admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1950 and practiced law until 1953, when he joined The Catawba Corporation as vice president and director. In 1965, he managed his brother William F. Buckley, Jr.'s campaign for Mayor of New York. Meanwhile, in May 1953, he married Ann Frances Cooley, with whom he had six children before her death on December 30, 2011. Career United States Senate Elections 1968 In 1968, Buckley ran for the senatorial nomination of the Conservative Party of New York State, after his brother William F. Buckley Jr. had served as the party's mayoral nominee in the 1965 New York City mayoral election. Buckley won the party's nomination on April 2, 1968, with the unanimous support of all forty state committeemen. Buckley placed third in the general election behind Republican nominee Jacob Javits and Democratic nominee Paul O'Dwyer after receiving 1,139,402 votes (17.31%). 1970 On March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party for the 1968 presidential election. After winning four primaries Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, California on June 6. Kennedy's death left a vacancy in the United States Senate that would be filled through an appointment by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. John W. Gardner, John Lindsay, Burke Marshall, C. Douglas Dillon, Charles Goodell, Ogden Reid, and Whitney Young were all mentioned as possible candidates for the appointment. On August 11, a spokesman for Rockefeller stated that the main choices for the appointment were Gardner, Goodell, and Reid. On September 10, Rockefeller appointed Goodell, a member of the House of Representatives from the 38th congressional district, to fill the vacancy. On April 6, 1970, Buckley announced that he would seek the Conservative Party's senatorial nomination again. The Conservative State Committee convened inside Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan, New York City, on April 7, to select the party's nominees in the general election. Kevin P. McGovern attempted to force a primary campaign between himself and Buckley but failed to receive the 25% of delegate votes necessary for a primary. Buckley received nearly ninety percent of the delegate votes and the remainder was split between McGovern and abstaining delegates. On June 20, F. Clifton White, Buckley's campaign manager, announced that Buckley's campaign would circulate petitions in an attempt to gain another ballot line named the Independent Alliance Party. Enough valid signatures were collected to gain the additional