 

This interview ran in The University Bookman in 1996 (vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 25-32), when Jeffrey O. Nelson, who was the journal’s editor, expertly turned the lengthy manuscript of my 90-minute interview into a coherent, polished piece. I was a student at Middle Tennessee State University writing my dissertation on prose style in Buckley’s fiction, and my director suggested I inquire about interviewing the author. It was fitting that Buckley was the Bookman’s first interview, as he helped Russell Kirk found this journal in 1960.

Buckley as a novelist is a topic still given little attention by scholars, and reviewers have focused more on the author instead of the work. My hope now is that readers unfamiliar with his Cold War spy fiction and the CIA’s Blackford Oakes will take away an insight or two about Buckley the novelist. Such as? His philosophy of language, his rituals as an author, how he creates a character’s name, and the OSS—which is not about the CIA’s parent organization. 

During our meeting at Buckley’s Manhattan office on East 35th Street, I inquired about plans for another spy novel. “No,” Buckley said.“The Cold War is over.” But nine years later he published Last Call for Blackford Oakes, taking Oakes back into deep cover in Moscow during Reagan’s second term. — WFM, April 2025.

You can read the rest of the interview via the link below: 

A Novel Individual: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr. on his Fiction | The Russell Kirk Center

I reviewed William Buckley’s last spy novel for the Philadelphia Inquirer back in 2005. 

You can read the review below: 

Note: You can click on the review to enlarge.