William F. Buckley, who almost single-handedly created the modern conservative movement that led to Ronald Reagan’s presidency, died today at his home in Connecticut. He was 82.

I’m listening to Rush Limbaugh speak of his relationship with WFB, so I’ll add my meager reminiscence to his. In 1974 I was working as a brand-new reporter at The Columbus Ledger in Georgia when I got a call from a “Firing Line” producer asking if I wanted to be on the show as a panelist. I enthusiastically agreed, then asked what the topic was going to be. “Revisionist history of the Cold War,” she replied, and Dean Rusk is going to be the guest.

I had met Rusk several times as an editor for The Red & Black, the student newspaper at the University of Georgia, where Rusk was teaching in the law school. I had never met Buckley, however, and was excited about it. I’d been watching “Firing Line” for years. My wife and I arrived at the studio in Atlanta, where they were taping, and met him briefly in the Green Room, where we also met Julian Bond and John Lewis, who were also taping a “Firing Line” episode that day.

I was in a fog during the taping, and have never seen the show because my cable went out on the day it aired. But a terrifying moment occurred when I mentioned that JFK was “disinclined to negotiate on Berlin,” whereupon WFB wheeled around in his chair and said, “Well, I should hope so!”

I thought of myself as a liberal back then and only later came to appreciate Buckley’s contribution to the country and its politics.