Reposting a comment I've seen. Still not sure myself either.

Here's a spicy nugget about the guy. I have not personally validated it, but I trust no one reading this is taken by surprise at the nature of the claim:

Fascist William Buckley Put Joe Lieberman in the Senate

As EIR first documented in its 1977 report, "The Buckley Family: Wall Street Fabians in the Conservative Movement," at the founding of National Review in 1954, former deep-cover CIA officer Bill Buckley brought together both the extreme right-wing and converted left-wing backers of McCarthyism, to launch a fascist conservative movement in the United States.

American intelligence sources reported then, for example, that Buckley had launched former Naval Intelligence officer George Lincoln Rockwell in the founding of the American Nazi Party, for gang-countergang warfare with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The gangster-linked ADL profited from Rockwell (until his assassination) by using the ANP to terrorize and blackmail Jews into large contributions

https://larouchepub.com/other/2002/2928buckpac.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Francis_Buckley