William F. Buckley Jr.

In this autobiography, woven from personal pieces composed over the course of a celebrated writing life of more than 50 years, you'll meet William Buckley the boy....

When a shadowy Russian mole threatens to undermine the free world's defenses, CIA super-secret agent Blackford Oakes is called in to unmask the imposter....

A reminiscence of 30 years of friendship with the man who brought the American conservative movement out of the political wilderness and into the White House....

In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley Jr. achieved unique stature as a polemicist and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism....

President Truman is nearing the end of his term in office, and Great Britain has a new queen....

Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, 1945, was the scene of a trial without precedent in history, a trial that continues to haunt the modern world....

As the Cold War turns hot, Oakes is thrown into the arms of a beautiful KGB agent and onto the horns of a dilemma....

This is the book that launched William F. Buckley, Jr.'s career. As a young, recent Yale graduate, he took on Yale's professional and administrative staffs....

William F. Buckley Jr.'s first political book in nearly two decades is a revealing memoir of the first champion of the conservative movement....

The year is 1961, the setting Havana. CIA super-secret agent Blackford Oakes has been sent there on a mission, only to find himself in the eye of an international political hurricane....

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans....

It's 1956, and the cold war is hot. Hungary has just fallen, and Blackford Oakes is back from Budapest, puzzling over a betrayal and mourning a tragedy he couldn't prevent....

Blackford Oakes launches a wild attempt to kill Castro on behalf of the CIA. Ever since the botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro has run amok. He has executed thousands....

James Jesus Angleton was the master, a legend in the time of spies....

Lyndon Johnson dispatches Oakes and a soldier of fortune named Tucker on secret missions to Southeast Asia....

Oakes is now a master spy, this time working outside the ambit of the director and around agency rules....

The year is 1954. Stalin has died in Moscow, and a deadly earnest power play nears its conclusion. Meanwhile British and American commandos have met a disastrous end....

The year is 1995, and an energetic senator wants to disarm, perhaps even eliminate, the CIA....

The sixties explode, and Elvis becomes the icon of the nation, while Orson, a college demonstrator, drifts away from regular life....

It is 1961 in Berlin, and the Cold War is at its most chilling....