Summarizing his own attitude toward politics, Buchanan shared a quote attributed to legendary football coach Vince Lombardi: “Football is not a contact sport. It is a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport.”


loved to recall) and earning his M.S. from Columbia University, Buchanan was hired by the conservative St. Louis Globe-Democrat. His confrontational style in print fit


in well with his editors, one of whom had it in for a reporter with the rival Post-Dispatch, and asked Buchanan to write a piece that “cut this bastard from rectum to belly button.” He hap- pily complied. Buchanan wanted very much to be


the next William F. Buckley Jr., then con- sidered the premier pundit in the fledg- ling conservative movement of the 1960s. But his career in the Fourth Estate


took a temporary detour in 1965, when he signed on as a jack-of-all-trades assis- tant for Richard Nixon. The former vice president was plan-


ning another bid for the White House in 1968 and Buchanan did just about everything for him, from arranging flights to writing speeches to discov- ering the names of local high school football teams for Nixon to inject in speeches for Republican U.S. House hopefuls in the 1966 midterm elections. “Once Pat mentioned to me that


Richard Nixon was ‘like a father,’” one- time White House staffer Dwight Chap- in told Newsmax. “From my observations, Pat was like


the son R.N. never had. Their relation- ship transcended just respect and went far deeper. “Whereas Nixon was political, as all presidents must be, Pat was rock solid — holding to his cherished conservative beliefs. It was son never failing to speak truths to his father.” As the Watergate scandal metasta-


sized, Buchanan urged Nixon to destroy the White House tapes that were his


eventual downfall and encouraged the firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox that became the notorious “October Surprise” in 1973. “Buchanan’s five hours of abra-


sive testimony before [North Carolina Democrat Sen.] Sam Ervin’s Watergate Committee were among Nixon’s bet- ter moments in the final five months,” wrote Alan Hirsch in the book Talking Heads. “And Buchanan was one of the closest Nixon aides to escape Watergate with his liberty and reputation, and his fighting style, intact.” Beginning in 1976, the former Nixon


White House aide debated liberal Democrat Tom Braden on the Braden and Buchanan radio program in Wash- ington, D.C. From there, he dueled opposite liberal pundits regularly on CNN’s Crossfire and the long-running The McLaughlin Group. Buchanan put his TV career and syndicated column on hold in 1985 to return to the White House and serve as Ronald Reagan’s director of com- munications. “I wanted Richard Nixon to become the president that Ronald Reagan became,” he later wrote. For most of the 52 years of their


marriage, wife Shelley has been Pat’s researcher and home editor, and almost always accompanied him on speaking dates. The two met while working on


Nixon’s 1968 campaign, and the 37th president loved to take credit for their romance and marriage. Pat Buchanan no longer makes


speaking dates or television appearanc- es, and he won’t write a 14th book. In his own words, he has said “what


I came to say.” And what he said moved many.


POWER PLAYER A key aide to Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Buchanan himself ran twice for president. He was also a prominent TV pundit, debating issues with liberal Democrat Tom Braden on CNN’s Crossfire and as a regular on PBS’ The McLaughlin Group.


LARRY KING LIVE/AP IMAGES / NIXON/NIXON PRESITENDIAL LIBRARY / REAGAN/DIANA WALKER/GETTY IMAGES BROOKS KRAFT LLC/SYGMA VIA GETTY IMAGES


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