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FIRING LINE TELEVISION PROGRAM COLLECTION

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Today in Firing Line History:
Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley Jr.
Firing Line, July 15, 1971.
California governor Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley Jr. discuss the question "Is it possible to be a good governor?"
William F. Buckley Jr., Friedrich von Hayek and George Roche
Firing Line, November 11, 1977.
An interview with Nobel Prize winner Friedrich von Hayek.

"Is there a case for private property?"
William F. Buckley Jr., Friedrich von Hayek, and George Roche.

We need your opinion on what clips to digitize.

The broadcast archive of William F. Buckley Jr.'s television show Firing Line is housed in the Hoover Institution Archives. Firing Line was broadcast from 1966 to 1999, first as an hour-long program and later as a half-hour show. The Preface to the program catalogue explains the program's broadcast history, format, and numbering system. The Firing Line collection includes videotapes of approximately 1,500 shows, as well as transcripts, still photographs, preparation materials, and other items. The material available for a particular program varies.

Some of the videotape formats are approaching obsolescence, so the Hoover Institution is gradually transferring them to a modern format (see the slideshow). More than 400 videotapes have been transferred; additional reformatting depends on funding. Grants from the Mericos Foundation and the National Television and Video Preservation Foundation supported this work. Priority for transfer is given to the most endangered videotapes and to programs requested by our users.

A database describing all 1,504 Firing Line programs is available for searching. It includes program descriptions copied verbatim from the catalogue compiled by Linda Bridges, Senior Editor at National Review. In some cases the first five minutes of the show can be streamed online. The programs that can be viewed in the Hoover Archives reading room or purchased by mail, numbering more than 400, are indicated.

If you have questions about the Firing Line reformatting process, wish to nominate a program for reformatting, or purchase VHS or broadcast-quality videotapes, please contact Assistant Archivist for Visual Collections Janel Quirante. If you have general questions about the Firing Line collection or would like a transcript, please contact Reference Archivist Carol Leadenham.

William F. Buckley's published work from 1951 to the present, including articles, books, columns, reviews, and speeches, is available on the Hillsdale College Buckley Online web site.

Firing Line videos, transcripts, photographs, and other materials copyright Stanford University. May not be published or reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the Director of Hoover Library and Archives. Send requests for permission to Director of Hoover Library and Archives, Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA 94305-6010.

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