William A. Rusher - Early Life

Early Life

Rusher was born in Chicago in 1923. His family had not been especially political; his parents were moderate Republicans, and his paternal grandfather had been a socialist. In 1930 the family moved to the New York metropolitan area. Rusher entered Princeton University at 16, where he was active in student affairs, especially debate, and majored in politics. After graduation in 1943 and wartime service in the Air Force, he attended Harvard Law School, where he founded and led the Harvard Young Republicans and from which he graduated in 1948. Until 1956, Rusher practiced corporate law at Shearman, Sterling & Wright, a Wall Street firm in New York. He then served as associate counsel to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, under chief counsel Robert Morris, for seventeen months.

In these years, Rusher was also active in New York state and national Young Republican politics, helping F. Clifton White to lead an alliance in these organizations. He came to the attention of William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of the fledgling National Review, shortly after its founding in late 1955, when he wrote an essay for the Harvard Young Republican paper, titled "Cult of Doubt."