I first picked up National Review at the age of 16 and haven’t looked back since.  In those days, there was nothing – and I mean nothing – that presented a coherent conservative point of view on contemporary events, certainly not one with wit and panache.  Bill Buckley changed all that, gave us a voice, started a movement, and changed the world.  Fortunately, I also got to know the great man personally, for I was National Review’s summer editorial assistant after my junior year in college, in the summer of 1972.  I did gopher work, helped put the magazine together, drafted short editorials, and, most important, attended all of the editorial sessions.  Buckley poured the coffee for everyone, and, after Bill Rusher summarized the (always precarious) financial state of the enterprise, presided over what pieces to run and what editorials to write.  He parceled them out to everyone, including me, and we scurried away to start drafting.  Not much of my drafts made it past Bill’s famous red pen, but I didn’t mind.  We were The Change, The Movement, and we knew it.  We will never see the likes of Bill Buckley again.  R.I.P.
David Condit, McLean, Virginia