In August 1968 Buckley wrote a critical editorial about Jackie Robinson, who had just announced that he would no long support the Republican Party because they nominated Richard Nixon. Robinson supported Nelson Rockefeller for the Republican Primary.
Below are a few excerpts from Buckley’s editorial titled, “On the Right.” Most noteworthy is the fact that Buckley researched Robinson’s political party affiliation and discovered that the former baseball star was a REGISTERED INDEPENDENT and had been since 1956.
***
“Jackie Robinson, the former baseball star, is in the news for having bolted against the Republican Party in protest against the selection of Richard Nixon as presidential candidate. Mr. Robinson’s renunciation was done on television (saying) “we … can’t tolerate a ticket which is racist in nature.”
***
He (Robinson) threatened that “If Nixon wins, people will be so frustrated there will be the most horrible riots in all our major cities."
***
“The gentleman (Robinson) is a philosophical moron, whose most distinctive public service would consist of going back to elementary school. There he would be precisely taught that racism consist precisely in such statements as he made over television (“I am first a black man, second an American, third a Republican”).
***
"Republicans might take minor comfort in my discovering that since he built this home in Stamford in 1956, the he has never registered as a Republican, but as an Independent; and indeed, his principal usefulness has been all long to the Democratic Party.”
***
Click here to read the full article.