( First of two parts )

BILL BUCKLEY stood up before the applauding crowd. He looked a little nervous and a little rumpled in his blue blazer, striped tie, and chinos. Since Wednesday, when the tenth anniversary celebration for Young Americans for Freedom began, almost all of the speakers at the convention had commented on the amazing growth and unexpected success of this conservative youth group. YAF had started out ten years before with a weekend meeting of 90 young conservatives at Buckley's "family home" in Sharon, Connecticut; now 460 of the 55,000 national members stood on the lawn of that same Buckley estate, students from all over the country who had come for three days of meetings at the University of Hartford-and for this speech. They had taken chartered buses out to Sharon from Hartford, listened to a rock band on the lawn, and wandered through the huge Buckley home noting the religious artworks on the walls and the books on the desk in the library, and chatting with Mrs. Buckley, Sr., who stood by the front door.

It was an impressive affair: Mike Kenney of the Boston Globe decided that only the Kennedys of ten years ago could have pulled off a garden party for 500 as smoothly as this one was managed. Buckley was apparently aware of this. Kenney and Buckley unexpectedly ran into each other during the morning; they had both stopped abruptly, looking each other over. Buckley had recognized the reporter and, raising his eyebrows as he bowed, said "Ahhhhhhh, Mike! Shall we pretend we're at Bobby's?"

Now the guests stood under a striped canopy on the lawn, finished their roast beef sandwiches, their soda and beer, their cake and apples, finished with all the other speakers. Al Capp, Li'l Abner's creator and one of the big attractions of the celebraton, had titillated them with a long chuckling monologue-"I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just a stone's throw from Harvard.... As for John Kenneth Galbraith, well [chuckle], he's by far the best American economist since Edna St. Vincent Mllay.... I think the bedwetting, lunatic left knows that it's lost.... We're in for something ghastly this fall.... My prediction is that there will be killings at Harvard Square this fall."

THE celebration was almost over, everyone was almost ready to start back to Hartford and from there back home, but the best had been saved for last, and the best was Bill Buckley, a midwife at the birth of YAF, the unflappably intellectual defender of the right, the man always ready to put down by any means possible the emotional liberals, the fascistic rads, the Communist sympathizers, and the collectivists of all kinds. Four hundred sixty Young Americans for Freedom and a good number of older Young American supporters stood clapping for Buckley, anticipating his speech, making mental notes to take home to the local chapters, and Buckley stood before his audience looking anxious, as though unprepared to give them either what they wanted or what he wanted them to have, waiting for the applause to end and for the delegates to sit down. He had no notes, and his speech would prove to be uninspiring even to those craning their necks for his inspiration. Obscured by the complexity of his bafflingly lofty vocabulary, his speech would be so far removed in style from the quite ordinary subjects he spoke of that it would be hard to translate the complicated periods of the address into political sense.

But it was, after all, Bill Buckley speaking before Young Americans for Freedom, and his speech would be listened to with careful attention. While the applause was still fading, he began. "Thank you very much-I'll tell you when to resume."

When the convention began, Wednesday, September 9, the start of classes at the University of Hartford was a week away. YAF had rented the campus. U. or H. doesn't have a chapter of YAF; it's an urban university, located on a grassy hillside not far from Hartford's black and Puerto Rican "North End." On the first day of the convention, there was no real contact between the students at the convention and those of the university; those few U. of H. students who were already back at school didn't seem to know about the meetings. The Yaffers, as they call themselves, milled around the comfortable student lounge where new arrivals passed continuously through the registration line, getting their identification badges, schedules, and dormitory regulations. In the lobby some were buying YAF sweatshirts, buttons that said "Liberate Czechoslovakia" and buttons that said "Up Against the Wall, Commies"; pamphlets about "The Fascist threat to America"; "Youth in Politics" and "Voluntary Military" kits in large brown envelopes; and posters of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, and George C. Scott in his role as Patton.

The arriving convention-goers were young-looking, most of them barely out of high school by their appearance, though the organization's upper age limit is 40. A lanky boy with a goatee jutting from his chin and a cowlick on the back of his head walked among the chatting delegates, hawking snap-shots of an astronaut standing on the moon next to a perfectly erect American flag. "They're copies made from a slide I got from an outfit in Houston," he explained. "Seventy-five cents."

Some of the delegates standing around the edges of the room looked uncomfortable, as though unused to new clothes and strange surroundings. A few looked as though they'd be more comfortable at a student council or 4-H meeting. Others, wearing longish hair, moustaches, wide ties and dress bellbottoms, did what they could to impress the prettier YAF girls.

By 7 Wednesday evening, most of the members were in their seats in Miller Auditorium for the "keynote speech." Security was efficient: everyone who entered was checked for his I. D. badge. One large woman in a green dress was understanding when an apologetic usher asked to see her badge. "That's all right, there might be some SDSers."

The keynote came from a Texas Democrat, former speaker of the Texas House Waggoner Carr; he was appropriate for the kickoff-about a hundred Texan Young Americans for Freedom had flown in on a chartered plane. Mr. Carr thanked the assembly for the privilege of speaking to them, introduced his wife Ernestine ("One of the prettiest girls of her age in Texas"), and in a slow, polite, instructor's voice free of most of the drawl that he must have been saving for the folks back home, he delivered quietly phrased exhortations that established one of the recurring themes of the next three days.

"I believe that there are future governors, senators, and maybe even a president here tonight.... Your number one job is to take the offensive against those in your generation who are dedicated to the complete destruiton of our country...."

"At Harvard, they carried a meat cleaver with them when they confronted the administration with their demands.... Most of you have silently allowed the Hitler-type revolutionaries to blacken your reputation in America and throughout the world.... Your good name and your reputation have definitely been blackened because all around the world they have pronounced you guilty of... howling foul curse words at respected public officials,... kidnapping college presidents,... killing police,... burning banks." He took some of the soft, reproachful tone from his voice, and put in the hardness of a politician making a point "America is not perfect, but while you and I are working for a better day, I am not going to sit idly by and watch the radical subversives destroy us....

"From this moment on, why don't we take the offensive? Let us serve SDS with these non-negotiable demands....

" One: You must obey our laws, both on and off campus.