Personal Life
Oakes' personal life is somewhat hectic because of his constant globetrotting for the Agency, as he can never seem to find ample time to settle down with Sally, who yearns for the day when Blackford will retire from the CIA. Their respective worldviews are quite dissimilar, Oakes being conservative, and Sally, a liberal feminist who studied and teaches Jane Austen and admires Adlai Stevenson. While not only disliking Blackford's chosen profession because it so often spoils their plans, Sally also disapproves of many of the ideals she believes the CIA represents.
While always holding Sally close to his heart, Oakes still finds plenty of time to pursue romantic conquests across the globe, often mixing work with pleasure. He is a suave, intelligent, and confident gentleman who is, in Buckley's own words, distinctly American, and it is no surprise he succeeds in both work and play.
Blackford is an avid reader of National Review and frequently offers insight into the state of domestic politics and world affairs.
Read more about this topic: Blackford Oakes
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant unreflecting people to whom real life means nothing.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The nature of women’s oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children—we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)