National Review

National Review is an American conservative magazine whose first issue was dated November 19, 1955, under the editor and publisher William F. Buckley Jr. The opening statement by Buckley in that issue said that the magazine "stands athwart history, yelling Stop."¹ National Review Inc., a New York corporation (EIN 13-1899384), has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Review Institute, a 501(c)(3) charity Buckley founded in 1991, since August 1, 2015.²

Masthead, 1957

A copy of the issue of February 2, 1957 is held in a Central Intelligence Agency file. Its masthead lists Buckley as editor and publisher; James Burnham, Willmoore Kendall and William S. Schlamm as editors; L. Brent Bozell and John Chamberlain; Frank Meyer and Morrie Ryskind as associates; and Sam M. Jones as Washington correspondent. Its list of contributors includes Max Eastman, J. B. Matthews and Revilo Oliver.³ An undated masthead preserved in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's file on Buckley lists William A. Rusher as publisher and, as editors, Bozell, Burnham, Chamberlain, Whittaker Chambers, Kendall, Suzanne La Follette and Meyer.⁴

Intelligence Service of the Founding Staff

E. Howard Hunt wrote in his 1974 memoir Undercover that in 1950 he met and frequently conferred with Burnham, a former professor of philosophy whom he described as "a consultant to OPC on virtually every subject of interest to our organization," OPC being the Office of Policy Coordination, the covert-action office placed under the Central Intelligence Agency. Hunt wrote that Burnham, by virtue of his Trotskyite background, was something of an authority on communist parties and front organizations, and that through Burnham he met Buckley.⁵

Willmoore Kendall, a political scientist, worked from 1942 in the offices of Inter-American Affairs in Washington and, according to a biographical profile in Modern Age, was appointed chief of the Inter-American Division, Office of Reports and Estimates, of the Central Intelligence Agency; he resigned that position in 1948 for an associate professorship at Yale, where he met Buckley, and in 1955 became a founding editor of the magazine.⁶

Frank Meyer joined the British Communist Party in 1931 as a student at Oxford, was expelled from the London School of Economics and deported from England in 1934, and began to draw away from the party in 1945. In the early 1950s, John Judis wrote, he was an expert government witness at Smith Act trials in New York and Chicago. Ralph de Toledano, who had known him on the left, introduced him to Buckley in 1955, and he became a senior editor in 1957 and remained until his death in 1972.⁷

Priscilla Buckley, the managing editor from 1959, appears in a printed biographical directory entry preserved in the FBI file as "reports officer CIA, Washington, 1951-53," followed by "with Nat. Review mag., N.Y.C., 1957-, mng. editor, 1959-."⁸ In the entries for William F. Buckley Jr. reproduced in the same file from two editions of a biographical directory, the listed positions are "Sr. editor American Mercury, 1952" in one and "Asso. editor Am. Mercury, 1952" in the other, then editor-in-chief of National Review from 1955; the second also lists membership of the U.S. Information Agency's advisory commission from 1969, and neither entry lists service with the Central Intelligence Agency.⁸

Buckley in Mexico City

Hunt wrote that he volunteered to open the Office of Policy Coordination station in Mexico City, began planning in the late summer of 1950, and interviewed candidates to work for him as agents outside the embassy: "First on my list was Bill Buckley, who readily agreed and set about working out details of his cover." Hunt wrote that Burnham had told him Buckley was looking for the best way of working against the Stalinists and that Buckley spoke English, Spanish and French.⁹

Hunt wrote that he assigned Buckley to help Eudocio Ravines, a Chilean communist who had been recruited by the Agency and was living in Mexico City under an alias, finish The Yenan Way and translate it into English; that when Scribner's accepted the translation Buckley decided to leave Mexico and the Agency; and that Buckley told him he was thinking either of purchasing the American Mercury or of founding a magazine of his own. In a footnote Hunt wrote that he and his wife had asked Buckley to be guardian of their children and executor of their estate, and that Buckley, already the children's godfather, agreed.¹⁰

The Director of Security's Memorandum, 1958

A memorandum of November 24, 1958 from the CIA's Director of Security to the Director of Central Intelligence concerns an article in the National Review Bulletin of November 15, 1958 asserting that the Agency was responsible for the Dutch publication of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. The memorandum states that a source of the Office of Security had advised that Ralph de Toledano wrote the article, describes de Toledano as a member of "the extreme right wing element" and a close associate of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and states that the editors of National Review and the Bulletin "have had numerous articles in the past charging that the Committee for Free Europe and Radio Free Europe are CIA sponsored and financed."¹¹ A text excerpt from the magazine, catalogued with the Agency's records as of 1958, states that National Review was encouraged by the enthusiasm of a number of serious persons for a "private investigation of Radio Free Europe," that an informal meeting of prospective members of a committee had been held, and that the enterprise was hampered by lack of funds.¹²

The FBI File, 1950 to 1969

The FBI file begins with a memorandum of October 20, 1950 from Louis B. Nichols, Assistant to the Director, to Clyde Tolson. It records that Buckley, who had been editor of the Yale Daily News the year before and had sponsored a forum at which Nichols spoke, had written asking to visit the Bureau, that Nichols arranged for him to call at his office, and that "an Agent in Mr. Jones' office will take Buckley on a very special tour." Nichols noted that after the Yale forum he had said that someday the Bureau would hear from Buckley. A later note in the file describes Buckley as an outspoken anticommunist who became friendly with Nichols, by then an executive vice president of Schenley Industries. A summary memorandum in the file records that Buckley and his wife came to the Bureau on October 25, 1950, were given "a very special tour of Bureau facilities" and met the Director, and that in April 1953 Buckley told Nichols he was writing a book to counteract the books of Alan Barth and Biddle denouncing loyalty and security investigations. A memorandum of October 1962 records that Buckley, identified as editor of National Review, was given a special tour on October 26, 1962 after a brief visit with the Director in his office, commented on the excellence of the communism exhibit, and was provided Bureau transportation to the White House for the public tour.¹³

On May 28, 1969 the President named Buckley to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information. An FBI memorandum of the following days states that the White House had requested an investigation; that the Bureau's main files showed "limited but cordial relations with Buckley in the past"; and that he had been on the Bureau's Special Correspondents List until May 25, 1967, when he was removed after writing in National Review a mock editorial of the New York Times "at the expense of the Director." A teletype dated June 2, 1969 ordered the inquiry completed by June 9 and directed that no neighborhood investigation be conducted without Bureau approval.¹⁴

A teletype in the inquiry lists associates of the appointee, among them Senator Barry Goldwater, Senator Jacob Javits, Peter Starr, president of Starr Broadcasting Group of Omaha, and James Burnham, assistant editor of National Review. It states that "among others" the members of the board of directors of National Review were Roger A. Moore, Morrie Ryskind and Lloyd H. Smith, with other names redacted.¹⁵ A biographical summary in the file lists Buckley as chairman of the board of directors of Starr Broadcasting Group, Omaha, Nebraska, and as a member of the board of directors of Catawba Corporation, New York.¹⁶ Peter Starr told agents that he had known Buckley since 1954, that Buckley was the majority stockholder and chairman of Starr Broadcasting Group and Starr the minority stockholder, and that the company had been founded with Buckley's financial backing. A person whose name is redacted told agents that Buckley had published National Review for many years although it operated at a financial loss and that he had offset losses by soliciting contributions from friends and subscribers.¹⁷

Hunt and Watergate, 1973

On January 21, 1973 the program Firing Line on station WETA in Washington, hosted by Buckley, broadcast a discussion on the CIA and Cuba with E. Howard Hunt and the Havana lawyer Mario Lazo. A transcript prepared for a public affairs staff is among the CIA's records. Buckley introduced Hunt as having been intimately involved as an official in the Central Intelligence Agency in the Bay of Pigs, and asked him whether public identification as a long-time CIA official allowed him to discuss the Agency's activities.¹⁸

In August 1973 an FBI background check on Buckley for a government appointment recorded the statement of Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who said on August 15 that he had debated Buckley publicly on a number of occasions, thought him a person of good character and a loyal American, and had some question concerning Buckley's associates because it was his understanding that Buckley was a good friend of E. Howard Hunt, "connected with the Watergate break-in," and the godfather of some of his children; Schlesinger said he was very much opposed to Buckley's ideas and would not recommend him for a government position. The teletype also directed the New York office to check court records on a libel suit against Esquire magazine and Gore Vidal.¹⁹

Hunt wrote in Undercover that after his testimony to the Senate, thousands of telegrams and letters arrived and were answered by "a small committee William Buckley established in my behalf at his National Review offices." Hunt wrote that Buckley solicited funds for his legal defense and, when returns were disappointing, suggested that he retain Buckley's personal attorney, C. Dickerman Williams, at no cost.²⁰

Copeland and the Watergate Hearings, 1973

The staff report on the CIA and Watergate prepared for Senator Howard Baker of the Senate Watergate Committee after the committee's public hearings records that in the issue of September 14, 1973 of National Review, Miles Copeland wrote an article entitled "The Unmentionable Uses of a CIA," suggesting that James McCord had led the Watergate burglars into a trap. The report records it alongside an article in Harper's Magazine by Andrew St. George that indicated former Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms had prior knowledge of the break-in.²¹ The journal of the CIA's Office of Legislative Counsel for November 19, 1973 records a conversation between two Senate Armed Services Committee staff members and Copeland in London about allegations in two recent articles by him in National Review, and a meeting with Senator Stuart Symington, who said that he was inclined to "let all the St. Georges and Copelands have their say" and then rebut them on the Senate floor.²²

Agency Assessments, 1957 to 1962

A memorandum of December 13, 1957 for the Director of Central Intelligence, prepared by an assistant to the Director, counts 26 clippings in the Agency's files on references to the CIA by the columnist Fulton Lewis Jr. between January 1950 and December 1957, fourteen of them derogatory. It names Senator McCarthy, Westbrook Pegler, The American Mercury and The National Review as examples of others sharing Lewis's general point of view who "have shown no friendliness toward CIA," and states that there is no evidence that the groups have any cohesiveness, including an agreed plan of attack.²³ An action memorandum from the Office of the Director dated October 1962 records that Director John McCone had picked out of his press clipping file an article from National Review of October 9 entitled "Swiped from the CIA, Relocation Bulletin 19, Toilet Facilities," and asked for background.²⁴

Ownership and Funding

The National Review Institute's Form 990 for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2017 reports National Review Inc. in Schedule R as a related corporation engaged in magazine sales, 100 percent owned by the Institute. The return lists as trustees Rich Lowry, Jack Fowler, John Bolton, Dick DeVos, David Bahnsen, Daniel Mahoney, Brian Murdock, John Buser, L. Stanton Towne, Robert Agostinelli and Peter Travers among others, and as fellows Jonah Goldberg, Kevin Williamson, Kathryn Lopez, Ramesh Ponnuru and Jay Nordlinger. Lowry and Fowler received reportable compensation of 367,206 dollars and 225,397 dollars respectively from related organizations, and the Institute's president received 289,752 dollars.²⁵

ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer lists the Institute's total revenue as 519,459 dollars for the fiscal year ended July 2013, 3,963,429 dollars for July 2014, 3,286,106 dollars for July 2015, 9,034,282 dollars for July 2016, 5,689,857 dollars for July 2017 and 7,342,526 dollars for July 2018.²⁶