I wish that shows like this one, William F. Buckley, Jr.'s (WBJ) Firing Line, still would exist. Comparatively, WBJ is at that period in time the political equivalent of Jordan Peterson in the realm of psychology today, even though I believe WBJ to be more clever, albeit also more slick, than Peterson.
Nota bene: WBJ was a quite weird person; for example, just read about his feud with Gore Vidal where he riled against "queers". Also notable are WBJ's opinions on the Iraq invasion and his adulation for Ronald Reagan, not to forget his theory on general democracy in concentration camps, which I refer to below.
It's interesting to see how WBJ skates around the fact that he tries to pin incorrect quotes on Noam Chomsky, who was a guest on his show in 1969:
https://youtu.be/9DvmLMUfGss
Noam Chomsky: [...] I, as a matter of principle, almost, restrict myself to the discussion of American terror. Neither, not the terror carried out by the various sides in Vietnam, for many reasons. For one thing, because it's just qualitatively different in scale, and for another thing because I feel that we have some responsibility about it. You see, I don't, in the same sense, I don't talk about, you know, I've never written about the terror carried out by both sides in Nigeria, let's say. I don't like it, obviously, but I don't see any point in my giving them good or bad marks for it. On the other hand, if we were carrying out the terror, I would very definitely write about it.
https://hyp.is/5fOvLq03EemQxftzgu_5PA/docdrop.org/static/drop-pdf/80040_143_trans-ysxRm.pdf
WBJ: And of what brought us to Vietnam in the first instance, in my judgment, was clearly an uninterested—or I should say disinterested—concern for the stability and possibilities of a region of the world, to which we were committed by a series of: (BOTH TALKING SIMULTANEOUSLY)
NC: What period do you feel that we had this disinterested relationship to Vietnam?
WBJ: Well, right now.
NC: No, at what point did it begin, let's say, in 1951, for example, when a State Department bulletin points that we must help the French reconquer their former colony? And we must eradicate all Vietnamese resistance down to its last roots in order to reestablish the French in power? Was that the reason?
WBJ: Well, I personally wish—to increase my vulnerability—I wish we had helped the French.
NC: We did.
WBJ: But not sufficiently. There's no point in helping somebody insufficiently.
NC: Well, but it was hardly disinterested when we attempted as, you know, with tremendous support, in fact, to reinstate French imperialism in South Vietnam.
WBJ: It was disinterested in this sense—and I think this is an important distinction—which you do touch on in your book. It's a disinterested act if my attempt, or your attempt, to help a particular nation, is in order to spare you the possibility of a greater ordeal in the future, which will harm you, your family, your children, and (UNINTELLIGIBLE - BOTH TALKING)
NC: In that sense, Nazi Germany was also disinterested, because, after all, Nazi Germany was conquering Eastern Europe only in order to advance the values of Christian spiritual civilization, and to restore the Slavs to their rightful home, and so on and so forth.
https://hyp.is/mnXhzK06EemP2YepJiVDAA/docdrop.org/static/drop-pdf/80040_143_trans-ysxRm.pdf
It's highly interesting to see how WBJ tries to goad Chomsky and doesn't succeed:
On American occupation:
I wasn't aware of the Berrigans of Catonsville and what they did until Chomsky brought it up. There's more on the subject here.
What a slap. A correctly dealt slap, I think. WBJ deserved it.
Another slap that should have been dealt—harder, I think—is one for WBJ for stating there was "extraordinary democratic structure inside concentration camps".
Title: Vietnam and the Intellectuals
Date: April 03, 1969
Collection: Hoover Institution Digital Collections
Owning Institution: Hoover Institution
Source: Calisphere
Date of access: July 23 2019 08:06
Permalink: https://calisphere.org/item/84eb2bd405f52068134acb4719fdc54f/
Here's a complete transcript of the episode:
https://digitalcollections.hoover.org/images/Collections/80040/80040_143_trans.pdf