Before he died, William F. Buckley Jr. put his young grandson on the firing line.

The intellectual conservative icon - renowned for his erudition and use of uncommon words - excluded his son's illegitimate child from his massive estate, insisting the kid was dead in his eyes.

"I intentionally make no provision herein for said Jonathan, who for all purposes . . . shall be deemed to have predeceased me," Buckley's will says, according to the Hartford Courant.

The National Review founder and notable New Yorker instead left his entire estate - estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars - to his only child, Christopher Buckley, and Christopher's two older kids, Caitlin and William.

Jonathan, now 8, is the product of an Christopher's affair with book publicist Irina Woelfle.

Caitlin, 20, and William, 17, are the author and former presidential speechwriter's children with his now-estranged wife, Lucy.

Woelfle currently works as a publicist in Florida, where she filed suit against Christopher, seeking more child-support money.

Christopher, 56, author of the satiric novel "Thank You for Smoking," pays $3,000 a month. But Woelfle's petition says their son has special needs, and she's looking to put him into a private school near her Coral Gables home.

The suit, which was obtained by the Courant, pins the blame for some of the boy's behavioral problems on Christopher's complete lack of involvement.

"The father is notably absent from the minor child's life," despite the mom's efforts to try to get him involved, the suit says.