In this 1958 letter by arch-segregationist James J. Kilpatrick we learn that Bill Buckley acquired a 60,000 person mailing list from the Citizens Council (otherwise known as the uptown KKK) in order to drum up more subscribers for his fledgling magazine, the National Review. 
Mailing lists like these were absolute gold to political organizers & magazine editors. Remember, this is long before social media and the interwebs. Getting traction for a new magazine like Nat Rev (founded in 1955) was challenging. So Buckley had to seek out receptive readers.
In 1964, when he ran for President and courted the votes of Southern segregationists, Barry Goldwater called this "hunting where the ducks are." Here's a 1959 interview then AZ Senator Goldwater did with the Jackson, Ms Citizens Council radio show.
As this piece by @Joshua_A_Tait discusses, the history of Buckley's brand of conservatism and race is complicated. In 1957 the Nat Rev sided openly with the Southern segregationists. Later it would change its tune, though modestly. washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/1…
@Joshua_A_Tait The key point is this...in 1958, Buckley's brand of anti-statist and anti-New Deal conservatism had a tiny constituency. One place he looked for fellow travelers was to the Citizens Councils of the South--the most reactionary racists of their day. Some condoned racial terrorism.
@Joshua_A_Tait Buckley's willingness to work with American fascists like these Citizens Councils may, perhaps, explain how touchy he was in this 1968 encounter with Gore Vidal where he threatens to sock Vidal for calling him a "crypto-Nazi."
@Joshua_A_Tait Also relevant here is this tense 1966 Firing Line where Buckley gets his hackles up about the ADL identifying some of his fellow conservatives as racists. Buckley is shocked, shocked that anyone would say people like him were friendly to racists!
@Joshua_A_Tait A year earlier, 1965, Buckley had described the black civil rights movement as potentially posing an existential threat to American civilization. He compared the struggle against it to the British struggle against Nazism.
@Joshua_A_Tait Thanks to @cterbeek for sharing this archival find with me. And thanks to @DavidAstinWalsh & the aforementioned @Joshua_A_Tait and @pastpunditry and the many other historians who have been working in the archives to uncover previously underappreciated dimensions of this history.
@Joshua_A_Tait @cterbeek @DavidAstinWalsh @pastpunditry The historical ties between the American right and the American far right has, for obvious reasons, become a subject of interest and concern for scholars in recent years. Here's another thread exploring the Nat Rev's links to that story in the 1990s.
@Joshua_A_Tait @cterbeek @DavidAstinWalsh @pastpunditry Also worth noting that many paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan & also several folks connected to the National Review and mainstream Republicans were very sympathetic to South Africa's apartheid state in the 90s. This appeared today in a pro-Trump outlet.
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