1 00:01:17,411 --> 00:01:20,121 I keep nothing but a few photographs in the bathroom 2 00:01:20,748 --> 00:01:22,874 of myself at an earlier time. 3 00:01:26,003 --> 00:01:30,214 The first shows me at the age of 25, looking rather anxious. 4 00:01:30,424 --> 00:01:33,092 I've just bought a large house in the country 5 00:01:33,594 --> 00:01:35,136 and cannot afford it. 6 00:01:36,096 --> 00:01:40,767 Here you see the young author of Williwaw at the age of 19, 7 00:01:41,351 --> 00:01:43,060 still in uniform. 8 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:46,939 Here, above the bathtub, in the place of honor, 9 00:01:47,149 --> 00:01:50,443 are the debates with William Buckley in 1968. 10 00:01:50,652 --> 00:01:53,404 He was a well known right-wing commentator 11 00:01:53,697 --> 00:01:56,199 whose name seldom passes my lips. 12 00:02:22,518 --> 00:02:24,519 Cameras, please. Cameras. 13 00:02:25,312 --> 00:02:26,729 William F. Buckley. 14 00:02:30,984 --> 00:02:32,860 Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. 15 00:02:34,488 --> 00:02:36,155 That was a very nice introduction. 16 00:02:38,116 --> 00:02:39,367 On the other hand, if it hadn't been, 17 00:02:39,451 --> 00:02:41,202 I would've smashed you in the goddamn face. 18 00:02:50,796 --> 00:02:52,463 I do this so well... 19 00:02:53,298 --> 00:02:54,715 and so terminally, 20 00:02:55,008 --> 00:02:59,595 I have left the bleeding corpse of William F. Buckley, Jr. 21 00:03:00,138 --> 00:03:03,099 on the floor of the convention hall in Chicago. 22 00:03:04,685 --> 00:03:06,519 I would definitely have Gore Vidal and Bill Buckley 23 00:03:06,687 --> 00:03:07,979 on my television show. 24 00:03:08,146 --> 00:03:11,315 I would guess that the rematch of the great conflict 25 00:03:11,483 --> 00:03:14,193 would attract people precisely because it held out 26 00:03:14,570 --> 00:03:16,863 - the possibility of something-- - Violence. 27 00:03:18,407 --> 00:03:20,366 - Camera speeding. - Action. 28 00:03:34,089 --> 00:03:36,048 In the 60's 29 00:03:36,300 --> 00:03:40,511 the institution in which Americans had the greatest confidence 30 00:03:40,804 --> 00:03:42,346 was television news. 31 00:03:49,104 --> 00:03:51,772 Split-second organization on a worldwide scale, 32 00:03:52,149 --> 00:03:55,401 speed and efficiency in the nerve centers of NBC News. 33 00:03:55,736 --> 00:03:59,363 News was this big, bland center 34 00:03:59,531 --> 00:04:02,825 that determined for us what America was. 35 00:04:02,993 --> 00:04:06,037 Which was white, Anglo-Saxon, 36 00:04:06,204 --> 00:04:08,456 there were never any vowels at the end of the names. 37 00:04:08,707 --> 00:04:10,166 Chet Huntley and David Brinkley 38 00:04:10,459 --> 00:04:11,876 still are the team supreme 39 00:04:12,044 --> 00:04:13,794 in the art of easygoing commentary. 40 00:04:15,255 --> 00:04:18,883 Networks, did they deal in controversy? No! 41 00:04:19,343 --> 00:04:21,761 Did they invite controversy? No! 42 00:04:22,846 --> 00:04:25,139 They were in the center. 43 00:04:25,515 --> 00:04:28,267 They were cementers of idea, 44 00:04:28,435 --> 00:04:31,520 not disrupters of idea. 45 00:04:31,730 --> 00:04:34,690 This is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. 46 00:04:34,858 --> 00:04:37,193 Good evening from our CBS newsroom in New York. 47 00:04:37,361 --> 00:04:39,236 NBC and CBS were fighting for the lead 48 00:04:39,404 --> 00:04:41,656 and ABC was clearly number three. 49 00:04:43,700 --> 00:04:47,620 The other two networks were doing full coverage at the conventions, 50 00:04:48,455 --> 00:04:49,830 gavel-to-gavel. 51 00:04:52,834 --> 00:04:55,920 Turn the cameras and microphones on and let them roll. 52 00:04:57,965 --> 00:05:02,426 And ABC had less money to spend on these things. 53 00:05:03,303 --> 00:05:08,766 So, in 1968 ABC went to the truncated version of convention coverage 54 00:05:08,934 --> 00:05:11,811 to do an hour and a half from 9:30 to 11:00 at night. 55 00:05:12,604 --> 00:05:16,440 They didn't have Cronkite, didn't have Huntley and Brinkley. 56 00:05:16,817 --> 00:05:19,568 They didn't have the standards. 57 00:05:19,903 --> 00:05:21,696 Cameras, please. Cameras. 58 00:05:29,287 --> 00:05:32,456 ABC was the third of the three networks. 59 00:05:36,294 --> 00:05:38,421 Would've been fourth, but there were only three. 60 00:05:39,172 --> 00:05:41,215 They had the weaker programming. 61 00:05:42,801 --> 00:05:45,469 Somebody famously said that the way to end the Vietnam war 62 00:05:45,637 --> 00:05:48,848 was to put it on ABC and it'd be canceled in 13 weeks. 63 00:05:52,436 --> 00:05:56,397 In order to be competitive, with the 1968 convention, 64 00:05:56,857 --> 00:06:00,776 ABC needed something. Provocative. 65 00:06:01,028 --> 00:06:02,611 A media event. 66 00:06:02,821 --> 00:06:05,656 And they settled on Buckley and Vidal. 67 00:06:13,290 --> 00:06:15,583 It wasn't necessarily sensible. 68 00:06:16,668 --> 00:06:18,252 It was a shot in the dark. 69 00:06:19,046 --> 00:06:23,257 And it changed television... forever. 70 00:06:27,179 --> 00:06:29,472 Why are the races unreconciled? 71 00:06:29,639 --> 00:06:31,557 Why does poverty persevere? 72 00:06:31,725 --> 00:06:33,059 Why are the young disenchanted? 73 00:06:33,226 --> 00:06:35,519 Why do the birds sing so unhappily? 74 00:06:35,896 --> 00:06:37,605 It is easy to be carried away. 75 00:06:37,773 --> 00:06:40,816 And yet always there is a strain of seriousness, 76 00:06:40,984 --> 00:06:42,568 something in the system that warns us. 77 00:06:42,736 --> 00:06:45,905 Warns us that America had better strike out on a different course, 78 00:06:46,073 --> 00:06:48,574 rather than face another four years of asphyxiation 79 00:06:48,742 --> 00:06:49,825 by liberal premises. 80 00:06:50,619 --> 00:06:53,579 This is William F. Buckley, Jr. in New York. 81 00:06:54,623 --> 00:06:57,041 Perfect. 82 00:06:58,085 --> 00:07:00,669 This is the William F. Buckley America knows best. 83 00:07:00,837 --> 00:07:03,672 Grimacing or incredulous or disdainful. 84 00:07:04,091 --> 00:07:06,550 Readying himself for a deceptively quiet attack 85 00:07:06,718 --> 00:07:08,803 on his intellectual prey of the moment. 86 00:07:09,721 --> 00:07:12,348 This is the William F. Buckley Barry Goldwater insists 87 00:07:12,516 --> 00:07:14,308 fills a crying national need. 88 00:07:14,476 --> 00:07:17,520 We want Buckley! We want Buckley! 89 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:22,149 William F. Buckley, Jr. 90 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,402 has a strong definite opinion on every subject. 91 00:07:25,904 --> 00:07:28,239 So, wherever he goes, he has to have an answer 92 00:07:28,406 --> 00:07:29,907 about every question. 93 00:07:30,534 --> 00:07:31,784 Do you think America doesn't 94 00:07:31,952 --> 00:07:33,369 believe in itself as much as it used to? 95 00:07:33,745 --> 00:07:34,995 Yes, I think that's true. 96 00:07:35,539 --> 00:07:39,834 I think it's happening because of a restlessness 97 00:07:40,001 --> 00:07:42,795 for so long, as liberalism suggested, 98 00:07:42,963 --> 00:07:45,381 that it could bring happiness to the individual. 99 00:07:45,841 --> 00:07:48,050 Then people tended to look to government agencies 100 00:07:48,260 --> 00:07:52,763 for those narcotic substitutes for a search for happiness 101 00:07:53,098 --> 00:07:56,058 and contentment, which they ought to have found in their religion, 102 00:07:56,226 --> 00:07:58,018 in their institutions and their culture themselves. 103 00:08:02,899 --> 00:08:06,402 Buckley was the first modern conservative intellectual 104 00:08:06,570 --> 00:08:10,656 to see that ideological debates were cultural debates. 105 00:08:10,824 --> 00:08:15,536 And what he did was to put conservatism on the march. 106 00:08:15,787 --> 00:08:18,664 And that's the creation of the movement that we have today. 107 00:08:19,916 --> 00:08:23,252 He's stimulating. He's exhausting. He's fun. 108 00:08:24,129 --> 00:08:28,424 Sometimes I could kill him... but not too often. 109 00:08:29,092 --> 00:08:31,802 He could've been the playboy of the Western world 110 00:08:31,970 --> 00:08:36,807 but he chose to be the St. Paul of the conservative movement. 111 00:08:38,226 --> 00:08:39,476 Most work days, he winds up 112 00:08:39,644 --> 00:08:41,604 in the offices of the National Review, 113 00:08:41,771 --> 00:08:43,355 his journal of conservative opinion 114 00:08:43,523 --> 00:08:48,110 which reaches 110,000 subscribers and is read by many more. 115 00:08:51,114 --> 00:08:53,949 National Review is the most influential 116 00:08:54,117 --> 00:08:55,743 magazine of our time. 117 00:08:56,494 --> 00:08:59,872 Why? The magazine attached to a movement. 118 00:09:01,708 --> 00:09:04,418 My brother, Bill, he was a conservative, 119 00:09:04,586 --> 00:09:06,712 right-wing libertarian Christian. 120 00:09:07,005 --> 00:09:08,380 That's what he was. 121 00:09:10,008 --> 00:09:13,052 But most of all, Bill was a revolutionary. 122 00:09:14,596 --> 00:09:17,389 When the people at ABC had first approached Bill, 123 00:09:17,641 --> 00:09:19,475 they had asked him would he be willing to be 124 00:09:19,643 --> 00:09:23,479 the conservative debater commentator with the national conventions. 125 00:09:23,647 --> 00:09:25,147 And he said, yes, he would. 126 00:09:25,315 --> 00:09:27,399 And they asked him, "Well, is there anybody you wouldn't go on with?" 127 00:09:27,567 --> 00:09:30,819 And he said, "Well, I would refuse to go on with a Communist." 128 00:09:31,196 --> 00:09:34,907 "And, apart from that, the only one I can think of is Gore Vidal." 129 00:09:36,618 --> 00:09:38,118 Camera's rolling. 130 00:09:38,411 --> 00:09:41,372 Men and women who are sexually repressed 131 00:09:41,539 --> 00:09:46,877 regard all sexual pleasure as "dirty," "evil," "the devil's work." 132 00:09:47,254 --> 00:09:50,047 Yet we are all prostitutes in one sense or another, 133 00:09:50,215 --> 00:09:51,674 ethically, if not sexually. 134 00:09:52,634 --> 00:09:55,261 For Buckley, Vidal was the devil. 135 00:09:55,428 --> 00:10:01,809 He represented everything that was going to moral hell... 136 00:10:03,812 --> 00:10:06,522 that was degenerative about the country. 137 00:10:07,190 --> 00:10:11,944 A cultural war has now joined the race war in the United States. 138 00:10:12,904 --> 00:10:16,031 And the change is going to be very difficult. 139 00:10:16,199 --> 00:10:19,076 And as our own Thomas Jefferson once said, 140 00:10:19,244 --> 00:10:22,246 "The tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with blood." 141 00:10:24,624 --> 00:10:28,127 In a sense, this was the beginning of a war between an old order 142 00:10:28,295 --> 00:10:30,587 and what I hoped would be a new order. 143 00:10:34,968 --> 00:10:37,177 Gore didn't just see rioting in the streets, 144 00:10:37,387 --> 00:10:39,388 he saw revolution breaking out. 145 00:10:41,683 --> 00:10:44,184 Remember, Gore Vidal was always an iconoclast. 146 00:10:45,061 --> 00:10:48,230 An apostate. A writer against the grain. 147 00:10:49,858 --> 00:10:53,277 And he saw Buckley and his ideas as anti-Democratic. 148 00:10:53,820 --> 00:10:58,073 If Buckley were not taken out, his ideas would take down the nation. 149 00:10:59,367 --> 00:11:04,079 It occurred to me that the central drive in human beings is power. 150 00:11:05,373 --> 00:11:08,167 And that has always been my theme, that ideal in politics, 151 00:11:08,335 --> 00:11:10,419 which is an obvious manifestation of power. 152 00:11:12,213 --> 00:11:14,173 Gore Vidal is one of America's most successful 153 00:11:14,341 --> 00:11:15,674 and distinguished writers. 154 00:11:16,301 --> 00:11:19,303 He also lives in a personal cloud of outrageous legends. 155 00:11:19,721 --> 00:11:22,556 After the early books, which first brought him to the public eye, 156 00:11:22,974 --> 00:11:25,768 came a group of highly praised historical novels 157 00:11:25,935 --> 00:11:27,311 which sold in the millions. 158 00:11:27,687 --> 00:11:30,689 But it was Myra Breckinridge that confirmed Vidal's place 159 00:11:30,940 --> 00:11:34,401 as the enfant terrible of the respectable American literary scene. 160 00:11:34,778 --> 00:11:38,113 By 1968, he had just published a bombshell of a book, 161 00:11:38,281 --> 00:11:41,450 his greatest satire, and, I think, one of the greatest satires written 162 00:11:41,618 --> 00:11:43,285 in English, Myra Breckinridge. 163 00:11:44,746 --> 00:11:46,663 And now, ladies and gentlemen, 164 00:11:46,831 --> 00:11:49,333 what you've all been waiting for... 165 00:11:49,542 --> 00:11:51,001 The book that couldn't be written 166 00:11:51,169 --> 00:11:54,463 is now the motion picture that couldn't be made: 167 00:11:54,631 --> 00:11:56,673 Myra Breckinridge. 168 00:11:58,343 --> 00:12:01,261 He'd gotten, you know, the cover of TIME magazine for it. 169 00:12:01,429 --> 00:12:03,305 And his career was soaring at the time. 170 00:12:03,473 --> 00:12:06,266 But, it was edgy material. 171 00:12:06,851 --> 00:12:08,811 I don't know where Myra came from. 172 00:12:08,978 --> 00:12:12,022 I really was like the character, each day wondering what Myra would do 173 00:12:12,190 --> 00:12:15,401 and roaring with laughter as this thing presented herself to me. 174 00:12:17,153 --> 00:12:18,404 Gentlemen... 175 00:12:20,031 --> 00:12:22,116 I am Myron Breckinridge. 176 00:12:22,700 --> 00:12:25,077 Uncle Buck, your fag nephew became your niece 177 00:12:25,245 --> 00:12:28,580 two years ago in Copenhagen, and is now free as a bird 178 00:12:28,748 --> 00:12:32,626 and happy in being the most extraordinary woman in the world! 179 00:12:33,545 --> 00:12:36,713 And suddenly, it occurred to me, about sexual relations. 180 00:12:36,881 --> 00:12:40,592 How indeed much of it is based not upon any pleasure principle, 181 00:12:40,760 --> 00:12:41,969 or even a procreative one, 182 00:12:42,470 --> 00:12:44,888 but of people gaining power over others. 183 00:12:45,056 --> 00:12:46,557 Ah-ha! Gotcha! 184 00:12:47,058 --> 00:12:51,270 And so I conceived of my androgynous protagonist 185 00:12:52,647 --> 00:12:55,190 who is a man who becomes a woman who becomes a man. 186 00:12:55,900 --> 00:12:58,026 A transsexual seducing men, 187 00:12:58,194 --> 00:13:00,279 or in one case, I believe, raping a man... 188 00:13:00,447 --> 00:13:02,865 Yay-haa! 189 00:13:03,450 --> 00:13:04,575 Uh... 190 00:13:06,286 --> 00:13:07,995 The themes of Myra Breckinridge, 191 00:13:08,163 --> 00:13:10,289 and also sexuality and transsexuality, 192 00:13:10,457 --> 00:13:11,999 was way ahead of its time 193 00:13:12,167 --> 00:13:13,750 and got under Bill Buckley's skin. 194 00:13:16,337 --> 00:13:21,258 Mr. Buckley, did you see the film Myra Breckinridge, and why not? 195 00:13:23,595 --> 00:13:25,721 That told the people at ABC: 196 00:13:25,889 --> 00:13:28,432 "Wow, we have a chance for some great theater here! 197 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:29,892 Let's get Gore Vidal." 198 00:13:35,315 --> 00:13:39,485 Gore Vidal is a whore of debate. 199 00:13:39,903 --> 00:13:43,197 And when it comes to values of our country, 200 00:13:43,740 --> 00:13:45,240 and of historical forces, 201 00:13:45,408 --> 00:13:47,367 the man is brilliant. 202 00:13:48,119 --> 00:13:50,996 And the man is fun to watch. 203 00:13:51,789 --> 00:13:55,459 But there is always a residue, in my opinion, 204 00:13:55,835 --> 00:13:58,378 when I watch him, of nausea. 205 00:14:01,174 --> 00:14:03,300 I didn't say anything nasty about him, did I? 206 00:14:06,304 --> 00:14:07,679 It is under... No. 207 00:14:07,847 --> 00:14:09,765 All right. 208 00:14:16,689 --> 00:14:18,732 It is understandable that the Republicans decided 209 00:14:18,942 --> 00:14:21,693 to hold their convention south of the Mason-Dixon line. 210 00:14:22,028 --> 00:14:24,821 They had not done so in 104 years. 211 00:14:25,114 --> 00:14:29,034 And it is obvious why anyone might want to come to Miami Beach. 212 00:14:29,786 --> 00:14:32,371 But the real reasons for the Republican presence here 213 00:14:32,539 --> 00:14:35,207 are less obvious. And I blew that one. Let's-- 214 00:14:45,468 --> 00:14:49,721 This nine-mile-long sandbar has one advantage above all others, 215 00:14:49,889 --> 00:14:51,014 it is remote. 216 00:14:51,891 --> 00:14:53,809 It's therefore easy for the Republicans 217 00:14:53,977 --> 00:14:56,853 to avoid the danger of large, militant demonstrations. 218 00:15:03,861 --> 00:15:06,697 There's a huge, almost empty convention hall down there 219 00:15:06,864 --> 00:15:09,783 waiting for the 1968 Republican convention. 220 00:15:09,951 --> 00:15:13,495 There's very little work left to do before the first gavel on Monday. 221 00:15:16,916 --> 00:15:21,044 Every political convention has features no other before it has had. 222 00:15:21,212 --> 00:15:23,213 What's going to be distinctive about this one? 223 00:15:23,381 --> 00:15:26,091 First of all, this is the first one available to the public 224 00:15:26,259 --> 00:15:28,051 completely in beautiful color, 225 00:15:28,219 --> 00:15:30,387 and lady delegates have received careful instructions 226 00:15:30,597 --> 00:15:33,932 about how to dress so as to appear vivid, but not garish. 227 00:15:40,106 --> 00:15:42,065 Bill Buckley took off for a week sailing 228 00:15:42,233 --> 00:15:44,484 before the Republican National Convention. 229 00:15:45,153 --> 00:15:47,487 They sailed down to Cozumel. 230 00:15:48,197 --> 00:15:51,366 I would be rather surprised if he did any special preparation 231 00:15:51,576 --> 00:15:53,869 for this encounter with Gore Vidal. 232 00:15:54,579 --> 00:15:56,496 Buckley expected this to be 233 00:15:56,664 --> 00:16:01,793 an opportunity to debate the issues, to have some fun. 234 00:16:01,961 --> 00:16:05,297 He was not prepared for Mr. Vidal. 235 00:16:06,341 --> 00:16:08,634 Gore told me he hired a researcher. 236 00:16:08,801 --> 00:16:13,388 He wanted to paint National Review as being racist, 237 00:16:13,556 --> 00:16:15,849 if he could, anti-Semitic. 238 00:16:16,893 --> 00:16:21,396 I don't think he was really interested in conducting a debate 239 00:16:21,939 --> 00:16:25,025 about the issues or about the parties 240 00:16:25,193 --> 00:16:28,779 or about the policies or about the platforms of the two parties. 241 00:16:28,946 --> 00:16:32,449 What he wanted to do was to expose Bill Buckley. 242 00:16:39,540 --> 00:16:42,459 Their confrontation is about lifestyle, 243 00:16:43,586 --> 00:16:46,380 what kind of people should we be. 244 00:16:47,382 --> 00:16:50,759 Their real argument, in front of the public, 245 00:16:51,177 --> 00:16:53,303 is "who is the better person." 246 00:16:56,683 --> 00:17:01,144 In one minute, A Second Look with William Buckley and Gore Vidal. 247 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:07,484 Across from us was Howard K. Smith. 248 00:17:08,027 --> 00:17:11,238 Suave, intelligent, madly apprehensive. 249 00:17:11,406 --> 00:17:14,825 Rehearsing with his lips the lines he would presently deliver. 250 00:17:15,410 --> 00:17:18,870 Thirty, 40, 50 technicians, reporters, directors 251 00:17:19,247 --> 00:17:20,747 filled the enormous room, 252 00:17:21,416 --> 00:17:24,501 at one corner of which, earphones attached, 253 00:17:24,836 --> 00:17:27,796 Vidal and I awaited the sound of the bell. 254 00:17:29,716 --> 00:17:30,841 From past experience, I knew 255 00:17:31,050 --> 00:17:33,719 that Buckley would have done no research. 256 00:17:34,470 --> 00:17:37,222 That what facts he had at his command would be jumbled 257 00:17:37,390 --> 00:17:39,391 by the strangest syntax. 258 00:17:41,144 --> 00:17:42,936 We'd exchanged minimal amenities. 259 00:17:43,104 --> 00:17:47,399 And I scribbled on my clipboard to avoid having to banter with him. 260 00:17:47,984 --> 00:17:49,818 And he did the same. 261 00:17:50,486 --> 00:17:52,320 For all their ideological differences, 262 00:17:52,488 --> 00:17:54,072 they both see what the problem is. 263 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:56,450 That America can't stay on the course it's on. 264 00:17:56,617 --> 00:17:58,869 And that the country's being split at the seams. 265 00:17:59,746 --> 00:18:01,872 And each has staked out his position 266 00:18:02,039 --> 00:18:08,128 in ways that portend where our country is divided right now. 267 00:18:12,300 --> 00:18:14,634 To help us extract meaning from these conventions, 268 00:18:14,802 --> 00:18:17,971 two of America's most eloquent and most decided commentators 269 00:18:18,139 --> 00:18:19,556 have joined us this year. 270 00:18:19,724 --> 00:18:23,769 They are Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. 271 00:18:23,936 --> 00:18:27,189 Can Mr. Vidal assess the Republicans for us? 272 00:18:27,774 --> 00:18:32,402 Can a political party based almost entirely upon human greed 273 00:18:33,154 --> 00:18:35,447 nominate anyone for President 274 00:18:35,615 --> 00:18:38,700 for whom a majority of the American people would vote? 275 00:18:40,369 --> 00:18:42,579 May I comment, Mr. Smith? 276 00:18:42,747 --> 00:18:43,830 - Please do. - Yeah. 277 00:18:43,998 --> 00:18:48,919 It seems to me that the author of Myra Breckinridge 278 00:18:49,086 --> 00:18:51,588 is well acquainted with the imperatives of human greed. 279 00:18:52,006 --> 00:18:54,007 Well, I would like to say, Bill, if I may-- 280 00:18:54,175 --> 00:18:57,177 If I may say, Bill, before you go any further, 281 00:18:57,345 --> 00:19:01,515 I would like to say if there were a contest for Mr. Myra Breckinridge 282 00:19:01,682 --> 00:19:03,225 you would unquestionably win it. 283 00:19:03,392 --> 00:19:05,936 I based her entire style polemically upon you: 284 00:19:06,103 --> 00:19:07,479 passionate and irrelevant. 285 00:19:07,647 --> 00:19:14,361 Now, my point is that for Mr. Vidal to contend a particular party 286 00:19:14,529 --> 00:19:16,613 as engaged in the pursuit of human greed, 287 00:19:16,781 --> 00:19:19,658 requires us to understand his rather eccentric definitions. 288 00:19:19,826 --> 00:19:21,618 Is it greedy really for a people to suggest 289 00:19:21,786 --> 00:19:24,496 that what matters to poor people is that they have houses? 290 00:19:24,664 --> 00:19:26,998 Is it really greedy to want to preserve our freedom? 291 00:19:27,166 --> 00:19:32,254 We have the luxury of being able to focus on those who are poor 292 00:19:32,421 --> 00:19:34,548 in our midst as though we can do something about it. 293 00:19:34,715 --> 00:19:36,091 Which is something that no other country 294 00:19:36,259 --> 00:19:38,885 less occupied with human greed has-- 295 00:19:39,053 --> 00:19:42,180 The nice thing about the Republican party is that every four years 296 00:19:42,348 --> 00:19:44,766 after denigrating the poor amongst themselves, 297 00:19:44,934 --> 00:19:47,143 referring to them as "freeloaders," "they don't want to work," 298 00:19:47,311 --> 00:19:49,271 and I have many quotes here from Ronald Reagan. 299 00:19:49,438 --> 00:19:52,566 And then every four years you get this sort of crocodile tears 300 00:19:52,733 --> 00:19:55,110 for the poor people because they need their vote. 301 00:19:55,278 --> 00:19:58,947 It is quite true that Reagan is capable of talking about freeloaders, 302 00:19:59,115 --> 00:20:02,367 so am I, because there are freeloaders. 303 00:20:02,535 --> 00:20:07,163 It is one thing to say that a society ought to concern itself 304 00:20:07,331 --> 00:20:08,957 with the plight of its poor. I think the Republican party 305 00:20:09,125 --> 00:20:10,250 is saying that. 306 00:20:10,459 --> 00:20:11,751 Perhaps the Republican party should have 307 00:20:11,919 --> 00:20:14,921 a platform on how to deal with Vidal. 308 00:20:15,089 --> 00:20:17,757 If absolutely necessary, I will write it for them, but meanwhile-- 309 00:20:17,925 --> 00:20:20,760 Meanwhile, I'd be very, very nervous. You have written lately of your 310 00:20:20,928 --> 00:20:23,388 intimacy with Reagan and with Nixon 311 00:20:23,556 --> 00:20:25,682 and that you've discussed the Vietnam War with them 312 00:20:25,850 --> 00:20:27,809 and that you are satisfied with their positions. 313 00:20:27,977 --> 00:20:31,855 Since you're in favor of the nuclear bombing of North Vietnam, 314 00:20:32,023 --> 00:20:35,817 I'd be very worried about your kind of odd neurosis-- 315 00:20:35,985 --> 00:20:39,613 Or more like neurosis being a friend of anybody who might be a president. 316 00:20:39,780 --> 00:20:42,032 I've never advocated the nuclear bombing of North Vietnam. 317 00:20:42,366 --> 00:20:45,619 You have, and I'll give you time and place even. 318 00:20:45,953 --> 00:20:47,662 - Well, you won't, because I never-- - I will. 319 00:20:47,830 --> 00:20:49,414 I will if we don't mind. The record-- 320 00:20:49,582 --> 00:20:51,625 No, now wait a minute, don't duck away from the record. 321 00:20:51,792 --> 00:20:55,086 You suggested the atom bombing of the north of Vietnam 322 00:20:55,254 --> 00:20:57,339 in your little magazine, which I do not read, 323 00:20:57,506 --> 00:21:01,051 but I'm told about, on February 23, 1968. 324 00:21:01,218 --> 00:21:02,719 So you're very hawkish. 325 00:21:02,887 --> 00:21:05,764 And now, if both Nixon and Reagan are listening to you, 326 00:21:05,932 --> 00:21:07,557 I'm very worried for the country. 327 00:21:07,725 --> 00:21:10,518 Now, it seems to me that the Republican party 328 00:21:10,686 --> 00:21:14,189 has shown a record of greater sobriety than Mr. Vidal, 329 00:21:14,357 --> 00:21:17,067 who boasts of not reading something which he has prepared to misquote 330 00:21:17,234 --> 00:21:18,902 in the presence of the person who edits this. 331 00:21:19,070 --> 00:21:22,572 Now, Bill Buckley, if the quotation is exact... 332 00:21:22,740 --> 00:21:26,826 Now don't be... We know your tendency is to be feline, Mr. Vidal, 333 00:21:27,119 --> 00:21:30,789 but just relax for a moment and think very simply on this. 334 00:21:30,957 --> 00:21:34,209 I have not advocated... I'm not horrified at the prospect. 335 00:21:34,377 --> 00:21:36,670 Bill, I just quoted where you said these things and where. 336 00:21:36,837 --> 00:21:39,506 - Are you saying you didn't say them? - I'm saying that I didn't say them. 337 00:21:39,674 --> 00:21:41,883 - You're taking them back? - That your misquotation-- 338 00:21:42,051 --> 00:21:44,511 Tune in this time tomorrow night and we will have further evidence 339 00:21:44,679 --> 00:21:47,263 of Bill Buckley, cold warrior turned hot. 340 00:21:47,431 --> 00:21:49,182 Right, and about the human greed of everybody in the world 341 00:21:49,350 --> 00:21:51,601 - except yourself. - There are saints. 342 00:21:51,769 --> 00:21:53,979 Tomorrow, what Mr. Vidal thinks about the Kennedys. 343 00:21:54,146 --> 00:21:56,106 Good night, and let me tell you. 344 00:21:57,274 --> 00:21:58,817 Excuse me, gentlemen. 345 00:21:59,026 --> 00:22:01,319 It's been very enjoyable hearing you articulate 346 00:22:01,487 --> 00:22:03,571 two points of view. Thank you very much indeed. 347 00:22:03,739 --> 00:22:06,032 I think I detected some unfinished lines of thought. 348 00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:08,493 We'll have time to follow them through tomorrow. 349 00:22:08,661 --> 00:22:11,997 And tomorrow. And tomorrow. Every night, we... 350 00:22:12,206 --> 00:22:14,374 There's nothing feigned about the mutual antipathy. 351 00:22:15,376 --> 00:22:17,585 They really do despise one another. 352 00:22:18,713 --> 00:22:21,089 Each thought that the other was quite dangerous. 353 00:22:21,507 --> 00:22:25,135 And it was drawn from quite a deep well in both cases. 354 00:22:25,845 --> 00:22:28,638 Gore Vidal and William Buckley first clashed, 355 00:22:28,806 --> 00:22:34,019 almost by proxy, in 1962 on The Jack Paar Program. 356 00:22:34,478 --> 00:22:36,062 Vidal had gone on Jack Paar's show 357 00:22:36,230 --> 00:22:38,732 and they both started mocking Buckley: 358 00:22:38,899 --> 00:22:42,986 his eccentric mannerisms, the voice, 359 00:22:43,154 --> 00:22:45,905 the facial tics, all the rest. 360 00:22:46,407 --> 00:22:48,324 So, in effect, Buckley was given equal time. 361 00:22:48,492 --> 00:22:50,744 And he went on Jack Paar's show. 362 00:22:50,953 --> 00:22:56,750 And Paar expected that kind of troglodyte Neanderthal 363 00:22:56,917 --> 00:23:01,880 man-of-the-right whom Vidal had caricatured on the program. 364 00:23:02,048 --> 00:23:05,884 And instead, you have this genius of debate. 365 00:23:06,677 --> 00:23:09,387 And Paar was stunned. 366 00:23:11,682 --> 00:23:14,684 We next met in San Francisco, 1964, 367 00:23:14,852 --> 00:23:17,228 during the Goldwater convention. 368 00:23:17,396 --> 00:23:20,523 I confessed to having prepared a trap for Buckley. 369 00:23:20,691 --> 00:23:22,692 I egged him on. 370 00:23:22,860 --> 00:23:25,111 The next day, Buckley sent me a letter to the effect 371 00:23:25,279 --> 00:23:27,363 that he never wanted to see me again. 372 00:23:28,074 --> 00:23:31,284 I found this sentiment agreeable. 373 00:23:33,329 --> 00:23:36,456 Buckley was eager to be on television. 374 00:23:37,374 --> 00:23:41,669 The downside of it for Gore was that he contributed to Buckley's... 375 00:23:42,463 --> 00:23:44,881 becoming an onscreen celebrity. 376 00:23:49,804 --> 00:23:52,722 Mr. Buckley, read by many, but not that many, 377 00:23:52,890 --> 00:23:55,058 would be nothing if it wasn't for his program Firing Line. 378 00:23:55,226 --> 00:23:57,811 Buckley sat in his chair with a clipboard 379 00:23:57,978 --> 00:24:02,440 and would invite left-wingers or liberals on his program, 380 00:24:02,608 --> 00:24:05,026 and they would go back and forth for half an hour. 381 00:24:05,194 --> 00:24:08,238 People on the left are more law-abiding than anybody else. 382 00:24:08,405 --> 00:24:10,323 That's why they're on the left. 383 00:24:10,616 --> 00:24:12,242 - Explain that, would you? - I'd be happy to. 384 00:24:12,409 --> 00:24:14,202 You're marvelous. I adore you. 385 00:24:14,411 --> 00:24:15,787 You're the only man who can ask your question, 386 00:24:15,955 --> 00:24:18,248 and convict the man before he can answer the question. 387 00:24:18,916 --> 00:24:21,459 Television was happy to have Bill 388 00:24:21,627 --> 00:24:24,379 because everybody else was saying the same thing. 389 00:24:24,547 --> 00:24:28,424 From my point of view, what Elijah Muhammad is doing to you 390 00:24:28,592 --> 00:24:31,719 is diseasing your mind. 391 00:24:31,887 --> 00:24:37,767 You sit and tell me that we white people like to divide and conquer. 392 00:24:37,935 --> 00:24:39,769 - You do. - I grew up as a white child, 393 00:24:39,937 --> 00:24:43,398 I heard much more talk against Democrats than I did against black people. 394 00:24:43,941 --> 00:24:47,735 When he began Firing Line he did it in part to show off. 395 00:24:47,903 --> 00:24:50,697 But he actually did just what pundit television should do. 396 00:24:50,906 --> 00:24:54,117 Which is he elevated the discourse and he educated people through it. 397 00:24:58,455 --> 00:25:01,332 On the eve of the Republican Convention, the heat is on. 398 00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:03,918 We bring you a report on who did what to whom 399 00:25:04,086 --> 00:25:05,587 in the last hours before the gavel. 400 00:25:05,754 --> 00:25:09,340 Plus commentary and some dissent from our guest commentators: 401 00:25:09,508 --> 00:25:10,800 author Gore Vidal... 402 00:25:10,968 --> 00:25:13,052 ABC's unconventional convention coverage 403 00:25:13,220 --> 00:25:15,471 was a subject of ridicule 404 00:25:15,639 --> 00:25:19,184 as we were abdicating our journalistic responsibility. 405 00:25:19,852 --> 00:25:23,730 But if the goal was to raise ABC News' visibility, 406 00:25:24,398 --> 00:25:26,107 we certainly succeeded. 407 00:25:28,110 --> 00:25:29,402 Everybody watched the news. 408 00:25:29,570 --> 00:25:32,697 Nearly 80 percent of the country watched coverage 409 00:25:32,865 --> 00:25:35,575 of the Republican and Democratic conventions in 1968. 410 00:25:38,245 --> 00:25:39,662 We're going live to the West Coast 411 00:25:39,872 --> 00:25:41,414 in about six or seven minutes. 412 00:25:41,582 --> 00:25:44,626 And then, ABC News' studio collapsed. 413 00:25:54,178 --> 00:25:57,722 The lighting grid fell down onto the floor of the set. 414 00:25:59,433 --> 00:26:01,100 And the roof fell in... ...literally. 415 00:26:01,268 --> 00:26:03,478 It was built inside the arena. 416 00:26:03,646 --> 00:26:05,063 Hard hats on. 417 00:26:05,481 --> 00:26:10,151 ABC was really the Budget car rental of television news. 418 00:26:10,319 --> 00:26:14,155 Pieces of the ceiling start flying, and then all of a sudden, 419 00:26:14,323 --> 00:26:16,491 the whole thing started giving away. 420 00:26:17,952 --> 00:26:20,453 Mr. Lower, ABC promised to be unconventional this year 421 00:26:20,621 --> 00:26:24,457 - but this is ridiculous. - We're gonna be unconventional, Sam. 422 00:26:24,541 --> 00:26:25,667 I can tell you that. 423 00:26:26,126 --> 00:26:28,378 Thank you very much. Now let's just cut it. 424 00:26:40,975 --> 00:26:42,934 This is Miami, day one. 425 00:26:43,102 --> 00:26:46,354 From Miami Beach, ABC News presents... 426 00:26:47,022 --> 00:26:48,898 Race to the White House. 427 00:26:50,025 --> 00:26:51,651 They did what they could. 428 00:26:51,819 --> 00:26:53,653 Basically, they hung a lot of drapes. 429 00:26:53,821 --> 00:26:56,489 Lit the set with C stands and lamps. 430 00:26:57,491 --> 00:26:59,367 Frankly, I think it was an improvement. 431 00:26:59,535 --> 00:27:02,954 We would like now to demonstrate how the English language ought to be used 432 00:27:03,122 --> 00:27:05,415 by two craftsmen, our guest commentators. 433 00:27:05,582 --> 00:27:07,166 On the air in ten... 434 00:27:09,169 --> 00:27:14,132 If you view debate purely as sport, let's call it blood sport. 435 00:27:15,175 --> 00:27:17,427 Then really, all bets are off. 436 00:27:17,594 --> 00:27:21,180 Nine, eight, seven, six. Standby now! 437 00:27:22,516 --> 00:27:26,477 You have one objective, and that's to win in that moment. 438 00:27:29,023 --> 00:27:32,900 When you attack the position of your opponent, 439 00:27:33,068 --> 00:27:35,862 you have to first attack it clinically and rationally. 440 00:27:37,239 --> 00:27:39,449 Six, five, four... 441 00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,745 But mostly what you have to get at is what's behind those things. 442 00:27:43,912 --> 00:27:47,165 What is driving the human being who is in front of you. 443 00:27:47,333 --> 00:27:50,877 ...three, two, one. 444 00:27:54,590 --> 00:27:57,300 - Gore Vidal. - Tonight, the key question 445 00:27:57,468 --> 00:28:00,011 for every patriot is 446 00:28:00,179 --> 00:28:04,474 "Can an aging, Hollywood, juvenile actor with a right-wing script 447 00:28:04,641 --> 00:28:07,727 defeat Richard Nixon, a professional politician 448 00:28:07,895 --> 00:28:12,607 who currently represents no discernible interest except his own?" 449 00:28:13,484 --> 00:28:15,693 As of yesterday morning, Ronald Regan says, 450 00:28:15,861 --> 00:28:17,570 "The only function of government 451 00:28:17,738 --> 00:28:21,282 is to get out of our way and leave us alone as much as possible." 452 00:28:21,700 --> 00:28:23,785 Now, on this occasion, I'm afraid I have to agree 453 00:28:23,952 --> 00:28:26,537 with William Buckley, the distinguished thinker, 454 00:28:26,830 --> 00:28:27,997 when he says... 455 00:28:28,165 --> 00:28:31,000 My favorite quotation from you. I have a treasury here. 456 00:28:31,168 --> 00:28:34,295 "Today as never before, the State has the necessary instrument 457 00:28:34,463 --> 00:28:36,464 of our proximate deliverance." 458 00:28:36,632 --> 00:28:38,925 As usual, in your slightly Latinate and inaccurate style. 459 00:28:39,093 --> 00:28:41,135 But you do feel, as most of us do, 460 00:28:41,303 --> 00:28:45,098 that the State must have some responsibility 461 00:28:45,265 --> 00:28:47,642 for what happens in the country. And now you have Ronald Regan, 462 00:28:47,810 --> 00:28:49,310 whom you approve of, who does not want to use 463 00:28:49,478 --> 00:28:51,187 the federal government to do anything at all. 464 00:28:51,355 --> 00:28:54,732 Mr. Smith, I confess that anything complicated 465 00:28:54,900 --> 00:28:56,359 confuses Mr. Vidal. 466 00:28:56,527 --> 00:28:58,861 This has been plain for a very long time. 467 00:28:59,029 --> 00:29:01,906 He has a great difficulty reconciling 468 00:29:02,074 --> 00:29:05,660 even axiomatic positions concerning political philosophy, 469 00:29:05,828 --> 00:29:09,330 but we were treated to Mr. Gore Vidal, the playwright. 470 00:29:09,998 --> 00:29:12,333 Saying that, after all, Ronald Regan 471 00:29:12,501 --> 00:29:18,131 was nothing more than an "aging Hollywood juvenile actor." 472 00:29:18,298 --> 00:29:21,008 Now, to begin with, everybody's aging, 473 00:29:21,301 --> 00:29:24,178 - even Mr. Vidal. That's right. - Even you are, Bill. 474 00:29:24,638 --> 00:29:26,931 - Perceptibly before our eyes. - Then he said "Hollywood." 475 00:29:27,099 --> 00:29:29,684 Now, one has either acted in Hollywood 476 00:29:29,852 --> 00:29:33,563 during the time Mr. Reagan acted, or one didn't act at all. 477 00:29:33,730 --> 00:29:36,858 Mr. Vidal sends all of his books to Hollywood, 478 00:29:37,025 --> 00:29:38,609 many of which are rejected, 479 00:29:38,777 --> 00:29:40,570 but some of which are ground out into-- 480 00:29:40,737 --> 00:29:42,405 Bill, I never send any there. 481 00:29:42,573 --> 00:29:45,992 But he called him a juvenile actor which is presumably 482 00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,954 to be distinguished from an adult actor. Now my point is-- 483 00:29:50,122 --> 00:29:53,458 Buckley was his generation's greatest debater. 484 00:29:54,084 --> 00:29:56,294 He knew very well how to make an argument. 485 00:29:56,462 --> 00:30:01,007 What he was even better at was dismantling your argument. 486 00:30:01,175 --> 00:30:04,385 - Now, I think this kind of-- - Now, Bill, I think... 487 00:30:05,095 --> 00:30:08,681 - Bill, if I may say so-- - ...as I think ABC has the right... 488 00:30:08,849 --> 00:30:11,767 Just as I think ABC has the authority... I'm almost through. 489 00:30:11,935 --> 00:30:13,769 No, you're n... In every sense. 490 00:30:13,937 --> 00:30:15,313 Let Mr. Buckley finish his sentence. 491 00:30:15,481 --> 00:30:17,982 Then, Mr. Vidal, I assure you time to refute it. 492 00:30:18,150 --> 00:30:23,279 If ABC has the authority to invite the author of Myra Breckinridge 493 00:30:23,447 --> 00:30:26,532 to come and to comment on Republican politics, 494 00:30:26,700 --> 00:30:29,577 I think that the people of California have the right, 495 00:30:29,745 --> 00:30:31,996 when they speak overwhelmingly, to project somebody 496 00:30:32,164 --> 00:30:35,833 into national politics even if he did commit the sin 497 00:30:36,001 --> 00:30:41,172 of having acted in movies that were not written by Mr. Vidal. 498 00:30:41,340 --> 00:30:43,758 If Buckley was the great debater of his time, 499 00:30:43,926 --> 00:30:46,594 Vidal was the great talker of his time. 500 00:30:46,762 --> 00:30:48,804 Well, as usual, Mr. Buckley... 501 00:30:49,681 --> 00:30:52,433 with his enormous and thrilling charm, 502 00:30:52,601 --> 00:30:55,895 manages to get away from the issue toward the comedy. 503 00:30:56,605 --> 00:31:00,191 He's always to the right, I think, and almost always in the wrong. 504 00:31:00,359 --> 00:31:03,903 And you certainly must, Bill, maintain your reputation as being 505 00:31:04,071 --> 00:31:06,614 the Marie Antoinette of the right wing 506 00:31:06,782 --> 00:31:10,201 and continually imposing your own rather bloodthirsty neuroses 507 00:31:10,369 --> 00:31:13,037 on a political campaign. 508 00:31:13,205 --> 00:31:16,624 He also rehearsed his ad libs. 509 00:31:18,210 --> 00:31:20,878 All the great bon mot that he unleashed on the air 510 00:31:21,046 --> 00:31:24,090 he tried out first on the reporters in the press room. 511 00:31:26,343 --> 00:31:30,179 So calling Buckley the Marie Antoinette of the right wing 512 00:31:30,305 --> 00:31:32,765 he had done that with a reporter beforehand. 513 00:31:33,100 --> 00:31:34,809 This is the hobgoblinization 514 00:31:34,977 --> 00:31:37,103 - of the Marxists. - Gentlemen, you have about 515 00:31:37,271 --> 00:31:41,065 one concluding sentence apiece. Can you give us one? 516 00:31:41,900 --> 00:31:44,610 Well, I think that it is something for which 517 00:31:44,778 --> 00:31:46,445 all of us have to be grateful, 518 00:31:46,613 --> 00:31:50,283 that there are left in America people who believe in the democratic process 519 00:31:50,450 --> 00:31:55,538 sufficiently to know that occasionally people can penetrate 520 00:31:55,706 --> 00:32:01,252 such myths as have been energetically projected by Mr. Vidal. 521 00:32:02,087 --> 00:32:06,632 Which would be not only a philosophy in an economy of stagnation, 522 00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,635 but also a spiritual world of stagnation. 523 00:32:09,803 --> 00:32:12,513 Thank you very much indeed, gentlemen. While... 524 00:32:12,681 --> 00:32:16,183 So these two guys were circling each other early on. 525 00:32:16,351 --> 00:32:20,271 Why? Partly because each one saw in the other 526 00:32:20,439 --> 00:32:25,484 a kind of exaggerated image of his own anxious version of himself. 527 00:32:29,239 --> 00:32:31,741 It's almost as if they were matter and anti-matter. 528 00:32:31,908 --> 00:32:34,410 Sort of parallel lives. 529 00:32:39,249 --> 00:32:42,460 They spoke with these patrician languid accents. 530 00:32:42,628 --> 00:32:44,670 They'd both been to boarding schools. 531 00:32:44,838 --> 00:32:47,632 Very prestigious families and backgrounds. 532 00:32:47,799 --> 00:32:48,966 So everyone thought. 533 00:32:49,551 --> 00:32:54,180 These were two guys who were not so much of the Eastern establishment, 534 00:32:54,348 --> 00:32:57,266 as conquerors of the Eastern establishment. 535 00:32:57,851 --> 00:33:00,603 Gore never went to college, 536 00:33:01,104 --> 00:33:03,773 which he was very proud of actually. 537 00:33:03,982 --> 00:33:05,733 We are savages, my family. 538 00:33:05,901 --> 00:33:07,985 Father was from the frontier. 539 00:33:09,404 --> 00:33:14,033 We didn't belong to Long Island society, nor did we wish to. 540 00:33:15,494 --> 00:33:18,371 This has always been an anti-intellectual country. 541 00:33:18,997 --> 00:33:22,917 These days, anybody who spoke like those two men in public 542 00:33:23,085 --> 00:33:25,086 would be seen to be heartless. 543 00:33:25,504 --> 00:33:29,131 In fact, they're supposed to be what American mass audience despises. 544 00:33:29,299 --> 00:33:32,343 They're intellectual. They sound like elites. 545 00:33:32,511 --> 00:33:33,886 But people warmed to it. 546 00:33:34,054 --> 00:33:37,098 Mr. Buckley, do you think miniskirts are in good taste? 547 00:33:37,265 --> 00:33:39,141 On you I think they are. 548 00:33:44,356 --> 00:33:46,482 - Those legs are in good taste. - Great legs. 549 00:33:46,650 --> 00:33:48,776 I never would've figured you for that kind. 550 00:33:51,321 --> 00:33:53,072 Gore Vidal famously said, 551 00:33:53,281 --> 00:33:56,617 sex and appearing on television." 552 00:33:56,785 --> 00:33:58,285 - Go ahead, Gore. - Joanne Woodward. 553 00:33:58,537 --> 00:34:00,830 Very good. That's one down and nine to go. 554 00:34:02,749 --> 00:34:04,417 Hey, put on your-- 555 00:34:04,584 --> 00:34:08,546 They both instinctually knew about the power of television 556 00:34:08,714 --> 00:34:11,716 in a way that a lot of American intellectuals of that era did not. 557 00:34:11,883 --> 00:34:14,677 Why don't you just talk to me instead of talking to the audience? 558 00:34:14,845 --> 00:34:17,304 Well, by a curious thing, we have not found ourselves 559 00:34:17,472 --> 00:34:20,433 in a friendly neighborhood bar, but both by election are sitting here 560 00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:22,518 with an audience. So therefore it would be 561 00:34:22,686 --> 00:34:25,229 dishonest of us to pretend otherwise. 562 00:34:26,606 --> 00:34:29,483 Mr. Buckley, I've noticed that whenever you appear on television, 563 00:34:29,651 --> 00:34:31,026 you're always seated. 564 00:34:31,236 --> 00:34:33,612 Does this mean you can't think on your feet? 565 00:34:35,782 --> 00:34:38,743 It's very... very hard to stand up 566 00:34:38,910 --> 00:34:42,246 carrying the... the weight of what I know. 567 00:34:45,751 --> 00:34:50,463 They were both very much aware that TV is the present and the future. 568 00:34:50,630 --> 00:34:53,007 And you have to be on it and you have to use it well. 569 00:35:04,853 --> 00:35:07,104 In a way, I think the brilliant thing about Gore Vidal 570 00:35:07,272 --> 00:35:10,649 is he had opinions and he was willing to air them and very, very bravely. 571 00:35:10,817 --> 00:35:13,152 I mean, this was the person that wrote The City and the Pillar, 572 00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,279 published in 1948. 573 00:35:15,697 --> 00:35:18,741 It was the first novel that dealt very openly... 574 00:35:20,327 --> 00:35:24,914 with homosexuality as being a perfectly normal sexual activity. 575 00:35:26,541 --> 00:35:28,417 He was willing to take these risks 576 00:35:28,585 --> 00:35:33,088 that almost no one statistically was ever willing to take. 577 00:35:33,632 --> 00:35:36,842 He deserved so much credit for that that he does not get. 578 00:35:37,427 --> 00:35:40,471 You have your own narrow views of what is correct sexual behavior. 579 00:35:40,639 --> 00:35:41,722 I happen to disagree with it 580 00:35:41,890 --> 00:35:43,516 and I think there are a great many people who do. 581 00:35:43,683 --> 00:35:48,187 We cannot in any way encourage young boys into this kind of relationship. 582 00:35:48,355 --> 00:35:50,898 You have every right to propagandize from the pulpit, 583 00:35:51,066 --> 00:35:54,151 and give us the same right to propagandize with books. 584 00:35:54,319 --> 00:35:56,529 I certainly am not gonna try to shut down your church, 585 00:35:56,696 --> 00:35:58,948 as appalling as I find your argument. 586 00:35:59,115 --> 00:36:01,492 Vidal's view is that sexual orientation 587 00:36:01,660 --> 00:36:05,955 amongst civilized humans is not named, discussed, or labeled. 588 00:36:07,916 --> 00:36:11,794 Gore Vidal would never answer to the question: 589 00:36:11,962 --> 00:36:14,755 Are you gay? "Yes, I'm gay." 590 00:36:16,633 --> 00:36:19,552 You have to understand that Gore was obsessed 591 00:36:19,761 --> 00:36:22,304 with shedding sexual labels. 592 00:36:23,598 --> 00:36:25,182 It is as natural to be homosexual 593 00:36:25,350 --> 00:36:26,600 as it is to be heterosexual. 594 00:36:26,768 --> 00:36:29,436 And the difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual 595 00:36:29,604 --> 00:36:31,355 is about the difference between somebody who has brown eyes 596 00:36:31,523 --> 00:36:33,190 - and somebody who has blue eyes. - Who says so? 597 00:36:33,358 --> 00:36:36,819 I say so. It is a completely natural act from the beginning of time. 598 00:36:37,654 --> 00:36:41,240 The morays of the country are going to hell. 599 00:36:41,950 --> 00:36:44,243 And if there was one thing William Buckley cared more about 600 00:36:44,411 --> 00:36:46,203 than anything, it would have been that. 601 00:36:46,371 --> 00:36:48,747 We go on like this, abortion will be on demand. 602 00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,418 Women will have sex with women. The family will be over. 603 00:36:52,586 --> 00:36:54,420 The church won't be respected. 604 00:36:54,588 --> 00:36:57,548 People will be screwing in the street, frightening the horses. 605 00:36:57,716 --> 00:36:59,508 Buggery will be legal. 606 00:37:00,343 --> 00:37:04,263 And if you'd said all that to Gore, he'd have said, "Okay, bring it on." 607 00:37:07,893 --> 00:37:11,186 In a very moving piece called "A Blow for Peace," 608 00:37:11,354 --> 00:37:13,856 in that magazine I will not mention, 609 00:37:14,024 --> 00:37:16,400 on the 29th of December, 1964-- 610 00:37:16,610 --> 00:37:18,986 We know that you'd like nothing to sully your lips. 611 00:37:19,195 --> 00:37:22,531 You came out... You will eat it first. 612 00:37:23,450 --> 00:37:28,370 You came out in favor of history at H for such an act of greatness. 613 00:37:28,538 --> 00:37:31,123 That is the bombing of the Chinese nuclear capacity. 614 00:37:31,291 --> 00:37:33,417 Mr. Vidal, I have no doubt that there are... 615 00:37:33,585 --> 00:37:36,128 there is somebody in Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village 616 00:37:36,296 --> 00:37:40,132 who considers that your caricature is fetching. I don't. 617 00:37:40,383 --> 00:37:43,802 I was invited here and am prepared to try to talk about 618 00:37:43,970 --> 00:37:45,846 - the Republican Convention. - Yes. 619 00:37:46,014 --> 00:37:48,140 But I maintain that it's very difficult to do so 620 00:37:48,308 --> 00:37:52,061 when you have somebody like this who speaks in such verse 621 00:37:52,228 --> 00:37:54,563 and he likes to be naughty. 622 00:37:54,731 --> 00:37:56,607 Which has proved to be a professionally 623 00:37:56,775 --> 00:37:58,567 highly merchandisable vice. 624 00:37:58,735 --> 00:38:01,946 Not unlike your so public vices and wickedness. 625 00:38:03,114 --> 00:38:07,576 We have to keep in mind the left-wing was never hesitant 626 00:38:07,744 --> 00:38:10,037 about smearing anybody from the right-wing. 627 00:38:10,830 --> 00:38:13,916 That was a battle Bill had to fight all the time. 628 00:38:14,084 --> 00:38:17,086 The disease of the right is greed, bigotry, 629 00:38:17,337 --> 00:38:19,755 insensitivity and general stupidity. 630 00:38:19,923 --> 00:38:22,091 On a radio interview, you said that you thought 631 00:38:22,342 --> 00:38:25,594 "the Jews tend to construct ongoing political myth centered around 632 00:38:25,762 --> 00:38:28,389 the Hitlerian experience, which more or less suggests 633 00:38:28,556 --> 00:38:30,474 that Hitler was the embodiment of the ultra-right." 634 00:38:30,642 --> 00:38:34,311 True. Most Jews suggest Hitler was the embodiment of the ultra-right. 635 00:38:34,479 --> 00:38:36,480 He certainly wasn't the embodiment of the ultra-left. 636 00:38:36,648 --> 00:38:40,275 And do you care to read the context, or shall I cram it down your throat? 637 00:38:40,443 --> 00:38:41,485 No, no, no. 638 00:38:41,653 --> 00:38:43,445 If you are a right-winger, 639 00:38:43,613 --> 00:38:46,240 you don't want to have anything to do with 640 00:38:46,408 --> 00:38:50,077 the Gnostic heresies of Nazism and Fascism. 641 00:38:50,829 --> 00:38:54,665 And that was a label that the left-wing kept trying to pin 642 00:38:54,874 --> 00:38:56,291 on the right-wing. 643 00:38:58,128 --> 00:39:00,796 Which is the cherry bomb that is waiting to go off. 644 00:39:00,964 --> 00:39:03,298 And eventually does. 645 00:39:06,261 --> 00:39:07,886 Good evening from Miami Beach. 646 00:39:08,054 --> 00:39:11,724 Again we bring you in 90 minutes all that's worth seeing and knowing 647 00:39:11,891 --> 00:39:15,269 as the convention's moment of truth comes near. 648 00:39:21,317 --> 00:39:22,901 - Can you hear me? - Yes! 649 00:39:23,653 --> 00:39:25,279 I said "rich America!" 650 00:39:27,157 --> 00:39:28,365 Quiet! 651 00:39:30,493 --> 00:39:33,579 Never has obedience to law 652 00:39:33,747 --> 00:39:36,915 been so disdained. 653 00:39:37,667 --> 00:39:40,335 In 1968, you see the beginning 654 00:39:40,503 --> 00:39:42,921 of a Republican kind of rhetoric 655 00:39:43,089 --> 00:39:46,967 in which strategies of dividing the country racially 656 00:39:47,135 --> 00:39:51,555 are disguised with language along the lines of law and order. 657 00:39:51,848 --> 00:39:54,308 Let's make America first again, 658 00:39:54,476 --> 00:39:56,810 in respect for order and justice under law. 659 00:39:57,020 --> 00:39:58,729 Now, isn't that what you want?! 660 00:39:58,938 --> 00:40:00,898 Isn't that where we're going to go? 661 00:40:01,816 --> 00:40:04,777 You wanted law and order in this town. You've got it. 662 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,029 He's bluffing, boys. Let's get him. 663 00:40:09,532 --> 00:40:12,159 The next one gets a load of buckshot. Any takers? 664 00:40:14,079 --> 00:40:17,498 Must we avoid our great cities by night, 665 00:40:17,957 --> 00:40:23,253 as if they were guerilla-infested hamlets out in Vietnam? 666 00:40:23,421 --> 00:40:24,630 No! 667 00:40:24,798 --> 00:40:26,548 10-27, we're setting up. 668 00:40:26,716 --> 00:40:30,928 There was a racial protest that turned into a riot 669 00:40:31,096 --> 00:40:33,055 at the convention in Miami. 670 00:40:35,141 --> 00:40:38,519 These were two visions of America clashing. 671 00:40:38,770 --> 00:40:40,854 Don't give me any of that crap. Turn around. 672 00:40:41,231 --> 00:40:44,316 Look at that man back there. You wanna look? Look at that picture. 673 00:40:44,484 --> 00:40:47,903 To be sure, this might have been a trick by the lily-white climate 674 00:40:48,071 --> 00:40:51,073 of the Republican Convention which is in progress right now 675 00:40:51,241 --> 00:40:52,825 just a few miles from here. 676 00:40:55,161 --> 00:41:00,791 The fault lines in our politics were decided in the 1968 election. 677 00:41:01,459 --> 00:41:04,962 Alliances that connect in shifting ways. 678 00:41:05,588 --> 00:41:09,591 Racial, religious, socio-economic. 679 00:41:09,759 --> 00:41:13,178 What we now call "identity politics" was being formed then. 680 00:41:13,763 --> 00:41:17,307 And Buckley knew it, because to some extent he'd helped create it. 681 00:41:21,271 --> 00:41:23,939 The subject for William Buckley and Gore Vidal tonight: 682 00:41:24,107 --> 00:41:25,649 "Beyond the Nominations." 683 00:41:25,817 --> 00:41:29,069 What issues can the Republicans use effectively to win? 684 00:41:29,237 --> 00:41:31,029 Well, I think two primarily. 685 00:41:31,197 --> 00:41:33,866 law and order. 686 00:41:34,033 --> 00:41:36,869 I wish there was a way of saying "law and order" 687 00:41:37,036 --> 00:41:39,538 that didn't make critics say, 688 00:41:39,706 --> 00:41:41,582 "You're talking about the racial question." 689 00:41:41,833 --> 00:41:45,878 I would like to know how to say "law and order" by other means, 690 00:41:46,045 --> 00:41:47,796 but still mean law and order. 691 00:41:47,964 --> 00:41:51,925 And one of the problems that we face, and that Nixon's gonna face, is this. 692 00:41:52,093 --> 00:41:54,136 What do we do about the growth 693 00:41:54,304 --> 00:41:58,557 of really mutinous members of the American community? 694 00:41:58,725 --> 00:42:00,559 These people have got to be faced not only politically, 695 00:42:00,727 --> 00:42:02,060 but philosophically. 696 00:42:02,228 --> 00:42:05,022 And this is something which, in my judgment, Mr. Nixon 697 00:42:05,190 --> 00:42:10,152 has got to elevate into the status of the genuine national debate. 698 00:42:10,820 --> 00:42:13,530 I think that if Richard Nixon were elected President, 699 00:42:13,698 --> 00:42:16,575 it would be an absolute, no matter with what good will, 700 00:42:17,202 --> 00:42:20,329 it would be a disaster because the young, the black, the poor 701 00:42:20,496 --> 00:42:24,082 are disaffected and I don't see him ever drawing them to him. 702 00:42:24,709 --> 00:42:28,086 Vidal understood what it meant to take the positions that 703 00:42:28,254 --> 00:42:32,716 William F. Buckley, Jr. took towards civil rights during those years. 704 00:42:33,801 --> 00:42:38,263 This was at a time when political leaders had been able to block 705 00:42:38,431 --> 00:42:41,308 civil rights legislations with the support 706 00:42:41,476 --> 00:42:43,977 of entities like the National Review 707 00:42:44,145 --> 00:42:46,855 and figures like William F. Buckley Jr. 708 00:42:48,149 --> 00:42:50,817 In the United States, five percent of the population 709 00:42:50,985 --> 00:42:52,611 have 20 percent of the income. 710 00:42:52,779 --> 00:42:55,739 And the bottom 20 percent have five percent of the income. 711 00:42:55,907 --> 00:42:58,742 - I think this is irrelevant. - I know that you revel 712 00:42:58,910 --> 00:43:03,497 in this kind of inequality. Your business is based upon that. 713 00:43:03,665 --> 00:43:06,750 I believe that freedom breeds our inequality. 714 00:43:06,918 --> 00:43:08,377 Say that again? 715 00:43:08,544 --> 00:43:11,004 Freedom breeds inequality. 716 00:43:11,172 --> 00:43:13,840 - I'll say it a third time. - No, twice was enough. 717 00:43:14,133 --> 00:43:16,551 - I think you made your point. - Unless you have freedom 718 00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,680 to be unequal, there is no such thing as freedom. 719 00:43:19,847 --> 00:43:24,059 And with Buckley, you see a shrill defense of what he sees 720 00:43:24,227 --> 00:43:27,646 as a completely collapsing social and cultural order. 721 00:43:28,856 --> 00:43:30,732 - What can I say? - Not much. 722 00:43:30,900 --> 00:43:34,111 You've given that ghastly position once again 723 00:43:34,654 --> 00:43:37,698 of the well to-do and those who inherit money 724 00:43:37,865 --> 00:43:39,616 and believe that others who do not... 725 00:43:39,784 --> 00:43:44,663 - This is balderdash. - ...must somehow achieve equality. 726 00:43:44,831 --> 00:43:48,208 But, in actual fact, you're going to have a revolution, 727 00:43:48,376 --> 00:43:50,544 if you don't give the people the things they want. 728 00:43:50,712 --> 00:43:52,587 Now, I'm putting it to your own self-interest, 729 00:43:52,755 --> 00:43:54,589 they're going to come and take it away from you. 730 00:43:56,676 --> 00:43:58,719 Because Vidal is so educated, 731 00:43:58,886 --> 00:44:01,596 and so one of his class, 732 00:44:01,764 --> 00:44:04,224 for Buckley, the betrayal of those values 733 00:44:04,392 --> 00:44:06,143 seems to be almost personal. 734 00:44:07,395 --> 00:44:09,646 Buckley, he didn't believe in democracy. 735 00:44:10,398 --> 00:44:13,942 He believed in rule by elites, starting with him. 736 00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:26,413 The conservative party in New York state 737 00:44:26,581 --> 00:44:29,249 had gone to Buckley and said, "Put your money where your mouth is. 738 00:44:29,417 --> 00:44:31,084 Run for mayor." 739 00:44:32,587 --> 00:44:35,547 So it was Bill Buckley, the conservative candidate, 740 00:44:36,090 --> 00:44:39,926 and John Lindsay, the darling of liberal Republicans, 741 00:44:40,094 --> 00:44:42,804 whom Buckley was intent on defeating. 742 00:44:43,222 --> 00:44:45,015 He has said that you're out to destroy 743 00:44:45,224 --> 00:44:46,725 everything that he stands for. 744 00:44:46,893 --> 00:44:48,685 That is roughly correct. I couldn't have put it better. 745 00:44:48,853 --> 00:44:50,520 I'm out to destroy everything that he stands for: 746 00:44:50,688 --> 00:44:52,397 hypocrisy and ultra-leftism. 747 00:44:55,193 --> 00:44:58,111 Conservatism in America is an insurgency. 748 00:45:00,656 --> 00:45:04,117 It's not the right fighting the far left, 749 00:45:04,285 --> 00:45:09,164 it's the right fighting people who are not quite far enough right. 750 00:45:10,792 --> 00:45:15,295 Buckley discovered a new constituency for the Republican party. 751 00:45:15,463 --> 00:45:18,215 It was angry white ethnics 752 00:45:18,383 --> 00:45:20,384 in Brooklyn, in Queens, 753 00:45:20,551 --> 00:45:22,969 in Staten Island, in the outer boroughs. 754 00:45:23,137 --> 00:45:26,640 The same people who voted for Goldwater in '64 755 00:45:26,808 --> 00:45:31,103 at a time of mounting racial unrest in America. 756 00:45:31,854 --> 00:45:33,855 The conservatives, more than 1,200 of them, 757 00:45:34,023 --> 00:45:37,526 paid one dollar each to see William F. Buckley Jr. 758 00:45:37,902 --> 00:45:39,986 There was nothing fancy on the menu here. 759 00:45:40,154 --> 00:45:41,822 Just hot tongue and cold shoulder 760 00:45:41,989 --> 00:45:44,241 for everything distasteful to the conservatives. 761 00:45:44,409 --> 00:45:47,661 Ladies and gentlemen, the apparent winner of this election... 762 00:45:48,996 --> 00:45:51,206 is Mr. John Lindsay. 763 00:45:54,877 --> 00:45:57,921 He was realistic enough in 1965 764 00:45:58,089 --> 00:46:00,048 to realize that he could not win. 765 00:46:00,216 --> 00:46:04,970 What has made a difference is that thanks to your efforts, 766 00:46:05,430 --> 00:46:09,975 we have begun to reintroduce the two-party system to New York City. 767 00:46:11,352 --> 00:46:13,437 What Buckley had found all through his career, 768 00:46:13,604 --> 00:46:15,730 he wrote about this when he was still a fairly young man, 769 00:46:15,898 --> 00:46:18,859 is he said, "I lose all the big battles, 770 00:46:19,026 --> 00:46:21,194 but I win all the small, personal ones." 771 00:46:22,655 --> 00:46:24,364 He said it with kind of frustration. 772 00:46:24,782 --> 00:46:29,077 What he wanted to do was to win the big war. 773 00:46:30,955 --> 00:46:35,459 The next president of the United States, Richard Nixon! 774 00:46:39,255 --> 00:46:40,589 Bill Buckley says, 775 00:46:40,756 --> 00:46:44,050 "This election, it'll be decided on the issue of law and order." 776 00:46:45,636 --> 00:46:47,095 And he was right. 777 00:46:50,558 --> 00:46:54,769 What is on people's minds, what frightens them 778 00:46:54,937 --> 00:46:58,482 is the fear that a generation that, by the New Deal, 779 00:46:58,649 --> 00:47:03,653 was put into the middle class is now going to lose all of those gains. 780 00:47:05,615 --> 00:47:08,366 These are the debates we're having today. 781 00:47:16,167 --> 00:47:17,959 Thank you very much, gentlemen. 782 00:47:18,127 --> 00:47:20,295 You'll certainly be back, I'm delighted to know, 783 00:47:20,463 --> 00:47:23,006 for the Democratic Convention, where Mr. Buckley may attack 784 00:47:23,174 --> 00:47:25,842 and Mr. Vidal will have to defend. 785 00:47:26,010 --> 00:47:28,053 We'll be back after this message. 786 00:47:31,224 --> 00:47:33,141 ♪ ♪ 787 00:47:35,895 --> 00:47:38,396 ABC was very happy with the coverage. 788 00:47:39,565 --> 00:47:42,776 When you talk about Buckley-Vidal, people took notice. 789 00:47:42,944 --> 00:47:44,986 And they got noticed in the press. 790 00:47:45,154 --> 00:47:49,407 That was very important in 1968 to everybody in television. 791 00:47:50,743 --> 00:47:54,538 It turned out that this was kind of a hit. 792 00:47:54,997 --> 00:47:57,874 "About the only fun to be had during the GOP convention, 793 00:47:58,042 --> 00:48:00,043 from a television observer's point of view, 794 00:48:00,211 --> 00:48:02,128 was found in the nightly tête-à-tête 795 00:48:02,296 --> 00:48:04,089 between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal." 796 00:48:05,967 --> 00:48:09,928 I'm never sure whether politics leads what argument is, 797 00:48:10,096 --> 00:48:12,097 or argument leads what politics is. 798 00:48:12,765 --> 00:48:18,311 But together, Buckley and Vidal are enormously successful. 799 00:48:24,819 --> 00:48:28,238 I've always tried to keep my political life and my literary life 800 00:48:28,406 --> 00:48:29,614 somewhat apart. 801 00:48:29,782 --> 00:48:32,867 But in 1959, I decided to bring the two together 802 00:48:33,035 --> 00:48:35,787 in a play that became a film. 803 00:48:37,415 --> 00:48:40,458 Gore does have a sense of a deep America and a deep history. 804 00:48:41,335 --> 00:48:43,044 He's written The Best Man. 805 00:48:44,797 --> 00:48:47,549 The best play ever written about an American political convention. 806 00:48:48,092 --> 00:48:50,969 Do you think people mistrust intellectuals like you in politics? 807 00:48:51,137 --> 00:48:53,763 Intellectual? You mean I wrote a book? 808 00:48:55,141 --> 00:48:56,558 Well, as Bertram Russell said, 809 00:48:56,726 --> 00:48:59,269 "People in a democracy tend to think they have less to fear 810 00:48:59,437 --> 00:49:01,771 from a stupid man than an intelligent one. 811 00:49:01,939 --> 00:49:04,566 Actually, it's the other way around. It's the stupid man--" 812 00:49:04,734 --> 00:49:10,155 Vidal's interest in politics was not only ideological. 813 00:49:10,531 --> 00:49:13,783 It was a very personal and social thing. 814 00:49:13,993 --> 00:49:16,620 What image do you feel Senator Campbell is projecting at the moment? 815 00:49:16,787 --> 00:49:18,496 I'm afraid I don't know anything about images. 816 00:49:18,664 --> 00:49:21,291 That's a term from advertising where you don't try to sell a product, 817 00:49:21,459 --> 00:49:23,793 you sell the image of the product. Sometimes, the image is a fake! 818 00:49:23,961 --> 00:49:27,005 - After all, your own image is-- - A poor thing, but mine own. 819 00:49:27,173 --> 00:49:29,341 Paint me as I am, wart and all. 820 00:49:29,508 --> 00:49:31,676 Gore was born into a political family. 821 00:49:31,844 --> 00:49:34,387 He's the grandson of a senator, T.P. Gore of Oklahoma. 822 00:49:34,555 --> 00:49:36,348 His father was in the Roosevelt administration. 823 00:49:36,515 --> 00:49:40,185 He saw himself as the heir to this political dynasty. 824 00:49:40,353 --> 00:49:42,145 And he was going to be the greatest of them all. 825 00:49:48,569 --> 00:49:50,445 Candidate Gore Vidal. 826 00:49:50,613 --> 00:49:53,573 Most of my plays, most of my writing is political 827 00:49:53,783 --> 00:49:56,326 or in criticism of society, should we say. 828 00:49:56,869 --> 00:49:59,746 Actually, for a change I'm getting out and trying to do something. 829 00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:04,668 When Gore ran for Congress from upstate New York in 1960, 830 00:50:04,835 --> 00:50:08,004 he saw it as the first stepping stone to the Presidency. 831 00:50:10,466 --> 00:50:13,093 He doesn't exactly have the common touch. 832 00:50:13,636 --> 00:50:16,846 He's not exactly someone who's going to appeal 833 00:50:17,056 --> 00:50:20,892 to the working class voters of the United States of America. 834 00:50:23,854 --> 00:50:28,525 He had a sense of himself as being equal to and belonging 835 00:50:28,693 --> 00:50:32,696 in the world of the powerful and the elite. 836 00:50:34,407 --> 00:50:37,033 Gore and Jackie Kennedy were related by marriage. 837 00:50:37,201 --> 00:50:40,995 And Jack Kennedy gave campaign appearances for him. 838 00:50:41,163 --> 00:50:43,123 He was on the Kennedy ticket. 839 00:50:44,917 --> 00:50:48,253 He was a welcome visitor at the White House 840 00:50:48,421 --> 00:50:51,881 until there was a run-in with Bobby Kennedy. 841 00:50:53,843 --> 00:50:56,052 This will sound absurd with hindsight, 842 00:50:56,220 --> 00:51:00,014 but he probably saw Bobby Kennedy as competition for the presidency 843 00:51:00,182 --> 00:51:01,850 later in the 60's. 844 00:51:02,017 --> 00:51:04,936 And that's one reason Gore didn't like Bobby. 845 00:51:05,354 --> 00:51:08,398 Bobby Kennedy is neither liberal, nor is he much of anything 846 00:51:08,566 --> 00:51:11,693 except a political opportunist like most of them. 847 00:51:12,027 --> 00:51:14,070 The whole thing has been taken over by this camera, 848 00:51:14,238 --> 00:51:19,492 by people projecting images, a ghastly word, and it's... 849 00:51:20,244 --> 00:51:22,078 These are the cards with which we play. 850 00:51:23,873 --> 00:51:28,001 Bobby Kennedy immediately took a dislike to Gore Vidal. 851 00:51:28,169 --> 00:51:31,463 Thought he was pompous, thought he was arrogant. 852 00:51:32,548 --> 00:51:33,798 What is your current relationship 853 00:51:34,008 --> 00:51:36,760 with Mrs. Onassis, your stepsister? 854 00:51:37,178 --> 00:51:39,429 I haven't seen her since 1962. 855 00:51:39,597 --> 00:51:41,723 There's no reason for our lines to cross. 856 00:51:41,891 --> 00:51:44,851 She was devoted to Bobby Kennedy, and I was, as you know, plainly not. 857 00:51:45,060 --> 00:51:47,103 And we fell out over that. 858 00:51:52,401 --> 00:51:54,736 When Gore lost the race for Congress, 859 00:51:55,196 --> 00:51:58,490 that led to not only a disillusionment with politics, 860 00:51:58,657 --> 00:52:01,618 but a disillusionment with the United States. 861 00:52:03,954 --> 00:52:05,455 Naturally, I wanted to be a politician, 862 00:52:05,623 --> 00:52:07,415 but unfortunately I was born a writer. 863 00:52:07,708 --> 00:52:13,129 And I would not say that I've exactly had the life I wanted. 864 00:52:15,257 --> 00:52:17,509 Most of Vidal's work is done at Ravello 865 00:52:17,676 --> 00:52:19,093 from the Sorrentine coast, 866 00:52:19,428 --> 00:52:22,972 amid lemon groves and vineyards, 2,000 feet above the sea. 867 00:52:24,475 --> 00:52:27,727 His house is improbably perched above a precipice. 868 00:52:27,895 --> 00:52:31,648 The ideal spot, as he would say, to observe the decline of the West. 869 00:52:34,860 --> 00:52:37,487 Playboy After Dark, show number 15. 870 00:52:37,655 --> 00:52:38,905 Take one. 871 00:52:48,499 --> 00:52:52,252 Mr. Vidal, will you please sign my copy of Myra Breckinridge? 872 00:52:52,419 --> 00:52:55,588 With great pleasure, with my extra-special William Buckley pen. 873 00:52:57,091 --> 00:52:59,843 I wouldn't be seen without this pen. 874 00:53:00,928 --> 00:53:03,221 - I think this is the property-- - A gift from Bill. 875 00:53:03,389 --> 00:53:06,266 A gift from Bill? Bill's not as nice as he looks. 876 00:53:06,433 --> 00:53:07,934 I know Bill personally. 877 00:53:08,686 --> 00:53:10,937 - I know both sides of him. - That's the best way to know him. 878 00:53:11,397 --> 00:53:12,897 Personally. 879 00:53:19,947 --> 00:53:22,407 In the interval between Miami and Chicago, 880 00:53:22,575 --> 00:53:24,534 I read Myra Breckinridge. 881 00:53:25,077 --> 00:53:27,829 It attempts heuristic allegory, but fails, 882 00:53:27,997 --> 00:53:30,707 giving gratification only to sadist homosexuals 883 00:53:30,875 --> 00:53:34,586 and challenge only to taxonomists of perversion. 884 00:53:36,505 --> 00:53:37,964 I thought and thought about it. 885 00:53:38,090 --> 00:53:40,633 There is nothing left to say about Myra. 886 00:53:45,097 --> 00:53:46,931 And so we met again, in Chicago. 887 00:53:54,064 --> 00:53:57,483 Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman... 888 00:53:59,361 --> 00:54:02,530 Good evening from the International Amphitheater in Chicago. 889 00:54:02,698 --> 00:54:05,116 There are almost as many problems still to be solved 890 00:54:05,284 --> 00:54:07,076 as there are flies in this building 891 00:54:07,244 --> 00:54:10,330 located in the heart of Chicago's stockyards. 892 00:54:16,462 --> 00:54:18,796 The cheery welcome sign that is everywhere here 893 00:54:19,048 --> 00:54:21,507 is as much a command as an invitation. 894 00:54:22,176 --> 00:54:24,594 Mayor Daley has beautified everywhere. 895 00:54:24,845 --> 00:54:30,141 What he cannot beautify, he's tried to hide behind new fences. 896 00:54:30,935 --> 00:54:33,686 Part of the tightest security checks an American city 897 00:54:33,854 --> 00:54:36,689 not under riot conditions has ever experienced. 898 00:54:37,024 --> 00:54:40,276 We want Eugene! We want Eugene! 899 00:54:41,111 --> 00:54:45,156 Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey arrived in Chicago today. 900 00:54:45,658 --> 00:54:48,660 The Democratic party was in terrific disarray. 901 00:54:49,161 --> 00:54:53,831 Bobby Kennedy had just been killed a couple of months earlier. 902 00:54:53,999 --> 00:54:56,584 He was already becoming a martyr. 903 00:54:59,088 --> 00:55:01,923 The fight over the Democratic platform will move here, 904 00:55:02,091 --> 00:55:03,841 right onto the floor of this convention 905 00:55:04,426 --> 00:55:06,469 demanding a repudiation and a reversal 906 00:55:06,637 --> 00:55:09,597 of the Johnson administration policies on Vietnam. 907 00:55:11,558 --> 00:55:14,811 At this moment, it is the calm in the eye of the storm. 908 00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,567 Their wounds have had time to heal since Miami Beach. 909 00:55:21,735 --> 00:55:24,821 They've had time to restock their arsenal for new assaults. 910 00:55:24,989 --> 00:55:27,907 "They," of course, are William Buckley and Gore Vidal. 911 00:55:29,243 --> 00:55:32,036 Mr. Vidal, do you feel more comfortable, philosophically, here 912 00:55:32,204 --> 00:55:33,705 than you did in Miami? 913 00:55:34,206 --> 00:55:37,875 Philosophically. I wonder if that word will ever be used again 914 00:55:38,252 --> 00:55:39,460 while we're here in Chicago. 915 00:55:40,254 --> 00:55:43,381 This place is a shambles. It's a police state. 916 00:55:44,258 --> 00:55:46,592 One's aware of the horrors of the world here: 917 00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:48,177 the smell of old blood, 918 00:55:48,345 --> 00:55:51,264 the shrieking of the pigs as they're slaughtered in the morning, 919 00:55:51,432 --> 00:55:54,767 all this reminds one of... of life and death. 920 00:55:55,227 --> 00:55:57,729 So, in a sense, I do feel at home in a way, 921 00:55:57,896 --> 00:55:59,647 but not happy. 922 00:56:00,607 --> 00:56:04,193 Buckley realized he had his intellectual equal 923 00:56:04,361 --> 00:56:05,862 sitting right next to him. 924 00:56:06,739 --> 00:56:08,781 Vidal had done the homework in Miami. 925 00:56:09,241 --> 00:56:11,075 By the time we got to Chicago, 926 00:56:11,368 --> 00:56:14,162 Buckley had caught up and done some homework as well. 927 00:56:14,747 --> 00:56:17,165 William Buckley, while on the defensive in Miami, 928 00:56:17,332 --> 00:56:18,708 may now take the offensive. 929 00:56:18,876 --> 00:56:21,419 He was also an extremely aggressive debater. 930 00:56:21,754 --> 00:56:26,257 And so he thought that justified every technique he could use to win. 931 00:56:27,176 --> 00:56:31,012 As a matter of testamentary integrity, 932 00:56:31,180 --> 00:56:34,766 I reveal a concrete proposal contained in a letter 933 00:56:34,933 --> 00:56:38,644 sent to me by Senator Kennedy about six months ago. 934 00:56:39,104 --> 00:56:41,355 The P.S. of which was: 935 00:56:41,940 --> 00:56:45,443 "I have changed my platform from 1968 936 00:56:45,611 --> 00:56:47,695 from 'let's give blood to the Viet Kong' 937 00:56:47,863 --> 00:56:50,573 to 'let's give Gore Vidal to the Viet Kong."' 938 00:56:50,741 --> 00:56:52,366 May I see that? Really? 939 00:56:52,534 --> 00:56:55,078 I think, however, that would be immoderate. 940 00:56:55,329 --> 00:56:58,915 In any case, I do share Mr. Kennedy-- 941 00:56:59,083 --> 00:57:03,294 - I must say. - Mr. Kennedy's notion that Mr. Vidal 942 00:57:03,587 --> 00:57:06,380 is marred by his sort of strange fantasies 943 00:57:06,548 --> 00:57:09,133 concerning the realisms of politics. 944 00:57:10,344 --> 00:57:13,763 We all recognize that moment when we reach for a weapon 945 00:57:13,931 --> 00:57:16,599 that we know is sort of off-bounds. 946 00:57:16,767 --> 00:57:19,185 - This is Senator Bobby Kennedy. - Yes, I realized. 947 00:57:19,353 --> 00:57:22,313 What a very curious handwriting. It also slants up. 948 00:57:22,481 --> 00:57:24,023 Sign of a manic depressive. 949 00:57:24,399 --> 00:57:26,109 You still mad about Senator Kennedy? 950 00:57:26,652 --> 00:57:28,736 I did say that. Whether you forged it or not, 951 00:57:28,904 --> 00:57:31,489 I don't know and I will have to have my handwriting experts, 952 00:57:31,657 --> 00:57:34,492 the graphologists will have to look at it. I put nothing beyond you. 953 00:57:35,119 --> 00:57:38,121 But to get back to the plank while we... 954 00:57:38,288 --> 00:57:41,499 It's been fun inspecting your correspondence, but... 955 00:57:41,667 --> 00:57:44,627 Vidal is relatively unfazed. 956 00:57:44,795 --> 00:57:46,963 He had almost a Zen technique. 957 00:57:47,881 --> 00:57:50,424 You let the guy lean forward so that he falls over. 958 00:57:51,260 --> 00:57:54,679 And so, each night, there was more spectacle to be had. 959 00:57:58,433 --> 00:58:00,852 ♪ ♪ 960 00:58:02,396 --> 00:58:04,188 ♪ ♪ 961 00:58:09,820 --> 00:58:13,739 The people of Chicago are proud to welcome 962 00:58:14,199 --> 00:58:17,451 a great political gathering of Americans. 963 00:58:19,413 --> 00:58:21,747 All this security makes me very nervous. 964 00:58:21,915 --> 00:58:23,708 Because it's necessary, apparently. 965 00:58:23,876 --> 00:58:27,211 Our delegates are Paul Newman and Mr. Arthur Miller. 966 00:58:27,379 --> 00:58:29,505 It's a little frightening, quite frankly, 967 00:58:29,673 --> 00:58:32,550 being in this... fortress 968 00:58:33,051 --> 00:58:34,635 trying to select a president. 969 00:58:34,803 --> 00:58:38,222 Hell no, we won't go! Hell no, we won't go! 970 00:58:39,641 --> 00:58:43,978 As long as I'm mayor of this town, there'll be law and order in Chicago! 971 00:58:45,814 --> 00:58:48,482 ♪ ♪ 972 00:58:51,195 --> 00:58:54,655 The forces of history seem to be going towards a reckoning. 973 00:58:55,449 --> 00:58:57,408 It's like they've just gotta blow. 974 00:59:01,496 --> 00:59:06,500 ABC crew cars were equipped with gas masks and helmets. 975 00:59:06,793 --> 00:59:10,963 We were asked to make sure the press didn't see this stuff. 976 00:59:11,465 --> 00:59:14,884 They were anticipating trouble right from the start. 977 00:59:17,179 --> 00:59:18,721 ♪ ♪ 978 00:59:25,062 --> 00:59:28,022 I would like to ask our guest commentators about Vietnam. 979 00:59:28,190 --> 00:59:30,608 How do we get out? Have we really been beaten? 980 00:59:30,776 --> 00:59:34,320 What matters here is that we have, in a word, lost the war. 981 00:59:34,488 --> 00:59:36,989 Something like 90 percent of the casualties are civilians. 982 00:59:37,157 --> 00:59:40,368 So when they accuse us of genocide, they are not without point. 983 00:59:40,535 --> 00:59:42,995 - Now, wait a minute. - We've nothing to gain by this war. 984 00:59:44,206 --> 00:59:46,207 We have not lost the war in Vietnam. 985 00:59:46,375 --> 00:59:51,379 What we have lost is an opportunity to press that war 986 00:59:51,546 --> 00:59:54,715 with such weapons as are especially at our disposal. 987 00:59:55,384 --> 00:59:57,051 The majority of the people of the United States, 988 00:59:57,219 --> 00:59:58,761 including the leadership of the Democratic party, 989 00:59:58,929 --> 01:00:01,472 and the one of the Republican party, belong with me, 990 01:00:01,932 --> 01:00:06,018 while you go to Rome and expatriate yourself. 991 01:00:06,186 --> 01:00:08,729 I think we should straighten this out now. 992 01:00:08,897 --> 01:00:11,065 I don't expatriate myself. I have an apartment in Rome. 993 01:00:11,233 --> 01:00:14,527 I go there for two or three months every year to be close to the Vatican 994 01:00:14,695 --> 01:00:18,114 to contemplate William Buckley and his mad activities back here. 995 01:00:18,282 --> 01:00:19,699 And with enormous serenity, 996 01:00:19,908 --> 01:00:21,033 they're trying to get us, Bill. 997 01:00:21,910 --> 01:00:26,038 And I think, to be perfectly bleak, and to be perfectly blunt, 998 01:00:26,206 --> 01:00:29,000 I think we're headed for total disaster, this empire, 999 01:00:29,167 --> 01:00:32,253 with people like Mr. Buckley here beating the drum. 1000 01:00:32,421 --> 01:00:35,423 And I think the instinct of the people I used to think was for peace. 1001 01:00:35,590 --> 01:00:37,967 I think it, now I come back and I see little American flags 1002 01:00:38,135 --> 01:00:39,176 on the antenna of the car. 1003 01:00:39,344 --> 01:00:40,511 They're getting ready for a war. 1004 01:00:40,637 --> 01:00:41,637 They're getting ready for war. 1005 01:00:47,311 --> 01:00:50,062 What Vidal saw was that the American empire 1006 01:00:50,230 --> 01:00:52,982 was completely overextended. 1007 01:00:55,819 --> 01:00:59,530 These empires are very dangerous things to possess, 1008 01:00:59,698 --> 01:01:01,532 as Pericles once pointed out. 1009 01:01:01,700 --> 01:01:04,785 And once you get one, it's very difficult to let it go. 1010 01:01:04,953 --> 01:01:07,580 But if we don't let it go, it's going to wreck us economically. 1011 01:01:07,748 --> 01:01:08,372 We're already in trouble. 1012 01:01:08,373 --> 01:01:09,081 We're already in trouble. 1013 01:01:09,249 --> 01:01:11,500 And it has certainly divided the country at a time 1014 01:01:11,668 --> 01:01:14,795 when resources should go to the slums and to the poor 1015 01:01:14,963 --> 01:01:18,507 and to trying to revise an extremely shabby country. 1016 01:01:18,884 --> 01:01:22,345 I tell you, the day Rome falls there will be a shout of freedom 1017 01:01:22,512 --> 01:01:24,680 such as the world has never heard before! 1018 01:01:25,390 --> 01:01:27,558 Gore Vidal disliked the United States of America. 1019 01:01:27,809 --> 01:01:32,146 He always talked about the empire in which he is now right. 1020 01:01:32,606 --> 01:01:34,398 Gore Vidal was correct in prophesizing 1021 01:01:34,566 --> 01:01:36,025 that we would become an empire. 1022 01:01:37,110 --> 01:01:38,986 That is our present dilemma. 1023 01:01:50,999 --> 01:01:56,921 The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! 1024 01:01:57,130 --> 01:01:59,673 This is the year of "the whole world is watching." 1025 01:01:59,841 --> 01:02:02,676 This is the year where all politics is suddenly televisual. 1026 01:02:02,844 --> 01:02:06,555 This is the year where the phrase "living room war" comes. 1027 01:02:07,682 --> 01:02:10,643 It was as if a theater piece was taking place 1028 01:02:10,811 --> 01:02:14,355 for the public watching television. 1029 01:02:23,532 --> 01:02:26,158 Please, help me! 1030 01:02:27,702 --> 01:02:31,497 If you do not leave, you will be subject to arrest! 1031 01:02:57,232 --> 01:03:01,360 Gore asked me to drive him to an event with a couple of friends. 1032 01:03:01,528 --> 01:03:06,615 So I had Gore Vidal, Arthur Miller and Paul Newman in my car. 1033 01:03:07,617 --> 01:03:10,077 And we drove into a cloud of tear gas. 1034 01:03:26,094 --> 01:03:27,887 Get away from the police. Step up here. 1035 01:03:28,096 --> 01:03:31,056 Put the flare down. They're pushing and shoving. 1036 01:03:31,516 --> 01:03:33,809 - We're gonna get it. - Stop! 1037 01:03:36,062 --> 01:03:39,190 The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! 1038 01:03:42,235 --> 01:03:43,777 Who is first? Mr. Vidal first. 1039 01:03:45,614 --> 01:03:48,991 Uh, it's like living under a Soviet regime here. 1040 01:03:49,201 --> 01:03:53,537 The guards, the soldiers, the agents provocateur, 1041 01:03:53,705 --> 01:03:56,499 and the parts of the police, you've seen the roughing up. 1042 01:03:56,958 --> 01:04:00,419 There's very little that we can say after those pictures... 1043 01:04:01,463 --> 01:04:03,130 that would be in any way adequate. 1044 01:04:03,298 --> 01:04:04,965 Let Mr. Buckley comment now. 1045 01:04:05,133 --> 01:04:08,344 The effort here, not only on your program tonight, 1046 01:04:08,512 --> 01:04:11,388 but during the past two or three days in Chicago 1047 01:04:11,556 --> 01:04:14,808 has been to institutionalize this complaint. 1048 01:04:15,310 --> 01:04:19,855 So as to march forward and say we've got sort of a Fascist situation, 1049 01:04:20,690 --> 01:04:24,985 but don't infer from individual and despicable acts of violence 1050 01:04:25,153 --> 01:04:29,490 of Chicago policemen, a case for implicit totalitarianism 1051 01:04:29,658 --> 01:04:31,116 in the American system. 1052 01:04:31,284 --> 01:04:33,410 If we can all work up an equal sweat, 1053 01:04:33,578 --> 01:04:36,705 and if you all would be obliging enough to have your cameras handy, 1054 01:04:36,957 --> 01:04:39,333 every time a politician commits demagogy, 1055 01:04:39,501 --> 01:04:44,046 or every time a labor union beats up people who refuse to join his union, 1056 01:04:44,214 --> 01:04:47,550 then maybe we can work up some kind of impartiality and resentment. 1057 01:04:47,759 --> 01:04:50,094 These people came here with no desire other 1058 01:04:50,262 --> 01:04:51,595 than anybody's been able to prove, 1059 01:04:51,763 --> 01:04:54,056 - than hold peaceful demonstration. - I can prove it. 1060 01:04:54,224 --> 01:04:57,685 I was 14 windows above that gang last night. 1061 01:04:57,852 --> 01:05:01,605 And the chant between 11:00 and 5:00 this morning 1062 01:05:01,856 --> 01:05:03,482 from four or 5,000 voices 1063 01:05:03,650 --> 01:05:06,068 was sheer utter obscenities 1064 01:05:06,236 --> 01:05:08,445 directed to the president of the United States. 1065 01:05:08,613 --> 01:05:12,866 I think it is remarkable that there was as much restraint shown 1066 01:05:13,034 --> 01:05:16,537 as was shown, for instance, last night by cops who were out there 1067 01:05:16,705 --> 01:05:21,792 for 17 hours without inflicting a single wound on a single person, 1068 01:05:21,960 --> 01:05:24,920 even though that kind of disgusting stuff is being thrown at them 1069 01:05:25,088 --> 01:05:26,880 and at all of American society. 1070 01:05:27,048 --> 01:05:30,426 Mr. Vidal, wasn't it a provocative act to try to raise 1071 01:05:30,594 --> 01:05:34,597 the Viet Kong flag in the park in the film we just saw? 1072 01:05:34,764 --> 01:05:37,933 Wouldn't that invite... Raising a Nazi flag in WWII 1073 01:05:38,101 --> 01:05:39,685 would've had similar consequences. 1074 01:05:39,853 --> 01:05:41,854 - Yes, and-- - People in the United States 1075 01:05:42,022 --> 01:05:46,066 happen to believe that the United States' policy is wrong in Vietnam 1076 01:05:46,234 --> 01:05:49,320 and that Viet Kong are correct in wanting to organize their country 1077 01:05:49,487 --> 01:05:51,155 in their own way politically. 1078 01:05:51,323 --> 01:05:54,074 If it is a novelty in Chicago that is too bad, 1079 01:05:54,242 --> 01:05:56,368 but I assume that the point of the American democracy 1080 01:05:56,536 --> 01:05:58,996 is you can express any point of view that you want. 1081 01:05:59,164 --> 01:06:00,956 - Shut up a minute. - No, I won't. 1082 01:06:01,124 --> 01:06:04,501 Some people were pro-Nazi and the answer is that they were well treated 1083 01:06:04,711 --> 01:06:08,088 by people who ostracized them. And I'm for ostracizing people 1084 01:06:08,256 --> 01:06:11,050 who egg on other people to shoot American Marines 1085 01:06:11,217 --> 01:06:13,218 and American soldiers. I know you don't care-- 1086 01:06:13,386 --> 01:06:15,596 As far as I'm concerned, the only sort of pro 1087 01:06:15,764 --> 01:06:18,098 or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. 1088 01:06:18,266 --> 01:06:21,268 - Failing that, I will only say-- - Let's not call names. 1089 01:06:21,436 --> 01:06:24,104 Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi 1090 01:06:24,356 --> 01:06:28,192 or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered. 1091 01:06:28,401 --> 01:06:29,777 - Gentlemen, let's-- - Bill. 1092 01:06:29,944 --> 01:06:32,988 Tell the author of Myra Breckinridge to go back to his pornography 1093 01:06:33,156 --> 01:06:34,907 and stop making any allusions of Nazism. 1094 01:06:35,075 --> 01:06:37,117 I was in the Infantry in the last war. 1095 01:06:37,285 --> 01:06:40,371 You were not in the Infantry. As a matter of fact, you were not. 1096 01:06:40,538 --> 01:06:42,706 You're distorting your own military record. 1097 01:06:51,216 --> 01:06:53,133 The network nearly shat. 1098 01:06:53,635 --> 01:06:56,595 Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi. 1099 01:06:56,763 --> 01:07:00,724 Or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered. 1100 01:07:00,892 --> 01:07:02,476 - Gentlemen-- - I was watching it 1101 01:07:02,644 --> 01:07:05,771 with a number of the news executives in the control room. 1102 01:07:06,272 --> 01:07:08,357 Someone said, "Can they say that?!" 1103 01:07:08,733 --> 01:07:11,151 Well, you know, it's live. They had. 1104 01:07:12,362 --> 01:07:14,655 I think Gore Vidal was fortunate 1105 01:07:14,823 --> 01:07:17,074 that Bill didn't punch him in the nose. 1106 01:07:17,492 --> 01:07:20,160 Bill could've broken Gore Vidal over the back of his knee. 1107 01:07:21,246 --> 01:07:23,372 When Gore Vidal called him a crypto-Nazi, 1108 01:07:23,873 --> 01:07:25,416 Bill let him have it. 1109 01:07:25,917 --> 01:07:27,376 It is a slur. 1110 01:07:27,544 --> 01:07:31,088 And the rictus of loathing on Mr. Buckley's face 1111 01:07:31,256 --> 01:07:32,631 is quite understated. 1112 01:07:32,966 --> 01:07:36,051 Buckley called Vidal "queer" on television. 1113 01:07:37,053 --> 01:07:39,763 It's a slur. It would be considered a hate slur today. 1114 01:07:42,684 --> 01:07:49,148 Profanity today is "nigger," "faggot" and "cunt." 1115 01:07:49,441 --> 01:07:52,693 Those are our only three truly profane words. 1116 01:07:53,903 --> 01:07:57,531 In 1968, you could call somebody a crypto-Nazi 1117 01:07:57,699 --> 01:08:01,118 or a queer, and that was fighting words. 1118 01:08:01,870 --> 01:08:05,330 You have every right in this country to take any position you want to take 1119 01:08:05,498 --> 01:08:07,374 because we are guaranteed freedom of speech. 1120 01:08:07,542 --> 01:08:10,419 We just listened to a rather grotesque example of it. 1121 01:08:10,587 --> 01:08:12,713 I think we've run out of time 1122 01:08:12,881 --> 01:08:16,675 and I thank you very much for the discussion. 1123 01:08:16,843 --> 01:08:19,720 It was a little more heat and a little less light than usual, 1124 01:08:19,888 --> 01:08:21,889 but it was still very worth hearing. 1125 01:08:23,308 --> 01:08:25,058 Tomorrow night, you'll have a chance to... 1126 01:08:25,435 --> 01:08:27,770 My pulse was racing and my fingers trembled 1127 01:08:27,937 --> 01:08:30,981 as wave after wave of indignation swept over me. 1128 01:08:32,025 --> 01:08:33,525 And then, suddenly, 1129 01:08:33,693 --> 01:08:35,819 about to deposit the earphones on the table stand, 1130 01:08:36,112 --> 01:08:38,280 I stopped, frozen. 1131 01:08:38,698 --> 01:08:42,034 Vidal, arranging his own set was whispering to me. 1132 01:08:42,827 --> 01:08:44,953 "Well," he said, smiling, 1133 01:08:45,413 --> 01:08:48,123 "I guess we gave them their money's worth tonight." 1134 01:08:50,043 --> 01:08:54,171 It was a splendid moment. Eyes rolling, mouth twitching, 1135 01:08:54,339 --> 01:08:56,507 long, weak arms waving. 1136 01:08:57,217 --> 01:09:00,844 Buckley skittered from slander to glorious absurdity. 1137 01:09:03,723 --> 01:09:06,850 I reached my trailer after taking great strides 1138 01:09:07,018 --> 01:09:09,645 through the maze of technicians, operators, executives, 1139 01:09:09,813 --> 01:09:11,605 reporters, guests. 1140 01:09:11,940 --> 01:09:16,276 All of whom looked at me as I stomped by, and then quickly looked away. 1141 01:09:17,487 --> 01:09:21,406 Afraid, perhaps, that I would greet anyone guilty of a lingering glance 1142 01:09:21,574 --> 01:09:23,534 with a sock on his goddamn face. 1143 01:09:26,120 --> 01:09:27,913 The door slammed and I heard shouting. 1144 01:09:28,081 --> 01:09:31,458 Paul Newman had been in Vidal's trailer, 1145 01:09:31,793 --> 01:09:34,169 and had been watching it on television, ran down the stairs, 1146 01:09:34,337 --> 01:09:38,423 ran into Buckley's trailer and Buckley came in at the same time. 1147 01:09:38,675 --> 01:09:43,470 And Buckley, according to Newman, responded that it was a disaster. 1148 01:09:49,769 --> 01:09:53,355 These ad hominem attacks were not characteristic of Bill. 1149 01:09:54,649 --> 01:09:58,569 This was a totally unprecedented thing for him to do on television. 1150 01:10:00,071 --> 01:10:02,739 Vidal was a smart enough tactician to know 1151 01:10:02,907 --> 01:10:05,701 that he had won the debate in that moment. 1152 01:10:11,833 --> 01:10:16,295 And that brings up the one final question now the election is over. 1153 01:10:16,796 --> 01:10:20,924 Will Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal kiss and make up? 1154 01:10:24,262 --> 01:10:26,471 I think Vidal would love that. 1155 01:10:50,413 --> 01:10:54,207 After we did it, no network ever again did wall-to-wall, 1156 01:10:54,459 --> 01:10:55,751 gavel-to-gavel coverage. 1157 01:10:57,545 --> 01:10:59,504 It could be that some executive said, "Hey, 1158 01:10:59,714 --> 01:11:03,550 whatever you may think of it, that Vidal Buckley thing had a big impact. 1159 01:11:04,844 --> 01:11:07,054 Get Mr. Pro and Mr. Con, 1160 01:11:07,263 --> 01:11:10,265 Ms. For Abortion and Ms. Against Abortion... 1161 01:11:10,350 --> 01:11:13,977 Jack, I spent the holidays flying back and forth across this country 1162 01:11:14,145 --> 01:11:15,312 and I'm worried. 1163 01:11:15,647 --> 01:11:18,857 The place seems all out of focus, sea to shining sea. 1164 01:11:19,609 --> 01:11:22,235 We've both flown many times, Shana, coast to coast. 1165 01:11:22,403 --> 01:11:23,737 But we see a different land below. 1166 01:11:23,905 --> 01:11:26,615 And you have them argue and that's punditry. 1167 01:11:26,991 --> 01:11:28,408 That's enlightenment. 1168 01:11:28,534 --> 01:11:31,203 Dan, there's an old saying: "Behind every successful man 1169 01:11:31,412 --> 01:11:34,206 there's a woman, a loving, giving, caring woman." 1170 01:11:36,501 --> 01:11:37,918 Jane, you ignorant slut. 1171 01:11:42,048 --> 01:11:44,841 Argument is sugar and the rest of us are flies. 1172 01:11:48,012 --> 01:11:49,429 Welcome to Radio 81. 1173 01:11:49,722 --> 01:11:51,848 I think this is Ron and Gore Vidal is also here. 1174 01:11:52,016 --> 01:11:54,559 I invariably agree with your social views, 1175 01:11:54,936 --> 01:11:56,436 the content of your ideas. 1176 01:11:56,854 --> 01:11:59,231 And I contest with Buckley's views. 1177 01:11:59,691 --> 01:12:03,068 But I hear you talk, and William Buckley talk, 1178 01:12:03,361 --> 01:12:06,488 I feel that Buckley is the more honest man. 1179 01:12:07,031 --> 01:12:09,533 In what way do you find him more honest than I? 1180 01:12:09,701 --> 01:12:12,911 I think it goes way back to the debates 1181 01:12:13,079 --> 01:12:15,038 you had with him on television. 1182 01:12:15,331 --> 01:12:17,958 And you literally blew his mind. 1183 01:12:18,126 --> 01:12:20,168 I've never seen Buckley lose it like that. 1184 01:12:20,336 --> 01:12:22,337 He swore at you and stood up and said, 1185 01:12:22,505 --> 01:12:24,381 "How dare you call me a neo-Nazi!" 1186 01:12:24,549 --> 01:12:26,967 I thought him the scum of the world, you see. 1187 01:12:27,135 --> 01:12:28,760 - I know, he was over-excited, yeah? - Yes. 1188 01:12:28,928 --> 01:12:30,721 - But I think-- - What did you find dishonest 1189 01:12:30,888 --> 01:12:32,472 about my performance? 1190 01:12:32,682 --> 01:12:35,517 It had to do with the glee in your face, 1191 01:12:35,685 --> 01:12:37,477 in your eyes, that you could not hide. 1192 01:12:37,645 --> 01:12:40,188 Well, that isn't... I wasn't being dishonest. 1193 01:12:40,440 --> 01:12:42,607 I am a happy warrior. 1194 01:12:42,775 --> 01:12:44,443 I'm in battle, I'm enjoying it. 1195 01:12:44,610 --> 01:12:46,653 This is what these things are about. 1196 01:12:46,821 --> 01:12:49,031 If somebody that I regard is a very bad person... 1197 01:12:49,949 --> 01:12:53,785 politically, then to expose him on television for what he is 1198 01:12:53,953 --> 01:12:55,537 is my job. 1199 01:12:55,913 --> 01:12:58,540 And I think I accomplished it very nicely, so did he. 1200 01:12:58,750 --> 01:13:00,959 He brought suit against me as a result of it. 1201 01:13:02,837 --> 01:13:06,256 A year after these debates, in August of 1969, 1202 01:13:06,716 --> 01:13:09,801 Esquire published a long essay that Bill had written, 1203 01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:12,429 something like 12,000 words 1204 01:13:13,097 --> 01:13:17,059 trying to explore why he had reacted the way he did. 1205 01:13:18,770 --> 01:13:20,896 Buckley couldn't let it go. 1206 01:13:21,064 --> 01:13:22,981 He couldn't let this thing go. 1207 01:13:24,942 --> 01:13:28,111 He thought he would avenge himself or explain himself 1208 01:13:28,279 --> 01:13:32,240 by writing in a sophisticated way about Vidal in Esquire. 1209 01:13:35,453 --> 01:13:37,996 For days and weeks, indeed for months, 1210 01:13:38,164 --> 01:13:40,874 I tormented myself with the question... 1211 01:13:41,751 --> 01:13:43,835 "What should I have said?" 1212 01:13:44,629 --> 01:13:46,671 Was my mistake that of going on TV at all, 1213 01:13:46,839 --> 01:13:48,882 in light of the abundant warnings, with Vidal? 1214 01:13:50,426 --> 01:13:53,220 Could it be that my emotional reaction was defensible 1215 01:13:53,387 --> 01:13:54,888 and even healthy, 1216 01:13:55,056 --> 01:13:57,808 but that my words were ill-chosen? 1217 01:13:58,184 --> 01:14:01,561 The problem was, instead of putting a cap on the debate, 1218 01:14:01,729 --> 01:14:04,439 he's perpetuating it on another platform, 1219 01:14:04,649 --> 01:14:05,982 which really made it worse. 1220 01:14:10,154 --> 01:14:12,364 Vidal then replied 1221 01:14:12,573 --> 01:14:18,078 in print to this barn burner piece to take the stage back. 1222 01:14:21,624 --> 01:14:24,501 On Wednesday, August 28, at 9:30, 1223 01:14:24,794 --> 01:14:27,504 in full view of ten million people, 1224 01:14:27,922 --> 01:14:31,633 the little door in William F. Buckley Jr.'s forehead suddenly opened 1225 01:14:31,926 --> 01:14:35,971 and out sprang that wild cuckoo which I had always known was there, 1226 01:14:36,139 --> 01:14:39,808 but had wanted so much for others, preferably millions of others, 1227 01:14:39,976 --> 01:14:41,643 to get a good look at. 1228 01:14:42,937 --> 01:14:46,398 Vidal is always suspicious of Buckley's sexuality. 1229 01:14:47,233 --> 01:14:51,153 And makes references that suggest that 1230 01:14:51,320 --> 01:14:54,698 Buckley has an attraction to the homoerotic. 1231 01:14:56,284 --> 01:14:58,451 There was always a question of... 1232 01:14:59,078 --> 01:15:00,120 Um... 1233 01:15:02,707 --> 01:15:04,082 I don't know how to put it. 1234 01:15:05,459 --> 01:15:09,045 That there was a kind of sexual ambiguity about Bill. 1235 01:15:10,381 --> 01:15:12,340 There were rumors, none of them substantiated. 1236 01:15:12,508 --> 01:15:14,801 It was more a manner of affect, really. 1237 01:15:15,803 --> 01:15:18,138 Buckley was kind of an effete guy. 1238 01:15:18,723 --> 01:15:22,267 If you read the piece, you are led to believe 1239 01:15:22,435 --> 01:15:27,564 that among other things, William F. Buckley, Jr. was homosexual. 1240 01:15:31,861 --> 01:15:35,405 Buckley instituted a suit against Esquire magazine 1241 01:15:35,573 --> 01:15:37,157 and against Vidal. 1242 01:15:37,909 --> 01:15:41,703 Vidal instituted a countersuit against Buckley. 1243 01:15:42,205 --> 01:15:46,625 The litigation went on for three years. 1244 01:15:46,792 --> 01:15:48,877 Is that still going back and forth in the courts? 1245 01:15:49,337 --> 01:15:51,546 It's going more back than forth. 1246 01:15:51,714 --> 01:15:54,549 Just... it keeps on ticking away like a bomb. 1247 01:15:55,343 --> 01:15:57,719 At the time, it was one of the longest lawsuits 1248 01:15:57,887 --> 01:16:00,889 between two American public intellectuals there'd ever been. 1249 01:16:01,057 --> 01:16:02,265 Neither of them ever tired of it. 1250 01:16:02,433 --> 01:16:05,810 It gave them enormous opportunity for the practice of malice. 1251 01:16:06,395 --> 01:16:08,605 It's still litigious, is it? 1252 01:16:08,773 --> 01:16:10,148 Very litigious. 1253 01:16:12,068 --> 01:16:16,404 By the third year, Esquire said, "We've had enough." 1254 01:16:18,282 --> 01:16:20,033 Esquire ended up settling. 1255 01:16:20,201 --> 01:16:23,036 And then Buckley, in a stroke of brilliance, 1256 01:16:23,204 --> 01:16:25,622 gives a press conference and declares victory. 1257 01:16:26,207 --> 01:16:29,376 In the public imagination, people thought that he had won 1258 01:16:29,543 --> 01:16:32,420 this lawsuit they didn't understand in the first place. 1259 01:16:32,713 --> 01:16:34,381 I know that Gore hated that. 1260 01:16:34,548 --> 01:16:37,676 Was it ever resolved, who came out ahead on that whole thing? 1261 01:16:38,052 --> 01:16:40,679 Well, it sort of went on for several years. 1262 01:16:40,846 --> 01:16:42,681 And then about a week before we'd go into court, 1263 01:16:42,848 --> 01:16:44,349 he called off the suit. 1264 01:16:44,517 --> 01:16:46,768 - Pulled the suit out from under you? - Exactly. 1265 01:16:46,936 --> 01:16:49,980 Exactly. I was looking forward to that. 1266 01:16:59,657 --> 01:17:03,660 Why do you work so hard? Why do you work so darn hard? 1267 01:17:04,078 --> 01:17:05,704 There's a lot to do. 1268 01:17:06,372 --> 01:17:09,291 Bill Buckley, the popularizer, laid the foundation 1269 01:17:09,959 --> 01:17:11,543 for the conservative movement. 1270 01:17:11,711 --> 01:17:13,920 Which enabled Ronald Reagan to come along 1271 01:17:14,088 --> 01:17:17,549 and to win that presidency by the margin that he did. 1272 01:17:19,302 --> 01:17:22,178 I can't tell you exactly when I discovered National Review. 1273 01:17:22,888 --> 01:17:25,056 It had a profound impact on me. 1274 01:17:28,602 --> 01:17:31,438 Well, my relationship to Ronald Reagan was pretty close. 1275 01:17:32,440 --> 01:17:35,483 There was an affinity of ideas. 1276 01:17:37,903 --> 01:17:40,155 I visited him and he visited me. 1277 01:17:40,323 --> 01:17:42,824 We took a liking to each other. 1278 01:17:42,992 --> 01:17:44,409 Certainly I to him. 1279 01:17:46,078 --> 01:17:48,621 When Ronald Reagan saluted William Buckley 1280 01:17:48,789 --> 01:17:50,874 and the National Review as president, 1281 01:17:51,167 --> 01:17:52,542 Buckley became a king maker. 1282 01:17:52,710 --> 01:17:54,252 And he was seen to be a king maker. 1283 01:17:54,420 --> 01:17:58,590 And appearance is at least as important as reality in this world. 1284 01:17:59,884 --> 01:18:02,052 When Buckley and Reagan were ascended, 1285 01:18:02,219 --> 01:18:06,848 and Vidal's political ideology was taking a backseat, 1286 01:18:07,016 --> 01:18:09,267 I think this was actually a great period for him. 1287 01:18:09,477 --> 01:18:12,062 Some of his greatest writing occurred in the '80s, 1288 01:18:12,229 --> 01:18:14,147 both in essays and in literature. 1289 01:18:15,149 --> 01:18:16,858 When another right-wing critic 1290 01:18:17,026 --> 01:18:19,569 attacked Gore Vidal as being anti-American, 1291 01:18:20,696 --> 01:18:22,781 Gore's reply was, "How can you call me anti-American? 1292 01:18:22,948 --> 01:18:24,741 I'm the country's official biographer." 1293 01:18:32,124 --> 01:18:34,793 In Burr, Vidal got off one of his great lines. 1294 01:18:35,378 --> 01:18:39,631 It was the beginning of Vidal's attempt at revenge on Buckley. 1295 01:18:40,299 --> 01:18:44,386 I believe his name was "William de la Touche Clancey". 1296 01:18:45,137 --> 01:18:46,805 And I think Vidal said somewhere 1297 01:18:46,972 --> 01:18:49,682 that it could not possibly be based on anyone, 1298 01:18:49,934 --> 01:18:53,103 meaning that of course it's based on Bill. 1299 01:18:54,146 --> 01:18:56,481 William de la Touche Clancey's voice 1300 01:18:56,649 --> 01:18:58,983 is like that of a furious goose, 1301 01:18:59,151 --> 01:19:00,819 all honks and hisses. 1302 01:19:01,862 --> 01:19:03,822 He detests our democracy. 1303 01:19:03,989 --> 01:19:06,533 He fills the pages of his magazine, America, 1304 01:19:06,700 --> 01:19:09,619 with libelous comments on all things American. 1305 01:19:09,787 --> 01:19:12,622 Despite a rich wife and five children, 1306 01:19:12,790 --> 01:19:14,791 he is a compulsive sodomite, 1307 01:19:14,959 --> 01:19:17,961 forever preying on country boys new to the city. 1308 01:19:19,505 --> 01:19:21,047 It is extreme and... 1309 01:19:22,466 --> 01:19:24,759 He was a good hater, Vidal. 1310 01:19:27,430 --> 01:19:31,224 God knows what is at the very bottom of that animosity. 1311 01:19:33,352 --> 01:19:35,186 He talked about it every day. 1312 01:19:35,813 --> 01:19:39,482 You don't talk about something every day that didn't cut you. 1313 01:19:39,900 --> 01:19:42,193 And I don't think that ever really healed. 1314 01:19:44,947 --> 01:19:48,658 We were in Ravello, not much to do after dinner. 1315 01:19:49,243 --> 01:19:53,663 He had acquired a VHS copy of the Vidal/Buckley debates. 1316 01:19:53,831 --> 01:19:56,708 I naively said, "Do you think we could watch them?" 1317 01:19:56,876 --> 01:20:00,420 Little did I realize this was the main event for the night. 1318 01:20:02,214 --> 01:20:04,841 We then watched them, I think, again a couple nights later. 1319 01:20:05,009 --> 01:20:09,220 And on subsequent trips we watched them two or three times. 1320 01:20:09,388 --> 01:20:12,015 And the thrill of the first viewing was gone. 1321 01:20:12,183 --> 01:20:13,975 And you began to have the sensation 1322 01:20:14,143 --> 01:20:16,227 that you were edging into Sunset Boulevard, 1323 01:20:16,395 --> 01:20:18,354 Norma Desmond territory. 1324 01:20:19,982 --> 01:20:22,108 It was Buckley who was distressed by it. 1325 01:20:24,069 --> 01:20:28,781 Buckley let it become personal in a way that he had been a maestro 1326 01:20:28,949 --> 01:20:30,200 of being able to avoid. 1327 01:20:30,367 --> 01:20:32,952 And that haunted him for a very long time. 1328 01:20:36,123 --> 01:20:38,791 After 33 years on PBS, 1329 01:20:38,959 --> 01:20:43,254 William F. Buckley, Jr. taped his last program before an audience 1330 01:20:43,422 --> 01:20:44,631 of invited guests. 1331 01:20:45,174 --> 01:20:47,675 The last show was succeeded 1332 01:20:47,843 --> 01:20:49,969 by an interview with Ted Koppel. 1333 01:20:50,137 --> 01:20:52,764 And at one point, he showed 1334 01:20:52,932 --> 01:20:56,351 the now already infamous clip. 1335 01:20:56,519 --> 01:20:59,562 Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, 1336 01:20:59,855 --> 01:21:03,900 or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered. 1337 01:21:05,528 --> 01:21:08,863 Buckley, uncharacteristically, said nothing 1338 01:21:09,031 --> 01:21:11,282 and then they went to the commercial break. 1339 01:21:11,951 --> 01:21:13,660 I was in the audience that day. 1340 01:21:14,078 --> 01:21:19,624 And he made a beeline up the aisle to where I was sitting and said, 1341 01:21:19,792 --> 01:21:23,086 "I thought that tape had been destroyed." 1342 01:21:24,880 --> 01:21:28,258 More than 30 years after the original debates, 1343 01:21:28,425 --> 01:21:31,469 he was still furious with Vidal, 1344 01:21:31,637 --> 01:21:34,389 and still shaken that he had reacted that way. 1345 01:21:35,349 --> 01:21:37,892 - Do you wish you were 20? - No! 1346 01:21:38,143 --> 01:21:40,186 Absolutely not. 1347 01:21:41,188 --> 01:21:42,897 No, I would... 1348 01:21:43,065 --> 01:21:46,109 If I had a pill which would reduce my age by 25 years, 1349 01:21:46,277 --> 01:21:48,027 - I wouldn't take it. - Why not? 1350 01:21:48,195 --> 01:21:50,780 Because I'm tired of life. 1351 01:21:50,948 --> 01:21:52,699 - Are you really? - Yeah. 1352 01:21:53,993 --> 01:21:54,993 I really am. 1353 01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:58,788 I'm utterly prepared to stop... 1354 01:21:59,623 --> 01:22:00,748 living on. 1355 01:22:01,959 --> 01:22:05,837 Any regrets about this life that you have lived? 1356 01:22:07,881 --> 01:22:09,465 - Yeah... - Like what? 1357 01:22:09,633 --> 01:22:11,551 Well, I'm not sure I'd tell you. 1358 01:22:13,721 --> 01:22:17,181 Someone asked when Bill Buckley died what Gore thought. 1359 01:22:18,601 --> 01:22:23,146 He said, "I thought that hell will be a livelier place, 1360 01:22:24,773 --> 01:22:28,943 that he will be permanently among those he served in life, 1361 01:22:30,487 --> 01:22:33,990 applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatreds." 1362 01:22:35,826 --> 01:22:37,702 The last line of that piece was: 1363 01:22:38,203 --> 01:22:41,080 "WFB, rest in hell." 1364 01:22:42,625 --> 01:22:44,292 It seems a little farfetched to say 1365 01:22:44,460 --> 01:22:47,378 that Gore Vidal was waiting around for Buckley to die 1366 01:22:47,546 --> 01:22:48,880 so he could have the last word. 1367 01:22:49,131 --> 01:22:52,717 But I promise you that he took great pleasure in that. 1368 01:22:53,886 --> 01:22:56,846 He was not satisfied if he didn't have something to fight against. 1369 01:22:57,014 --> 01:22:58,723 And at the end of his life, I think he was fighting 1370 01:22:58,891 --> 01:23:01,643 against the ghosts of all these enemies. 1371 01:23:03,520 --> 01:23:04,812 Truman Capote once famously said, 1372 01:23:04,980 --> 01:23:08,900 that it wasn't a matter of when Gore Vidal would be forgotten, 1373 01:23:09,068 --> 01:23:11,861 it was more or less when did he start to be forgotten? 1374 01:23:13,197 --> 01:23:15,657 Gore was convinced this had happened already. 1375 01:23:16,784 --> 01:23:20,244 The young had forgotten him. His books weren't being read anymore. 1376 01:23:24,583 --> 01:23:27,794 These figures become most interesting 1377 01:23:27,961 --> 01:23:30,380 when they're not listened to so much. 1378 01:23:30,589 --> 01:23:33,925 Because then there's a kind of big silence inside themselves. 1379 01:23:38,013 --> 01:23:41,849 I compared it in an essay I wrote to Wallace Stevens' great poem, 1380 01:23:42,351 --> 01:23:45,603 The Snowman, where he says, 1381 01:23:45,771 --> 01:23:47,647 "You have to have a mind of winter 1382 01:23:47,815 --> 01:23:50,900 to see nothing that is not there 1383 01:23:51,068 --> 01:23:53,027 and the nothing that is." 1384 01:24:05,165 --> 01:24:08,042 I think these great debates are absolutely nonsense. 1385 01:24:09,211 --> 01:24:12,046 The way they're set up, there's almost no interchange of ideas, 1386 01:24:12,214 --> 01:24:14,048 very little even of personality. 1387 01:24:14,633 --> 01:24:16,926 There's also a terrible thing about this medium 1388 01:24:17,094 --> 01:24:18,720 that hardly anyone listens. 1389 01:24:19,304 --> 01:24:21,389 They sort of get an impression of somebody 1390 01:24:21,557 --> 01:24:23,599 and they think they've figured out just what he's like 1391 01:24:23,767 --> 01:24:25,476 by seeing him on television. 1392 01:24:26,311 --> 01:24:30,565 The Buckley-Vidal debate was a harbinger 1393 01:24:30,733 --> 01:24:32,150 of an unhappy future. 1394 01:24:34,862 --> 01:24:37,363 Does television run America? 1395 01:24:37,823 --> 01:24:41,909 There is an implicit conflict of interest 1396 01:24:42,077 --> 01:24:44,662 between that which is highly viewable 1397 01:24:44,830 --> 01:24:47,915 and that which is highly illuminating. 1398 01:24:53,839 --> 01:24:58,551 That was a time when television was still a public square. 1399 01:24:58,719 --> 01:25:03,222 Where Americans gathered and saw pretty much the same thing. 1400 01:25:03,974 --> 01:25:05,308 There's nothing like that now. 1401 01:25:17,404 --> 01:25:20,281 That's terrifying! 1402 01:25:21,742 --> 01:25:23,743 Well, it's because, see, we're a debate show. 1403 01:25:23,911 --> 01:25:25,369 - It's like saying-- - No, that'd be great, 1404 01:25:25,537 --> 01:25:27,914 I would love to see a debate show. 1405 01:25:28,081 --> 01:25:30,208 ...a 24-hour day where we have each side on as best we can-- 1406 01:25:30,501 --> 01:25:33,127 No. That would be great. You're doing theater 1407 01:25:33,378 --> 01:25:35,296 when you should be doing debate. 1408 01:25:40,177 --> 01:25:43,346 The ability to talk the same language is gone. 1409 01:25:43,806 --> 01:25:48,976 More and more, we're divided into communities of concern. 1410 01:25:49,603 --> 01:25:53,272 Each side can ignore the other side and live in its own world. 1411 01:25:53,440 --> 01:25:55,024 It makes us less of a nation. 1412 01:25:55,192 --> 01:25:59,487 Because, what binds us together is the pictures in our heads. 1413 01:25:59,863 --> 01:26:03,866 But if those people are not sharing those ideas... 1414 01:26:04,701 --> 01:26:06,536 they're not living in the same place. 1415 01:27:47,012 --> 01:27:49,013 You've got a few more seconds. Are you capable 1416 01:27:49,181 --> 01:27:51,515 - of summing up in ten seconds? - No.