James L. Buckley

James Lane Buckley (March 9, 1923 – August 18, 2023) was an American politician and judge who served in the United States Senate as a member of the Conservative Party of New York State in the Republican caucus from 1971 to 1977 and additionally held multiple positions within the Reagan administration.

James Lane Buckley was born on March 9, 1923, in Manhattan, New York City, to Aloise Steiner and William Frank Buckley Sr., the fourth of ten children to the couple.

Because their home language was Spanish, Buckley and siblings learned Spanish before they learned English.

He was the older brother of the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. and the uncle of Christopher Taylor Buckley.

He was also the uncle of Brent Bozell III and political consultant William F. B. O'Reilly.

His mother, from New Orleans, was of Swiss-German, German, and Irish descent, while his paternal grandparents, from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, were of Irish ancestry.

He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942, and during World War II he participated in the battles of Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Okinawa.

Buckley attended Millbrook School, and in 1943 earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University, where he was a member of Skull and Bones.

Buckley was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant (junior grade) in 1946.

After receiving his Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School in 1949, he was admitted to the bar of Connecticut in 1950 and practiced law until 1953, when he joined The Catawba Corporation as vice president and director.

In 1965, he managed his brother's campaign for Mayor of New York.

In 1968, Buckley ran for the senatorial nomination of the Conservative Party of New York State, after his brother William F. Buckley Jr. had served as the party's mayoral nominee in the 1965 New York City mayoral election.

Buckley won the party's nomination on April 2, 1968, with the unanimous support of all forty state committeemen.

Buckley placed third in the general election behind Republican nominee Jacob Javits and Democratic nominee Paul O'Dwyer after receiving 1,139,402 votes (17.31%).

On March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party for the 1968 presidential election.

After winning four primaries Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, California, on June 6.

Kennedy's death left a vacancy in the United States Senate that would be filled through an appointment by Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

John W. Gardner, John Lindsay, Burke Marshall, C. Douglas Dillon, Charles Goodell, Ogden Reid, and Whitney Young were all mentioned as possible candidates for the appointment.

On August 11, a spokesman for Rockefeller stated that the main choices for the appointment were Gardner, Goodell, and Reid.

In 1970, Buckley was elected to the U.S. Senate as the nominee of the Conservative Party of New York; he won the race with 39% of the vote and served from 1971 until 1977.

During the first Reagan administration, Buckley served as Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs.

On April 6, 1970, Buckley announced that he would seek the Conservative Party's senatorial nomination again.

The Conservative State Committee convened inside Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan, New York City, on April 7, to select the party's nominees in the general election.

Kevin P. McGovern attempted to force a primary campaign between himself and Buckley but failed to receive the 25% of delegate votes necessary for a primary.

Buckley received nearly ninety percent of the delegate votes and the remainder was split between McGovern and abstaining delegates.

On June 20, F. Clifton White, Buckley's campaign manager, announced that Buckley's campaign would circulate petitions in an attempt to gain another ballot line named the Independent Alliance Party.

Enough valid signatures were collected to gain the additional ballot line, but New York Secretary of State John P. Lomenzo ruled that the Independent Alliance's emblem, an outline of New York with Buckley's name inside, was illegal as New York's election law limited the number of times that a candidate's name could appear on a ballot line to one.

Lomenzo later allowed the party onto the ballot after the emblem was changed to a shield with the letter "I" inside.

In the general election Buckley defeated Goodell, and Richard Ottinger.

Although the Independent Alliance Party received over 100,000 votes in the general election, more than the 50,000 votes required to become an official party and automatic ballot access, it did not become an official party as its only candidate was Buckley, who ran in the Senate election and not in the gubernatorial election where the 50,000 votes were required to come from.

In 1971, Buckley spoke to the Republican National Finance committee about running for reelection in the 1976 elections with the Republican nomination.

Peter A. Peyser challenged him in the Republican primary, but Buckley defeated him.

He was also the Republican nominee in the 1980 Connecticut Senate race, but he was defeated by Democrat Chris Dodd.

He was also President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1982 to 1985.

Buckley was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on October 16, 1985.

He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 17, 1985, and he received his commission on December 17, 1985.

Buckley assumed senior status on August 31, 1996.

He was one of the few people in modern times to have served in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the American federal government.

On September 10, Rockefeller appointed Goodell, a member of the House of Representatives from the 38th congressional district, to fill the vacancy.

Meanwhile, in May 1953, he married Ann Frances Cooley, with whom he had six children before her death on December 30, 2011.