Bill and Frank   

I discovered the magic of WFB's astonishing mind "Just in Time" as the title of Sinatra's version of the Comden, Green, & Julie Steyn tune suggests. As a recent transplant to Manhattan from the smokestack corridors of that great but failing steel city of Youngstown, Ohio, I was just a kid with a dream who wanted to follow in his father's show-biz footsteps.

It was 1975 and I, through a friend who was a senior-executive at the International Paper Co., was presented me with an opportunity to write speeches for him. I had been a successful ad writer back in Ohio, but this was way over my head. Bill Buckley to the rescue. Someone had left a copy of National Review in the lobby of our offices at the Daily News building. It looked intriguing and I thought, why not? That first issue was like discovering the keys to an intellectual paradise. The clarity with which Mr. B laid bare every issue he wrote of left me flabbergasted. What a mind! I suppose at the time I subconsciously compared it to the readings of Sinatra, every lyric dripping with honesty, every phrase poignant and personal.

The payoff was that for the next four and one-half years I infused every speech with that irrefutable Buckley logic and went on to become a rising star at International Paper. Without WFB I would probably not have had the steely resolve I needed and would be back as just another wannabe in a failing steel town. Thank you Uncle Bill, You were the godfather I needed. Oh, just one other thing. I'd like to imagine that right now, I can hear a heavenly duo off in the distance, you on harpsichord, Francis singing ... "Just in Time, we found you, just in time, before we came, your time was running low..."
George A. Galip, Jr., Los Angeles, Ca.

03/12 04:18 PM