Airborne is how William F. Buckley, Jr. describes his sail across the wide Atlantic with his son and five friends. The trip, for fifteen years a dream, for fifteen months a planned operation, was always a risk: one doesn't set out haphazardly in a small sailboat across 4,400 miles of ocean, and Buckley's account of perils of the sea as experienced by himself since he acquired his first sailboat at age thirteen is at once graphic, instructive, and terrifying. But, we learn quickly, the concern is mostly for the prospect of thirty days and thirty nights away from the cosmopolitan jungle to which he and his friends are accustomed; their lair, so to speak. But it happened: notwithstanding vicissitudes amusing, annoying, and even dangerous, suddenly the schooner, and the entire trip, were airborne, and the experience resulted in a fusion of hopes, fears, ambitions, and pleasures that lifts the book from the category of mere chronicles of the sea, into a chronicle of our time, a passage of the spirit.

In 1980, Buckley gathered together his friends and set out to sail across the Atlantic. This is what he correctly describes as a "celebration" of that thirty-day event. Here are the calms and the storms, the melodrama and the rumination, the wine and the song, the navigation and the introspection that in Buckley's distinctive blend capture the imagination of sailors and non-sailors, amuse the lighthearted and the dour, and engross the reader who wishes he were aboard, as also the reader who thanks heaven that he is not.

A legendary CIA operative and central figure in the Watergate scandal at last tells his story World War II covert agent E. Howard Hunt joined the CIA soon after its inception, becoming one of its most valuable operatives until his retirement in 1970. He blazed a trail for the agency in Latin America, helping to orchestrate the successful 1954 coup in Guatemala as well as the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, which ended in disaster after an ill-fated decision by President John F. Kennedy. During the Nixon administration, he worked with the White House Special Investigations Unit (aka the "plumbers"). In the aftermath of the Pentagon Papers leak, he masterminded the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in 1971, and, with G. Gordon Liddy, he organized the break-in at the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters in 1972. Hunt was ultimately convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and wiretapping and served 33 months in prison. Now in his late eighties, Hunt looks back over his storied career, revealing what really happened and debunking the many rumors that have swirled around him. Writing with his characteristic salty wit, he brings to life his exploits in the CIA, offering surprising revelations about the agency's Latin American operations and its masterly manipulation of politics and the media in the U.S. He details the "black bag jobs" of the White House plumbers, explains why he agreed to participate in the Watergate burglary even though he thought it was a bad idea and sheds new light on the aftermath of the break-in. He sets the record straight on rumors about his first wife's death and accusations that have linked him to the JFK assassination and the George Wallace shooting. And finally, he offers an insider's advice on how the CIA must now reshape itself to regain its edge and help win the war on terrorism. E. Howard Hunt (Miami, FL) is author of more than 70 suspense novels. Greg Aunapu (Miami, FL) has reported for Time, People, and a variety of other national news media.

All the virtues of Bill Buckley's earlier books are here--but this one is profoundly different. 1990 was a very good year, producing vintage Buckley. He celebrated deeply meaningful anniversaries: the fortieth year of his marriage; the fortieth since his graduation from Yale; the thirty-fifth from National Review, the magazine he founded, and then decided--to considerable shock--to retire from editing. In the year in which he became a senior citizen, he appeared, daringly, as a harpsichordist with two symphony orchestras; wrote a controversial book advocating voluntary national service, a proposal not calculated to endear him to his fellow conservatives; and endured the death of a close friend. Thus is completed (perhaps) the end of several affairs--and the capstone volume of a diarist-journal keeper-journalist, who has proved to be, over books at sea and on land (Cruising Speed, The Unmaking of a Mayor, Airborne, Atlantic High, Overdrive, Racing Through Paradise), both his own Boswell and Johnson.

Master of espionage fiction and National Book Award winner William F. Buckley Jr. brings us another in his best-selling series starring the intrepid CIA agent Blackford Oakes.
When a shadowy Russian mole threatens to undermine the free world's defenses by infiltrating President Eisenhower's National Security Counsel, CIA super-secret agent Blackford Oakes is called in to unmask the imposter. Then, Oakes turns the tables on the Communists by piloting a U-2 spy plane on a Gary Powers-style one-way mission behind the Iron Curtain. Sentenced to death and trapped in the depths of the Lubyanka prison, Oakes may have turned his last trick. Or has he?

Eloquent . . . immensely readable . . . the saga of the victory of capitalism over the brutal and irrational fraud that was state socialism.
--"The Baltimore Sun"

""Buckley's lucid account celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit and the will to achieve freedom.""
--"Publishers Weekly"

""This is a small masterpiece of the narrative tradition. The Fall of the Berlin Wall keep s] readers turning the page.""
--"National Review"

"" A] great narrative of democratic survival and democratic victory.""
--"The Washington Times"

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the turning point in the struggle against Communism in Eastern Europe. In "The Fall of the Berlin Wall," renowned author and conservative pioneer William F. Buckley Jr. explains why the wall was built, reveals its devastating impact on the lives of people on both sides, and provides a riveting account of the events that led to the wall's destruction and the end of the Cold War.

An intricate plot involves the restoration of war-damaged windows in a famous German chapel. When Blackford Oakes takes a sabbatical from his work with the CIA, he finds neither peace nor sanctuary.

The year is 1954, and Joseph Stalin is dead. As the ruthless Laurenti Beria, head of the KGB, plots to succeed him, another drama is taking place in a distant part of the Soviet empire. United States and British commandoes have begun a mission to overthrow the Soviet-controlled government of Albania, but it is doomed to failure from the outset--jinxed by a traitor.

In the aftermath of the disaster, CIA super spy Blackford Oakes pursues his adversary from a covert camp for training murderers to Buckingham Palace, from a KGB hideout in Stockholm to the very doors of the Kremlin. The result is a satisfying tale that brings this episode in the conflict between the West and the Soviet Bloc to a summary conclusion.

The year is 1964. Lyndon Baines Johnson and Barry Goldwater are vying for the presidency, and CIA master spy Blackford Oakes has been sent to South Vietnam to halt its infiltration by men and materiel coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Working out of Saigon with Tucker Montana, a shadowy Texan who designs a brilliant system for breaking the North's supply route, Blackford Oakes is caught up in the ambiguity and confusion generated as America's involvement in the conflict escalates. As Tucker's murky past, his torrid romance with the seductive Lao Dai, and the growing menace of global war come into focus, Oakes—and Tucker—find their loyalty called into question. Both men are forced to make a decisive move that will have consequences neither man can foresee.

In his latest installment in the Blackford Oakes series William F. Buckley, Jr., continues to astonish and delight. The year is 1995, and an energetic senator wants to disarm, perhaps even eliminate, the CIA. To accumulate the evidence necessary to persuade the Senate, he needs the cooperation of Blackford Oakes, now retired. He wants from Oakes an account of his covert activity ten years earlier, when Oakes served as chief of covert activities for the CIA. One such activity, as sensitive a secret as any member of the government ever husbanded, had to do with a plot by young veterans of the Soviet war against Afghanistan to assassinate the man who had just assumed the reins of government in Moscow: Mikhail Gorbachev. President Reagan was in the White House in 1985. What was his reaction when apprised of a plot by non-Americans to assassinate a man commonly acknowledged as a tyrant? What will the frustrated senator do to compel cooperation from Blackford Oakes? A Very Private Plot takes the reader inside the Kremlin, exhibiting a detailed knowledge and savoir faire characteristic of the author. And inside the Reagan White House, known well to the author, and inside the Clinton White House as well. The forces unleashed in 1985 threaten any resolution between the United States and the Soviet Union and threaten the lives of a very small unit of young Russians who remain in the memory as the tale reaches a climax. A Very Private Plot caps the ten novels that began when, at age twenty-four, Blackford Oakes was seduced by the Queen of England, launching him and American readers on travels unrivaled in cold war fiction for wit and imagination.

First published in 1984, the book takes place in Berlin in the summer of 1961, just as the Berlin Wall is about to slam shut the last escape route out of Eastern Europe. President Kennedy needs to know what the Soviets are planning and Oakes is sent to acquire the answers. His contact, Henri Tod, is leader of the Bruderschaft, a secret group of German Dissidents. Tod has a plan to change the future of the free world but when he goes missing, Blackford locks horns with Walter Ulbricht, East Germany's unscrupulous communist boss and wins a moral victory for the West. Blackford Oakes novels have always had a very wide appeal, as readers are drawn by the delightful characters and intricate plots. "The Story of Henri Tod" and "A Very Private Plot" have plenty of both.

In 1952, Elizabeth II has just settled on to the throne of England, and the CIA is baffled at the breaches in security that are taking place. Worst of all, the leaks have been traced directly to the queen's chambers.

You are introduced, in a single volume, to a central character from each of Buckley's ten spy novels. All stand alone in this readable, exciting, and thoughtful collection. As diverse characters find their lives entangled in the web of international espionage, Buckley gives his own stylish, sly, and erudite perspective on intriguing world events.

This is the story of one man's faith, told with unrivaled reflection and candor. William F. Buckley, Jr., was raised a Catholic. As the world plunged into war, and as social mores changed dramatically around him, Buckley's faith -- a most essential part of his make-up -- sustained him. In Nearer, My God, Buckley examines in searching detail the meaning of his faith, and how his life has been shaped and sustained by religious conviction.
In highly personal terms, and with the wit and acuity for which he is justly renowned, Buckley discusses vital issues of Catholic doctrine and practice, and in so doing outlines for the reader both the nature of CathoLic faith and the essential role of religious belief in everyday life. In powerfully felt prose, he contributes provocatively and intelligently to the national interest in the nature of religion, the Church, and spiritual development. Nearer, My God is sure to appeal to all readers who have felt the stirrings of their own religious faith, and who want confirmation of their beliefs or who are seeking a guide to understanding their own souls.
The renowned social and political commentator, William F. Buckley Jr., turns to a highly personal subject -- his faith. And he tells us the story of his life as a Catholic Christian. "Nearer, My God" is the most reflective, poignant, and searching of Bill Buckley's many books. In the opening chapters he relives his childhood, a loving, funny, nostalgic glimpse into pre-World War II America and England. He speaks about his religious experiences to a world that has changed dramatically. He is unafraid of revealing the most personal side of his faith. He describes, in his distinctive style, the intimacy of a trip to Lourdes, the impact on him of the searing account by Maria Valtorta of the Crucifixion, the ordination of his nephew into the priesthood, and gives a moving account of his mother's death. And there is humor, as Buckley gives a unique, hilarious view of a visit to the Vatican with Malcolm Muggeridge, Charlton Heston, Grace Kelly, and David Niven. Personal though this book is, Buckley has gone to others to examine new perspectives, putting together his own distinguished 'Forum' and leaning on the great literature of the past to illustrate his thinking on contemporary Catholic and Christian issues.

This boon to logophiles, culled from Buckley: The Right Word, presents the author's most erudite, outre, and interesting words - from prehensile and sciolist to rubric and histrionic - complete with definitions, examples, and usage notes. Introduction by Jesse Sheidlower; illustrations by Arnold Roth.

Aside from his considerable political persona, William F. Buckley is remarkably skilled in his understanding and usage of the English language. Here, for the first time and in one volume, is the complete Buckley on words: a collection of his provocative thoughts on the uses and abuses of language; ideas on usage, style, and speaking; on diction and dictionaries; on Latin, letters, eloquence, journalism, reviews, interviews, and much more.

Willmoore Kendall: Maverick of American Conservatives provides the first book-length study of a man long regarded as a founding father of American intellectual conservatism. This edited collection brings together a diverse range of perspectives on Kendall's life and work and places the post-World War II political theorist in the context of modern American conservatism. Far from providing a monolithic view of Kendall's thought, the contributions illuminate an unconventional, often contradictory, thinker. The book traces the development of Kendall's body of political thought from his early years in Oxford, through his work on John Locke, to the later speculation that produced The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition , and analyzes the influence of Leo Strauss on his later work. Including, for the first time in print, the complete correspondence between Kendall and Strauss that significantly shaped Kendall's later work, Willmoore Kendall is a vital contribution to American intellectual history.

Willmoore Kendall: Maverick of American Conservatives provides the first book-length study of a man long regarded as a founding father of American intellectual conservatism. This edited collection brings together a diverse range of perspectives on Kendall's life and work and places the post-World War II political theorist in the context of modern American conservatism. Far from providing a monolithic view of Kendall's thought, the contributions illuminate an unconventional, often contradictory, thinker. The book traces the development of Kendall's body of political thought from his early years in Oxford, through his work on John Locke, to the later speculation that produced The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition , and analyzes the influence of Leo Strauss on his later work. Including, for the first time in print, the complete correspondence between Kendall and Strauss that significantly shaped Kendall's later work, Willmoore Kendall is a vital contribution to American intellectual history.