Excellent.

The current editors, his chosen heirs, dined with him every second Monday, and as a special treat I was asked to dinner on my first day, along with my fellow intern, Jaime Sneider, a Columbia conservative. I had only just met Jaime, but he and I sealed our friendship that night, gawking together at Buckley’s fantastic uptown lair—the gimlet-eyed butler; the cooks and maids murmuring, in Spanish, the dinner table with glasses of cigarettes by each place setting; the luxurious sitting room with its lush tapestries and lacquered tables. We gawked, too, at Buckley himself, who swept down to greet us, his eyes bright and curious, his wit languid but mischievous, and his flesh slacking a bit with age but still held together by a lurking energy, a sense of coiled potency. His wife, Pat, was with him, a thin, imperious figure, gracious but cutting, with an anglicized drawl to match her husband’s. Buckley was simply gracious, and masterful at handling his celebrity, which he somehow acknowledged and set aside at the same time, disarming us with his good cheer and his famous blade-thin smile.

That night, which passed in a blur of wine and delicate meats and leisurely conversation, would be our only up-close glimpse of Buckley, or so we assumed at the time. A month and a half at the job did nothing to dent this impression. Then, in the middle of July, there was a phone call for me. The clipped voice at the other end belonged to Buckley’s personal assistant.

“Bill would like to invite you and Jaime to go sailing with him this Friday,” she said. “You can? Splendid. You’ll be picked up at Stamford at six, then. At the train station, yes. Excellent. Have a nice day.”

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