Product Description

"Warm and self-deprecating, surprisingly witty, honest to a fault about his political views...Mr. Buchanan has a secret weapon: Charm." --The New York Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #543818 in Books
• Published on: 1988-12-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 398 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Syndicated columnist Buchanan begins this memoir by explaining why he refused to be enlisted as the conservative Republicans' choice to succeed Reagan as president. As he discusses his Irish Catholic roots, growing up in Washington, D.C., and Chevy Chase, Md., and attending that "citadel of liberalism," Columbia's journalism school, he looks back with nostalgic affection to the 1950s. His eight years working for Nixon are covered in one short chapter, and about Reagan, this White House insider says even less. In a book that is part autobiography, part political agenda, Buchanan advocates prayer in the schools, the death penalty, support for the government of South Africa, laser-based nuclear weaponry and repeal of the amendment that limits a president to two terms. He defends Oliver North, morally condemns AIDS victims and thunders against the liberal "milquetoast" Catholic Church of the 1980s. Conservative Book Club selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
$18.95. autobiog Buchanan, columnist and television commentator, writes about his beliefs. His autobiography is a veritable celebration of Catholicism and masculinity, replete with accounts of youthful pranks, scrapes, and arrests. Raised by his father to be a fighter, Buchanan welcomed conflict and glided effortlessly into the politics of confrontation. The final two chapters of his book are highly polemical and will undoubtedly alienate some: He urges the elimination of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, decries superpower arms control negotiations, and asserts that "America's place should be at South Africa's side, sheltering this tormented country from her enemies." Politics aside, persistent references to streets and neighborhoods could prove irksome to readers unfamiliar with the metropolitan D.C. area.Kimberly G. Allen, Georgetown University Law Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Warm and self-deprecating, surprisingly witty, honest to a fault about his political views...Mr. Buchanan has a secret weapon: Charm. -- The New York Times

Customer Reviews

If only this man had been president
Pat Buchanan has been labeled everything from dangerous to nazi. This book proves that he is just the opposite: a strongly principled man who wants what's best for his country.

Buchanan explains his conservative beliefs within the framework of growing up the son of a devout Catholic scrapper and the student of tough Jesuit priests. Although he spent much of his childhood raising hell, his upbringing was about morals and care of the soul. In Buchanan's time, care of the soul meant defending American freedom from the encroachment of Leninist communism. He didn't hate the Russians, but the system of government that was devouring half the world's freedom.

To the left-leaning critic who is undoubtedly screaming, "what about America devouring the other half": you're preaching to the choir. Buchanan has consistently asserted that we shouldn't be meddling in other countries' affairs. He recalls traveling to Japan and concluding that we were wrong to indiscriminately A-bomb the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He goes on to say that our president prodded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor so that he'd have an excuse to enter the war. That's hardly the voice of an imperialistic interventionist.

Nor is Buchanan a cut-throat capitalist. At the end of the book, he talks about an America of morals being infinitely more desireable than an America of laurel-resting decadence. He observes that democracy is by itself an empty vessel that can be filled with evil intentions just as easily as it can with good intentions. The moral fiber of our people, says Buchanan, is what ultimately defines us. Compare our grandparents' generation to ours; Buchanan's point is painfully obvious. To recapture our country, Buchanan insists we recapture education, freedom of religion (rather than tacitly mandated secularism or cowtowing agnosticism), and the Supreme Court. No arguments from me.

Some people have speculated that Buchanan is a closet white supremacist, an accusation which this book shoots down. Having grown up with two black maids, having recoiled at the treatment of a southern black man who couldn't enter a whites-only restaurant to mail a letter, and having a brother who speaks of dog-tagging an equal number of dead white and black Americans in Vietman, Buchanan clearly has no time for racial discrimination. He writes about welfare depriving black Americans of their dignity, and even suggests that an ammendment prohibiting racial discrimination be added to the US Constitution.

Other than the pleasure of glimpsing into the life of a man I greatly respect, I took from this book many lessons about where our new and supposedly more advanced society fails. By deemphasizing personal responsibility and blaming our problems on society, we're creating a generation of excuse-makers and softies. By acquiescing to anybody's ideas and summarily treating all ideas as equal, we replace values with anything-goes. When people don't have something to believe in, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything. There are many more nuggets in this book.

A Book to make you stand up and cheer!
"Right from the Beginning" is a very interesting, easy read. It is, primarily, a personal, rather than a political, autobiography of Pat Buchanan. Those seeking an insight into the Nixon or Reagan White Houses will be disappointed. Those searching for an understanding of what makes Pat Buchanan the man that he is will be very satisfied. The book is, for the most part, a series of personal and family antidotes which Pat uses to tell the story of how he got to where he was in 1990. Here and there he will interrupt the anrrative to insert a philosophical statement about life, religion or politics. To this St. Louisian who grew up in the Catholic school system a few years after Pat, there is much which seems familiar. For me, this book took the emotions on a roller coaster ride. The first section, dealing with his grade school years, is my favorite part of the book. In it Pat records the environment in which we lived, the things we were taught and the lasting beliefs which we still hold. The second section, dealing with his high school and college years records a lot of pranks and activities which are not part of my experience and which I did not find to be very enjoyable. In the third section, dealing with his career, my enthusiasm rebounded, in part because of the references to places and people in St. Louis. The greatest value in this book is the understanding it gives one of Pat Buchanan. Many public figures are hidden behind the facades created by their managers. We often have difficulty understanding what their core values are. The Pat Buchanan we see is Pat Buchanan. "Right From the Beginning" shows us what makes the Pat Buchanan we see and admire.

Growing up Catholic
If one wished to understand how life was in the 50s and 60s as well as to understand the mind of a genuine conservative, one only needs to read Right from the Beginning. Pat grew up as a Catholic in Washington DC, attending Catholic high schools and universities. Anyone who was an altar boy or who attended Catholic schools could identify with this story. It is a brilliant piece of writing by a brilliant man.