A Practical Fanatic

Sam Tanenhaus first met William F. Buckley Jr. in 1990. Tanenhaus was then working on a biography of Whittaker Chambers, the ex-communist Time magazine writer who, in 1948, accused Alger Hiss, a well-bred former State Department official, of being a Soviet spy. Buckley had championed, defended, and patronized Chambers — who was badly treated by the liberal press — publishing his work in National Review and seeking Chambers’ guidance as Buckley undertook his own war with mid-century liberal self-satisfaction. The two men remained close friends until Chambers’ death, at age 60, in 1961.