Editor's note.

A few notes on this issue. We considered a black border on the cover but decided against it, because we are not marking a death but celebrating a life. Besides, Bill loved the blue border. During my time as editor, we twice experimented with borderless covers, and he was not amused.

John O'Sullivan leads off the issue with an essay on Bill's political and intellectual legacy (p. 18); Bill's stirring speech from NR's 30th-anniversary dinner, which President Reagan attended, provides a classic example of his rhetoric (p. 28); friends and colleagues remember Bill's life and career (p. 30), and these memories are interspersed with bits of Bill's writing about his passions; Christopher Buckley has a lovely piece about sailing with his father (p. 61); Charles Kesler gives us a guide to Bill's books (p. 70); and, finally, Mark Steyn explains what made the Blackford Oakes novels so remarkable (p. 76).

We hear from people who knew Bill in his many iterations. I first got to know him when I became the young, inexperienced editor of his dear magazine--a daunting experience. Early on, I would take problems to him with trepidation but come away with a feeling of relief. Whenever something had gone wrong (even if it had happened just two hours ago), he wanted to put it aside and focus on the future--how to fix it, how to keep it from happening again, how to learn from it. No one was so adept at "moving on" as Bill. As someone wrote recently, his attitude toward life ...