Conservative writer William Buckley dead at 82

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Writer and commentator William F. Buckley, the patrician intellectual credited with founding the modern conservative movement in U.S. politics, died on Wednesday at age 82.

Buckley suffered from emphysema over the past year and died early on Wednesday while writing in his study in Stamford, Connecticut, said Jack Fowler, publisher of National Review, the magazine Buckley founded in 1955.

Buckley influenced the views of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and was a leading voice in the conservative movement that helped send Republicans to the White House in seven of the past 10 U.S. presidential elections.

"He influenced a lot of people, including me," U.S. President George W. Bush said from the Oval Office.

"He was so articulate and he captured the imagination of a lot of folks because he had a great way of defining the issues. It was erudite and yet a lot of folks from different walks of life could understand it," Bush said.

Buckley packaged his opinions with a charm and scholarly tone that made him a hero on the right, although some critics saw him as smug and pompous and perhaps even racist.

That the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called him "the scourge of liberalism," was said to have caused Buckley delight.

He could be pugnacious, as in a 1968 television debate with writer Gore Vidal when Buckley said, "Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll knock you in the God-damned teeth."