Conservative icon Bill Rusher died today at age 87. For many years he was the Publisher of National Review Magazine. He served as it's publisher from 1957, when he was hired by Bill Buckley, to 1988. A veteran spokesman for the conservative viewpoint on public issues. He became a familiar television and radio personality. His TV show on PBS, "The Advocates", was a mock "trial" of various issues of the day. Rusher was the Advocate for the Conservative point of view and a little known former governor, Mike Dukakis, took the Liberal side. A newspaper columnist A professional lecturer and prolific author, with five hardcover books and numerous magazine articles. His 1975 book, The Making of the New Majority Party, sold over a quarter of a million copies in hardcover and paperback, and his 1984 book, The Rise of the Right appeared in expanded form in a trade paperback edition.
Rusher was an influential political activist, and was one of the three men who in 1961 launched the draft of Barry Goldwater for the 1964 Republican nomination—a drive that captured and transformed the Republican Party, and continued under Ronald Reagan. He graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, served in the Air Force in India in World War II, and was an associate for seven years at a large Wall Street law firm. In 1956 and 1957 he was associate counsel to the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee before joining National.
Rusher was an early mentor for Young Americans for Freedom and attended it's formation at William F. Buckley's family estate where the Sharon Statement was drafted and issued.
After leaving National Review, in 1989, Rusher became a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute, for which he advised and wrote from his home in San Francisco. Rusher was also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, a member of the board of directors of National Review Inc., and chairman of the board of advisors of the Media Research Center.
On a personal note I spent a day with Bill Rusher in the early 1970's when he came to the University of Oregon for a speech. I was a law student at the time and saw an announcement, by the University Speakers Bureau, seeking a student volunteer to usher him around campus and get him to his speech. I volunteered and got the job. I picked him up at the Eugene airport and drove him to his motel room near campus. I then took him to a campus radio station interview and then to his speech. I introduced him at the speech and then with a couple of other conservative students took him to dinner at the Black Angus restaurant on Franklin Blvd. He then invited us to his motel room to watch an episode of "The Advocates" being broadcast on the local PBS station.
In introducing him I read the following quote from Bill Buckley's book "Cruising Speed - A Documentary" (1971), where Buckley describes a typical editorial conference at National Review:
"Bill Rusher always speaks first, because as publisher he goes back to other business after making his recommendations. He is the showman--who, as he ticks off his list, writes the appropriate commentary on each item with the tone of his voice, and takes special pleasure from reading aloud choice news items or speeches or releases from his most particular enemies, liberal Republicans. His timing is so good that his final sentence usually ends as he reaches to door of the conference room, which he opens with a flourish, his departure the signal of monotony to begin."
Forty years later my personal library still has the book with the above quote underlined.
Long befor Rush, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer there was Bill Buckley and Bill Rusher. We Conservatives owe a lot to them ! I hope there is a Heaven because it will be a more interesting place with Bill Buckley , Bill Rusher and Ronald Reagan.
