William F. Buckley, Jr. found dead in his home at 82.(Inside Track)(Obituary)(Brief article)

After suffering from diabetes and emphysema according to his son Christopher, William E Buckley, Jr. was found dead at his desk on February 27 at age 82. The author of 45 books, he wrote about sailing, penned a series of spy novels, and tweaked liberals with a string of politically oriented works beginning with God and Man at Yale. That book, written while Buckley was still a student at the liberal Ivy League university, made him a folk hero of sorts in the eyes of many conservatives.

In 1955, he launched National Review magazine with a staff that was top-heavy with Trotskyite socialists who would be properly labeled neoconservatives today. He used the magazine to redefine conservatism along neoconservative lines and also to try to purge the John Birch Society (this magazine's parent organization) from the conservative movement. While the JBS was (and still is) an ...