Best of Enemies: Buckley vs Vidal (2015) | Full Documentary | Political Debate, Media History & Culture Clash - video Dailymotion

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Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal is a powerful and critically acclaimed 2015 documentary that explores one of the most intense and influential television debates in American history.  Set during the politically charged atmosphere of the 1968 U.S. presidential conventions, this film showcases the legendary televised debates between conservative intellectual William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal writer Gore Vidal. Their explosive exchanges didn’t just reflect political differences—they helped shape modern media, political commentary, and the rise of opinion-based television.  This documentary dives deep into:  The origins of modern political debate culture Media evolution and the birth of televised political confrontation Intellectual clashes between right-wing and left-wing ideologies Behind-the-scenes tensions and cultural impact of the 1968 conventions How public discourse changed forever after Buckley vs. Vidal  With rare archival footage and expert commentary, Best of Enemies reveals how entertainment, politics, and media merged into what we recognize today as modern political broadcasting.

Transcript

00:00:00You

00:00:30You

00:01:00I

00:01:17Keep nothing but a few photographs in the bathroom of myself at an earlier time

00:01:23The

00:01:26First shows me at the age of 25

00:01:29Looking rather anxious. I've just bought a large house in the country and cannot afford it

00:01:35Here you've seen the young author of willow or at the age of 19

00:01:41still in uniform

00:01:44Here above the bathtub in the place of honor are the debates with William Buckley in 1968. He was a well-known right-wing

00:01:53commentator whose name seldom passes my lips

00:02:24William F. Buckley

00:02:30Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen

00:02:33That was a very nice introduction

00:02:37On the other hand if it hadn't been I would have smashed you in the goddamn face

00:02:49I do this so well

00:02:53And so terminally I

00:02:56Have left the bleeding corpse of William F. Buckley jr. On the floor of a convention hall in Chicago. I

00:03:04Would definitely have Gore Vidal and Bill Buckley on my television show

00:03:08I would guess that the rematch of the great conflict would attract people precisely because it held out the possibility of something violence

00:03:23In

00:03:34That 60s the institution in which Americans had the greatest confidence was television news

00:03:41Let's second organization on a worldwide scale speed and efficiency in the nerve centers of NBC News

00:03:48News was this big bland center that determined for us what America was which was

00:03:56White anglo-saxon there were never any vowels at the end of the names

00:04:01Chet Huntley and David Brinkley still are the team supremes of American television

00:04:06Networks did they deal in controversy? No, did they invite controversy? No

00:04:13They were in the center

00:04:16They were

00:04:19Cementers of idea not

00:04:22Disruptors of idea. This is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Good evening from our CBS newsroom

00:04:28NBC and CBS were fighting for the lead and ABC was clearly number three

00:04:34The other two networks were doing full coverage at the conventions gavel to gavel

00:04:43Turn the cameras and microphones on and let them roll

00:04:48And

00:04:51ABC had less money to spend on these things

00:04:54So

00:04:571968 ABC went to the truncated version of convention coverage to do an hour and a half from 930 to 11 at night

00:05:05They didn't have Cronkite. They didn't have Huntley and Brinkley. They didn't have the standards

00:05:12ABC was the third of the three networks

00:05:19Would have been fourth but there were only three

00:05:22They had the weaker programming

00:05:25And

00:05:28The

00:05:31The

00:05:34The

00:05:37The

00:05:39Weaker programming

00:05:42Somebody famously said that the way to end the Vietnam War was to put it on ABC and it be canceled in 13 weeks

00:05:52In order to be competitive with the 1968 convention

00:05:56ABC needed something

00:05:59Provocative a media event and they settled on Buckley and Vidal

00:06:09It wasn't necessarily sensible.

00:06:16It was a shot in the dark.

00:06:19And it changed television forever.

00:06:23Why are the races unreconciled?

00:06:29Why does poverty persevere?

00:06:31Why are the young disenchanted?

00:06:33Why do the birds sing so unhappily?

00:06:35It is easy to be carried away.

00:06:38And yet always there is a strain of seriousness, something in the system that warns us, warns

00:06:43us that America had better strike out on a different course rather than face another

00:06:47four years of asphyxiation by liberal premises.

00:06:51This is William F. Buckley, Jr. in New York.

00:06:55Perfect.

00:06:58This is the William F. Buckley America knows best, grimacing or incredulous or disdainful,

00:07:04readying himself for a deceptively quiet attack on his intellectual prey of the moment.

00:07:09This is the William F. Buckley Barry Goldwater insists fills a crying national need.

00:07:14We want Buckley!

00:07:16We want Buckley!

00:07:18We want Buckley!

00:07:20William F. Buckley, Jr. has a strong, definite opinion on every subject.

00:07:26So wherever he goes, he has to have an answer about every question.

00:07:30Do you think that America really doesn't believe in itself as much as it used to?

00:07:34Yes, I think that's true.

00:07:35I think it's happening because of a restlessness.

00:07:40For so long as liberalism suggested that it could bring happiness to the individual, then

00:07:46people tended to look to government agencies for those narcotic substitutes for a search

00:07:51for happiness and contentment, which they ought to have found in their religion, in

00:07:56their institutions, in their culture themselves.

00:08:03Bill Buckley was the first modern conservative intellectual to see that ideological debates

00:08:09were cultural debates, and what he did was to put conservatism on the march, and that's

00:08:16the creation of the movement we have today.

00:08:18He's stimulating, he's exhausting, he's fun.

00:08:24Sometimes I could kill him, but not too often.

00:08:29He could have been the playboy of the Western world, but he chose instead to be the Saint

00:08:34Paul of the conservative movement.

00:08:38Most workdays, he winds up in the offices of the National Review, his journal of conservative

00:08:43opinion, which reaches 110,000 subscribers and is read by many more.

00:08:51National Review is the most influential magazine of our time.

00:08:56Why?

00:08:57It's a magazine attached to a movement.

00:09:01My brother Bill, he was a conservative, right-wing, libertarian Christian.

00:09:07That's what he was.

00:09:10But most of all, Bill is a revolutionary.

00:09:14When the people at ABC had first approached Bill, they had asked him, would he be willing

00:09:19to be the conservative debater, commentator, with the national conventions?

00:09:24And he said, yes, he would.

00:09:25And they asked him, well, is there anybody you wouldn't go on with?

00:09:27And he said, well, I would refuse to go on with a communist.

00:09:31And apart from that, the only one I can think of is Gore Vidal.

00:09:38Men and women who are sexually repressed regard all sexual pleasure as dirty, evil, the devil's

00:09:46work.

00:09:47Yet we are all prostitutes in one sense or another, ethically, if not sexually.

00:09:53For Buckley, Vidal was the devil.

00:09:55He represented everything that was going to moral hell, that was degenerative about the

00:10:05country.

00:10:06A cultural war has now joined the race war in the United States, and the change is going

00:10:14to be very difficult.

00:10:15And as our own Thomas Jefferson once said, the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered

00:10:21with blood.

00:10:24In a sense, this was the beginning of a war between an old order and what I hope will

00:10:29be a new order.

00:10:30Gore didn't just see writing in the streets, he saw a revolution breaking out.

00:10:40Remember, Gore Vidal was always an iconoclast, an apostate, a writer against the grain.

00:10:50He saw Buckley and his ideas as anti-democratic.

00:10:54If Buckley were not taken out, his ideas would take down the nation.

00:10:59It occurred to me that the central drive in human beings is power, and that has always

00:11:06been my theme that I deal in politics, which is an obvious manifestation of power.

00:11:12Gore Vidal is one of America's most successful and distinguished writers.

00:11:16He also lives in a personal cloud of outrageous legend.

00:11:20After the early books, which first brought him to the public eye, came a group of highly

00:11:24praised historical novels, which sold in their millions.

00:11:27But it was Myra Breckinridge that confirmed Vidal's place as the enfant terrible of the

00:11:32respectable American literary scene.

00:11:35By 1968, he had just published a bombshell of a book, his greatest satire, and I think

00:11:40one of the greatest satires written in English, Myra Breckinridge.

00:11:44And now, ladies and gentlemen, what you've all been waiting for.

00:11:50The book that couldn't be written is now the motion picture that couldn't be made, Myra

00:11:55Breckinridge.

00:11:58He'd gotten, you know, the cover of Time Magazine for it, and his career was soaring at the

00:12:03time, but it was edgy material.

00:12:07I don't know where Myra came from.

00:12:09I really was like the Huxley character each day, wondering what Myra would do and roaring

00:12:12with laughter as this thing presented itself to me.

00:12:17Gentlemen, I am Myra Breckinridge.

00:12:22Uncle Buck, your fag nephew, became your niece two years ago in Copenhagen, and is now free

00:12:27as a bird and happy in being the most extraordinary woman in the world.

00:12:32Suddenly, it occurred to me about sexual relations, how indeed much of it is based not upon any

00:12:39pleasure principle or even a procreative one, but of people gaining power over others.

00:12:44Aha!

00:12:45Gotcha!

00:12:46And so I conceived my androgynous protagonist, who is a man who becomes a woman who becomes

00:12:53a man.

00:12:55A transsexual seducing man, or in one case, I believe, raping a man.

00:13:00Yeah!

00:13:05The themes of Myra Breckinridge and also sexuality and transsexuality is way ahead of its time

00:13:11and got under Bill Buckley's skin.

00:13:16Mr. Buckley, did you see the film Myra Breckinridge and Why Not?

00:13:23That told the people at ABC, wow, we have a chance for some great theater here, let's

00:13:28get Gore Vidal.

00:13:34Gore Vidal is a whore of debate when it comes to values of our country and of historical

00:13:44forces.

00:13:45The man is brilliant and the man is fun to watch, but there is always a residue, in my

00:13:54opinion, when I watch him, of nausea.

00:14:00I didn't say anything nasty about him, did I?

00:14:05It is under...

00:14:07All right.

00:14:16It is understandable that the Republicans decided to hold their convention south of

00:14:20the Mason-Dixon line.

00:14:21They had not done so in 104 years, and it is obvious why anyone might want to come to

00:14:27Miami Beach.

00:14:29But the real reasons for the Republican presence here are less obvious, and I blew that one,

00:14:34let's...

00:14:45This nine-mile-long sandbar has one advantage above all others, it is remote.

00:14:51It is therefore easy for the Republicans to avoid the danger of large militant demonstrations.

00:15:03There is a huge, almost empty convention hall down there waiting for the 1968 Republican

00:15:08convention.

00:15:09There is very little work left to do before the first gavel on Monday.

00:15:16Every political convention has features no other convention before it has had.

00:15:20What's going to be distinctive about this one?

00:15:23First of all, this is the first one available to the public completely in beautiful color,

00:15:27and lady delegates have received careful instructions about how to dress so as to appear vivid but

00:15:32not garish.

00:15:39Bill Buckley took off for a week sailing before the Republican National Convention.

00:15:44They sailed down to Cozumel.

00:15:47I would be rather surprised if he did any special preparation for this encounter with

00:15:52Gore Vidal.

00:15:54Buckley expected this to be an opportunity to debate the issues, to have some fun.

00:16:01He was not prepared for Mr. Vidal.

00:16:05Gore told me he hired a researcher.

00:16:08He wanted to paint National Review as being racist, if he could, anti-Semitic.

00:16:15I don't think he was really interested in conducting a debate about the issues or about

00:16:22the parties or about the policies or about the platforms of the two parties.

00:16:27What he wanted to do was to expose Bill Buckley.

00:16:38Their confrontation is about lifestyle.

00:16:41It's about lifestyle.

00:16:44What kind of people should we be?

00:16:47Their real argument in front of the public is who is the better person.

00:16:57In one minute, a second look with William Buckley and Gore Vidal.

00:17:01Across from us was Howard K. Smith.

00:17:05Suave, intelligent, mildly apprehensive.

00:17:09Rehearsing with his lips the lines he would presently deliver.

00:17:1330, 40, 50 technicians, reporters, directors filled the enormous room.

00:17:19At one corner of which, earphones attached, Vidal and I awaited the sound of the bell.

00:17:25From past experience, I knew that Buckley would have done no research.

00:17:30That what facts he had at his command would be jumbled by the strangest syntax.

00:17:37We'd exchanged minimal amenities and I scribbled on my clipboard to avoid having to banter with him.

00:17:44And he did the same.

00:17:46For all their ideological differences, they both see what the problem is.

00:17:49For all their ideological differences, they both see what the problem is.

00:17:54That America can't stay on the course it's on and that the country is being split at the seams.

00:17:59And each is staked out his position in ways that portend where our country is divided right now.

00:18:12To help us extract meaning from these conventions,

00:18:14two of America's most eloquent and most decided commentators have joined us this year.

00:18:19They are Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr.

00:18:24Can Mr. Vidal assess the Republicans for us?

00:18:27Can a political party based almost entirely upon human greed

00:18:33nominate anyone for president for whom a majority of the American people would vote?

00:18:39May I comment, Mr. Smith?

00:18:42Please do.

00:18:44It seems to me that the author of Myra Breckinridge is well acquainted with the imperatives of human greed.

00:18:52Well, I would like to say, Bill,

00:18:54If I may say, Bill,

00:18:56Before you go any further,

00:18:58I would like to say that if there were a contest for Mr. Myra Breckinridge,

00:19:02you would unquestionably win it.

00:19:04I based her entire style polemically upon you.

00:19:07Passionate and irrelevant.

00:19:08My point is that for Mr. Vidal to contend a particular party

00:19:14as engaged in the pursuit of human greed

00:19:17requires us to understand his rather eccentric definitions.

00:19:20Is it greedy, really, for people to suggest that what matters to poor people

00:19:24is that they have houses?

00:19:26Is it really greedy to want to preserve our freedom?

00:19:28We have the luxury of being able to focus on those who are poor in our midst

00:19:34as though we can do something about it,

00:19:35meaning that no other country less occupied with human greed.

00:19:38The nice thing about the Republican Party

00:19:41is that every four years,

00:19:43after denigrating the poor amongst themselves,

00:19:45referring to them as freeloaders,

00:19:47they don't want to work,

00:19:49and I have many quotes here from Ronald Reagan,

00:19:51and then every four years you get this sort of crocodile tears

00:19:53for the poor people because they need their vote.

00:19:55It is quite true that a Reagan is capable of talking about freeloaders,

00:19:59so am I,

00:20:01because there are freeloaders.

00:20:02It is one thing to say

00:20:04that a society ought to concern itself with the part of its poor.

00:20:08I think the Republican Party is saying that.

00:20:10Perhaps the Republican Party should have a platform

00:20:13on how to deal with the Dao.

00:20:15If absolutely necessary, I will write it for them.

00:20:17But meanwhile...

00:20:19I'd be very nervous.

00:20:21You have written lately of your intimacy with Reagan and with Nixon

00:20:24and that you've discussed the Vietnam War with them

00:20:26and that you were satisfied with their positions.

00:20:28Since you're in favor of the nuclear bombing of North Vietnam,

00:20:32I'd be very worried about your kind of ardnerosis,

00:20:35your war ardnerosis,

00:20:37being a friend of anybody who might be a president.

00:20:39I've never advocated the nuclear bombing of North Vietnam.

00:20:42You have, and I'll give you time and place if it amuses you.

00:20:45Well, you won't.

00:20:47I will, because I know what I'm doing.

00:20:49Bill, if we don't mind...

00:20:51Now, wait a minute, don't duck away from the record.

00:20:53You suggested the atom bombing of the North of Vietnam

00:20:55in your little magazine,

00:20:57which I do not read, but I'm told about,

00:20:59the 23rd of February, 1968.

00:21:00So you're very hawkish.

00:21:02Now, if both Nixon and Reagan are listening to you,

00:21:05I'm very worried for the country.

00:21:07It seems to me that the Republican Party

00:21:10has shown a record of greater sobriety than Mr. Vidal,

00:21:13who boasts of not reading something

00:21:15which he has prepared to misquote

00:21:17in the presence of the person who edits it.

00:21:19Now, Bill Buckley, if the quotation is exact...

00:21:22Now, now, now, don't be...

00:21:24We know that your tendency is to be feline, Mr. Vidal,

00:21:26but just relax for a moment

00:21:27and take it very simply on this.

00:21:29I have not advocated,

00:21:31I'm not horrified at the prospect of...

00:21:33Bill, I just quoted what you said

00:21:35these times and where.

00:21:37Now, are you saying you didn't say it?

00:21:39I am saying that I didn't say that your misquotations...

00:21:41Tune in this time tomorrow night

00:21:43and we will have further evidence

00:21:45of Bill Buckley, cold lawyer, turned pot.

00:21:47That's right, and about the human greed

00:21:49of everybody in the world except yourself.

00:21:51And then tomorrow...

00:21:53There are saints in television.

00:21:55Tomorrow I'll quote what Mr. Vidal

00:21:57had to say.

00:21:59Excuse me, gentlemen.

00:22:01It's been very enjoyable

00:22:03hearing you articulate two points of view.

00:22:05Thank you very much indeed.

00:22:07I think I detected some unfinished lines of thought

00:22:09and we'll have time

00:22:11to follow them through tomorrow

00:22:13and tomorrow and tomorrow.

00:22:15There's nothing feigned

00:22:17about the mutual antipathy.

00:22:19They really do despise one another.

00:22:21Each thought that the other

00:22:23was quite dangerous

00:22:25and it was drawn from

00:22:27Buckley first class

00:22:29almost by proxy in 1962

00:22:31on the Jack Parr program.

00:22:33Vidal had gone on

00:22:35Jack Parr's show

00:22:37and they both started mocking Buckley.

00:22:39His eccentric mannerisms,

00:22:41the voice,

00:22:43the facial tics,

00:22:45all the rest.

00:22:47So in effect, Buckley was given equal time

00:22:49and he went on Jack Parr's show

00:22:51and Parr expected

00:22:53the kind of troglodyte,

00:22:55Neanderthal man

00:22:57of the right

00:22:59whom Vidal had caricatured

00:23:01on the program

00:23:03and instead

00:23:05you have this genius of debate.

00:23:07And Parr was stunned.

00:23:11We next met in San Francisco,

00:23:131964,

00:23:15during the Goldwater Convention.

00:23:17I confessed to having

00:23:19prepared a trap for Buckley.

00:23:21I egged him on.

00:23:23The next day Buckley

00:23:25sent me a letter

00:23:27and I found

00:23:29this sentiment agreeable.

00:23:32Buckley was eager

00:23:34to be on television.

00:23:36The downside

00:23:38of it for Gore

00:23:40was that he contributed

00:23:42to Buckley's

00:23:44becoming an on-screen celebrity.

00:23:49Mr. Buckley

00:23:51read by many

00:23:52but not that many.

00:23:54It would be nothing

00:23:55Buckley sat in his chair

00:23:57with a clipboard

00:23:59and would invite left-wingers

00:24:01or liberals

00:24:03on his program

00:24:05and they would go back

00:24:07and forth for half an hour.

00:24:09You know, people on the left

00:24:11are more law-abiding

00:24:13than anybody else.

00:24:15That's why they're on the left.

00:24:17Explain that, would you?

00:24:19I'd be happy to.

00:24:21You're marvelous.

00:24:23You're the only man

00:24:24that I see.

00:24:26From my point of view

00:24:28what Elijah Muhammad

00:24:30is doing to you

00:24:32is diseasing your mind.

00:24:34You sit and tell me

00:24:36that we white people

00:24:38like to divide and conquer.

00:24:40I grew up as a white child

00:24:42and I heard much more

00:24:44talk against Democrats

00:24:46than I did

00:24:47against black people.

00:24:49When he began

00:24:51Firing Line,

00:24:52he took his course

00:24:54and he educated people

00:24:56through it.

00:24:58On the eve

00:25:00of the Republican Convention

00:25:02the heat is on.

00:25:04We bring you a report

00:25:06on who did what to whom

00:25:08in the last hours

00:25:10before the gavel

00:25:12plus commentary

00:25:14and some dissent

00:25:16from our guest commentators

00:25:18author Gore Vidal.

00:25:20ABC's unconventional

00:25:22ABC News' visibility

00:25:24we certainly succeeded.

00:25:27Everybody watched the news.

00:25:29Nearly 80 percent

00:25:31of the country

00:25:32watched coverage

00:25:33of the Republican

00:25:34and Democratic Conventions

00:25:35in 1968.

00:25:41And then

00:25:42ABC News' studio

00:25:43collapsed.

00:25:52The lighting grid

00:25:54fell down

00:25:55onto the floor

00:25:56of the set.

00:25:58The roof fell in

00:25:59literally

00:26:00and it was built

00:26:01inside the arena.

00:26:04ABC

00:26:06was really

00:26:07you know

00:26:08the budget car rental

00:26:09of television news.

00:26:10Pieces

00:26:11of the ceiling

00:26:12start flying

00:26:13and then all of a sudden

00:26:14the whole thing

00:26:15started giving away.

00:26:17Mr. Lauer,

00:26:18ABC promised

00:26:19to be unconventional

00:26:20this year

00:26:21and this is ridiculous.

00:26:22We're sure

00:26:23going to be unconventional

00:26:24Sam,

00:26:25I can tell you that.

00:26:26Thank you very much.

00:26:27Now let's just

00:26:28cut it.

00:26:40This is Miami

00:26:41Day One.

00:26:43From Miami Beach

00:26:44ABC News

00:26:45presents

00:26:47Race to the White House.

00:26:48They

00:26:49did what they could

00:26:50basically

00:26:51they hung

00:26:52a lot of drapes

00:26:53lit the set

00:26:54with c-stands

00:26:55and lamps.

00:26:56Frankly

00:26:57I think it was

00:26:58an improvement.

00:26:59We would like now

00:27:00to demonstrate

00:27:01how the English language

00:27:02ought to be used

00:27:03by two craftsmen

00:27:04our guest commentators.

00:27:08If you view

00:27:09debate

00:27:10purely

00:27:11as sport

00:27:12let's call it

00:27:13blood sport

00:27:14then really

00:27:15all bets

00:27:16are off.

00:27:18Stand by

00:27:19music

00:27:20stand by

00:27:21announce.

00:27:22You have

00:27:23one objective

00:27:24and that's

00:27:25to win

00:27:26in that moment.

00:27:28When you

00:27:29attack

00:27:30the position

00:27:31of your opponent

00:27:32you have

00:27:33to first

00:27:34attack it

00:27:35clinically

00:27:36and rationally.

00:27:37Six

00:27:38five

00:27:39four

00:27:40But mostly

00:27:41what you have to get

00:27:42is what's behind

00:27:43those things.

00:27:44What is driving

00:27:45the human being

00:27:46who is in front of you?

00:27:47Three

00:27:48two

00:27:49one

00:27:54Gore Vidal

00:27:55Tonight

00:27:56the key question

00:27:57for every

00:27:58patriot

00:27:59is

00:28:00can an aging

00:28:01Hollywood

00:28:02juvenile actor

00:28:03with a right wing

00:28:04script

00:28:05defeat Richard Nixon

00:28:06a professional

00:28:07politician

00:28:08who currently

00:28:09represents

00:28:10no discernible

00:28:11interest

00:28:12except his own?

00:28:13As of

00:28:14yesterday morning

00:28:15Ronald Reagan

00:28:16said

00:28:17the duty

00:28:18of government

00:28:19is to get out

00:28:20of our way

00:28:21and leave us

00:28:22alone

00:28:23as much

00:28:24as possible.

00:28:25Now on this

00:28:26occasion

00:28:27I'm afraid

00:28:28I have to agree

00:28:29with William Buckley

00:28:30the distinguished

00:28:31thinker

00:28:32when he says

00:28:33my favorite

00:28:34quotation from you

00:28:35I have a treasury

00:28:36here

00:28:37today as never

00:28:38before

00:28:39the state

00:28:40is the necessary

00:28:41instrument

00:28:42of our

00:28:43proximate

00:28:44deliverance

00:28:45and that's

00:28:46what happens

00:28:47in the country

00:28:48and now you have

00:28:49a Ronald Reagan

00:28:50whom you approve

00:28:51of who does

00:28:52not want to

00:28:53use the federal

00:28:54government

00:28:55to do anything

00:28:56at all

00:28:57Mr. Smith

00:28:58I confess

00:28:59that anything

00:29:00complicated

00:29:01confuses

00:29:02Mr. Vidal

00:29:03this has been

00:29:04playing for

00:29:05a very long

00:29:06time

00:29:07he has

00:29:08a great

00:29:09difficulty

00:29:10reconciling

00:29:11even

00:29:12axiomatic

00:29:13positions

00:29:14of being

00:29:15a Hollywood

00:29:16juvenile

00:29:17actor

00:29:18now

00:29:19to begin

00:29:20with everybody

00:29:21is aging

00:29:22even

00:29:23you are Bill

00:29:24perceptively

00:29:25before our eyes

00:29:26then he said

00:29:27Hollywood

00:29:28now

00:29:29one was either

00:29:30acted in Hollywood

00:29:31during the time

00:29:32Mr. Reagan

00:29:33acted or one

00:29:34didn't act

00:29:35at all

00:29:36Mr. Vidal

00:29:37sends all of

00:29:38his books

00:29:39to Hollywood

00:29:40many of which

00:29:41are rejected

00:29:42but some

00:29:43are accepted

00:29:44Mr. Vidal

00:29:45is a

00:29:46juvenile

00:29:47actor

00:29:48which is

00:29:49presumably

00:29:50to be

00:29:51distinguished

00:29:52from an

00:29:53adult

00:29:54actor

00:29:55Buckley

00:29:56was his

00:29:57generation's

00:29:58greatest

00:29:59debater

00:30:00he knew

00:30:01very well

00:30:02how to

00:30:03make an

00:30:04argument

00:30:05what he

00:30:06was even

00:30:07better

00:30:08at was

00:30:09dismantling

00:30:10your

00:30:11argument

00:30:12in every sense

00:30:13let Mr. Buckley

00:30:14finish this sentence

00:30:15then Mr. Vidal

00:30:16I assure you

00:30:17it's time to

00:30:18recute

00:30:19that ABC

00:30:20has the authority

00:30:21to invite

00:30:22the author

00:30:23of Myra

00:30:24Breckinridge

00:30:25to comment

00:30:26on Republican

00:30:27politics

00:30:28I think

00:30:29that the people

00:30:30of California

00:30:31have the right

00:30:32when they speak

00:30:33overwhelmingly

00:30:34to project

00:30:35somebody

00:30:36into national

00:30:37politics

00:30:38even if he

00:30:39did commit

00:30:40the sin

00:30:41Buckley was

00:30:42the great

00:30:43debater

00:30:44of his

00:30:45time

00:30:46Vidal

00:30:47was the

00:30:48great

00:30:49talker

00:30:50of his

00:30:51time

00:30:52well as

00:30:53usual

00:30:54Mr. Buckley

00:30:55with his

00:30:56enormous

00:30:57thrilling

00:30:58charm

00:30:59manages

00:31:00to get

00:31:01away from

00:31:02the issue

00:31:03towards

00:31:04comedy

00:31:05he's

00:31:06always to

00:31:07the right

00:31:08I think

00:31:09and almost

00:31:10on the

00:31:11political

00:31:12campaign

00:31:13he also

00:31:14rehearsed

00:31:15his ad libs

00:31:17all the

00:31:18great bon mots

00:31:19that he unleashed

00:31:20on the air

00:31:21he tried out

00:31:22first on the

00:31:23reporters

00:31:24in the press room

00:31:25so

00:31:26calling

00:31:27Buckley

00:31:28the Marie Antoinette

00:31:29of the right wing

00:31:30he had done

00:31:31that with a

00:31:32reporter

00:31:33beforehand

00:31:34this is the

00:31:35Hobgoblinization

00:31:36gentlemen

00:31:37you have

00:31:38just about

00:31:40to give us

00:31:41one

00:31:42well I think

00:31:43that it is

00:31:44something for which

00:31:45all of us have to

00:31:46be grateful

00:31:47that there are

00:31:48left in America

00:31:49people who believe

00:31:50in the democratic

00:31:51process sufficiently

00:31:52to know

00:31:53that

00:31:54occasionally

00:31:55people can

00:31:56penetrate

00:31:57such myths

00:31:58as have been

00:31:59energetically

00:32:00projected by

00:32:01Mr. Vidal

00:32:02which would

00:32:03be

00:32:04not only

00:32:05a philosophy

00:32:06and an economy

00:32:07of stagnation

00:32:08but also

00:32:09of stagnation

00:32:10well thank you

00:32:11very much

00:32:12indeed gentlemen

00:32:13so these two

00:32:14guys were circling

00:32:15each other

00:32:16early on

00:32:17why

00:32:18partly because

00:32:19each one

00:32:20saw in the other

00:32:21a kind of

00:32:22exaggerated image

00:32:23of his own

00:32:24anxious version

00:32:25of himself

00:32:29it's almost

00:32:30as if they were

00:32:31matter and

00:32:32antimatter

00:32:33sort of

00:32:34parallel lives

00:32:39they spoke

00:32:40with these

00:32:41patrician

00:32:42language accents

00:32:43they'd both

00:32:44been to boarding

00:32:45schools

00:32:46very prestigious

00:32:47families and

00:32:48backgrounds

00:32:49so everyone

00:32:50thought

00:32:51these were two

00:32:52guys who were not

00:32:53so much of

00:32:54the eastern

00:32:55establishment

00:32:56as conquerors

00:32:57of the eastern

00:32:58establishment

00:32:59Gore never

00:33:00went to

00:33:01college

00:33:02which he was

00:33:03very proud of

00:33:04actually

00:33:05we are savages

00:33:06my family

00:33:07father was

00:33:08here

00:33:09we didn't

00:33:10belong to

00:33:11Long Island

00:33:12society

00:33:13nor did we wish

00:33:14to

00:33:15this has

00:33:16always been an

00:33:17anti-intellectual

00:33:18country

00:33:19these days

00:33:20anybody who

00:33:21spoke like

00:33:22those two

00:33:23men

00:33:24in public

00:33:25would be seen

00:33:26to be heartless

00:33:27in fact

00:33:28they're supposed

00:33:29to be what

00:33:30American

00:33:31mass audience

00:33:32despises

00:33:33they're intellectual

00:33:34they sound

00:33:35like elites

00:33:36but people

00:33:37don't

00:33:38trust

00:33:39on you

00:33:40I think

00:33:41they are

00:33:42good legs

00:33:43are in good

00:33:44taste

00:33:45good legs

00:33:46I never

00:33:47would have

00:33:48figured you

00:33:49for that

00:33:50kind

00:33:51Gore Vidal

00:33:52famously

00:33:53said there

00:33:54are two

00:33:55things you

00:33:56never turn

00:33:57down

00:33:58sex and

00:33:59appearing

00:34:00on television

00:34:01go ahead

00:34:02go

00:34:03Joanne

00:34:04Woodward

00:34:05very good

00:34:06he actually

00:34:07knew

00:34:08about the power

00:34:09of television

00:34:10in a way

00:34:11that a lot

00:34:12of American

00:34:13intellectuals

00:34:14of that era

00:34:15did not

00:34:16why don't you

00:34:17just talk

00:34:18to me

00:34:19instead of

00:34:20talking to

00:34:21the audience

00:34:22huh

00:34:23well

00:34:24by a

00:34:25curious

00:34:26thing

00:34:27we have

00:34:28not

00:34:29found

00:34:30ourselves

00:34:31in a

00:34:32friendly

00:34:33neighborhood

00:34:34bar

00:34:35it's very

00:34:37very hard

00:34:38to stand up

00:34:39carrying the

00:34:40the weight

00:34:41of what I know

00:34:45they were

00:34:46both very much

00:34:47aware that TV

00:34:48is the present

00:34:49and the future

00:34:50and you have to

00:34:51be on it

00:34:52and you have to

00:34:53use it well

00:34:54in a way

00:34:55I think

00:34:56the brilliant

00:34:57thing about

00:34:58Gore Vidal

00:34:59is he had

00:35:00opinions

00:35:01and he was

00:35:02willing to air

00:35:03them and very

00:35:04very bravely

00:35:05I mean

00:35:06this is the

00:35:07person that

00:35:08wrote

00:35:09The City

00:35:10and the

00:35:11Pillar

00:35:12published

00:35:13in 1948

00:35:14it was the

00:35:15first

00:35:16novel

00:35:17that dealt

00:35:18very openly

00:35:19with

00:35:20homosexuality

00:35:21as being

00:35:22a perfectly

00:35:23sexual

00:35:24activity

00:35:26he was willing

00:35:27to take these risks

00:35:28that almost

00:35:29no one

00:35:30statistically

00:35:31was ever

00:35:32willing to take

00:35:33he deserves

00:35:34so much credit

00:35:35for that

00:35:36that he does

00:35:37not get

00:35:38you have your

00:35:39own narrow views

00:35:40of what is correct

00:35:41sexual behavior

00:35:42I happen to

00:35:43disagree with it

00:35:44and I think

00:35:45there are

00:35:46quite many

00:35:47people who do

00:35:48we cannot

00:35:49in any way

00:35:50encourage young

00:35:51boys into

00:35:52trying to

00:35:53propagandize

00:35:54with books

00:35:55I certainly

00:35:56am not going

00:35:57to try to

00:35:58shut down

00:35:59your church

00:36:00as appalling

00:36:01as I find

00:36:02your argument

00:36:03Vidal's view

00:36:04is that

00:36:05sexual orientation

00:36:06among civilized

00:36:07human beings

00:36:08is not named

00:36:09discussed

00:36:10or labeled

00:36:11Gore Vidal

00:36:12would never

00:36:13answer to the

00:36:14question

00:36:15are you gay

00:36:16yes

00:36:17I'm gay

00:36:18you have to

00:36:19understand that

00:36:20Gore

00:36:21would never

00:36:22answer to

00:36:23those

00:36:24sexual labels

00:36:25it is as

00:36:26natural to be

00:36:27homosexual

00:36:28as it is

00:36:29to be heterosexual

00:36:30and the

00:36:31difference between

00:36:32a homosexual

00:36:33and a heterosexual

00:36:34is about the

00:36:35difference

00:36:36between somebody

00:36:37who has brown

00:36:38eyes and somebody

00:36:39who has blue

00:36:40eyes

00:36:41who says so

00:36:42I say so

00:36:43it is a

00:36:44completely natural

00:36:45act

00:36:46from the

00:36:47beginning

00:36:48of time

00:36:49the mores

00:36:50you have

00:36:51sex with

00:36:52women

00:36:53the family

00:36:54will be over

00:36:55the church

00:36:56won't be

00:36:57respected

00:36:58people will

00:36:59be screwing

00:37:00in the street

00:37:01and frightening

00:37:02the horses

00:37:03buggery

00:37:04will be

00:37:05legal

00:37:06and if

00:37:07you'd said

00:37:08all that

00:37:09to Gore

00:37:10he would

00:37:11have said

00:37:12well okay

00:37:13bring it

00:37:14on

00:37:15in a very

00:37:16moving piece

00:37:17called

00:37:18a blow

00:37:19you came

00:37:20out

00:37:21you will

00:37:22eat it

00:37:23first

00:37:24you came

00:37:25out in

00:37:26favor of

00:37:27history

00:37:28aches

00:37:29for such

00:37:30an act

00:37:31of greatness

00:37:32that is the

00:37:33bombing

00:37:34of the

00:37:35Chinese

00:37:36nuclear

00:37:37capacity

00:37:38I have

00:37:39no doubt

00:37:40that there

00:37:41is somebody

00:37:42in Haight Ashbury

00:37:43or Greenwich

00:37:44Village

00:37:45who considers

00:37:46that your

00:37:47caricature

00:37:48when you have

00:37:49somebody like this

00:37:50who speaks

00:37:51in such burps

00:37:52and he likes

00:37:53to be naughty

00:37:54which has

00:37:55proved to be

00:37:56professionally

00:37:57highly merchandisable

00:37:58rights

00:37:59not unlike

00:38:00your so public

00:38:01license of equal

00:38:02wickedness

00:38:03we have to

00:38:04keep in mind

00:38:05the left wing

00:38:06was never

00:38:07hesitant

00:38:08about smearing

00:38:09anybody from the

00:38:10right wing

00:38:11that was a

00:38:12battle that Bill

00:38:13had to fight

00:38:14all the time

00:38:15the disease

00:38:16of the right

00:38:17insensitivity

00:38:18and general

00:38:19stupidity

00:38:20in a radio interview

00:38:21you said that you

00:38:22thought that Jews

00:38:23tend to construct

00:38:24an ongoing

00:38:25political myth

00:38:26centered around

00:38:27the Hitlerian

00:38:28experience

00:38:29which more or less

00:38:30suggests that Hitler

00:38:31was an embodiment

00:38:32of the ultra right

00:38:33that's true

00:38:34most Jews

00:38:35suggested Hitler

00:38:36was the embodiment

00:38:37of the ultra right

00:38:38certainly he wasn't

00:38:39the embodiment

00:38:40of the ultra left

00:38:41do you care

00:38:42to read the

00:38:43contacts

00:38:44or shall I

00:38:45cram it down

00:38:46to the gnostic

00:38:47heresies

00:38:48of Nazism

00:38:49and Fascism

00:38:50and that was

00:38:51a label

00:38:52that the left

00:38:53wing

00:38:54kept trying to

00:38:55pin

00:38:56on the right

00:38:57wing

00:38:58which is the

00:38:59cherry bomb

00:39:00that's waiting

00:39:01to go off

00:39:02and eventually

00:39:03does

00:39:06good evening

00:39:07from Miami

00:39:08Beach

00:39:09again tonight

00:39:10we bring you

00:39:11in 90 minutes

00:39:12all that's

00:39:13worth seeing

00:39:14and knowing

00:39:16I'm talking about

00:39:17white America

00:39:18white America

00:39:19can you hear me

00:39:20yes

00:39:21yes

00:39:22I said listen

00:39:23to me

00:39:24white America

00:39:25quiet

00:39:29never has

00:39:30obedience

00:39:31to law

00:39:32been so

00:39:33disdained

00:39:36in 1968

00:39:37you're seeing

00:39:38the beginning

00:39:39of a republican

00:39:40kind of rhetoric

00:39:41in which strategies

00:39:42of dividing

00:39:43the country

00:39:44racially

00:39:45are disguised

00:39:46with language

00:39:47along the lines

00:39:48of law

00:39:49and order

00:39:50let's make

00:39:51America

00:39:52first again

00:39:53in respect

00:39:54for order

00:39:55and justice

00:39:56under law

00:39:57now isn't that

00:39:58what you want

00:39:59isn't that where

00:40:00we're going to go

00:40:01you wanted law

00:40:02and order

00:40:03in this town

00:40:04you got it

00:40:05he's bluffing

00:40:06boys

00:40:07let's get him

00:40:08the next one

00:40:09gets a load

00:40:10of buckshot

00:40:11any takers

00:40:13must we avoid

00:40:14our great cities

00:40:15by night

00:40:17as if they were

00:40:18gorilla

00:40:19infested

00:40:20hamlets

00:40:21out in Vietnam

00:40:24927 we're setting up

00:40:25there was

00:40:26a racial

00:40:27protest

00:40:28that turned into

00:40:29a riot

00:40:30at the convention

00:40:31in Miami

00:40:34these were

00:40:35two visions

00:40:36of America

00:40:37clashing

00:40:38don't give me any

00:40:39of that crap

00:40:40turn around

00:40:41look at that man

00:40:42right there

00:40:43look at that picture

00:40:44to be sure

00:40:45this might have been

00:40:46triggered

00:40:47by the lily white

00:40:48climate of the

00:40:49republican convention

00:40:50which is in progress

00:40:51right now

00:40:52just a few miles

00:40:53from here

00:40:55the fault lines

00:40:56in our politics

00:40:57were

00:40:58decided

00:40:59in the 1968

00:41:00election

00:41:01alliances that

00:41:02connect

00:41:03in shifting

00:41:04ways

00:41:05racial

00:41:06religious

00:41:07socioeconomic

00:41:08what we now

00:41:09call

00:41:10identity

00:41:11politics

00:41:12was being formed

00:41:13and Buckley

00:41:14knew it

00:41:15because to some

00:41:16extent

00:41:17he'd helped

00:41:18create it

00:41:21the subject

00:41:22for William Buckley

00:41:23and Gore Vidal

00:41:24tonight

00:41:25beyond the

00:41:26nomination

00:41:27what issues

00:41:28can the republicans

00:41:29use effectively

00:41:30to win

00:41:31well I think

00:41:32two primarily

00:41:33number one

00:41:34law and order

00:41:35I wish

00:41:36there was a way

00:41:37of saying law

00:41:38and order

00:41:39rather than

00:41:40say oh you're

00:41:41talking about

00:41:42the racial

00:41:43question

00:41:44I would like

00:41:45to know how

00:41:46to say law

00:41:47and order

00:41:48by other

00:41:49means

00:41:50but still mean

00:41:51law and order

00:41:52and one of

00:41:53the problems

00:41:54that we face

00:41:55and that

00:41:56Nixon's going

00:41:57to face

00:41:58is this

00:41:59what do we

00:42:00do about

00:42:01the growth

00:42:02of really

00:42:03mutinous

00:42:04members

00:42:05of the

00:42:06American

00:42:07community

00:42:08I think

00:42:09that if

00:42:10Richard Nixon

00:42:11were elected

00:42:12president

00:42:13it would be

00:42:14an absolute

00:42:15no matter

00:42:16with what

00:42:17goodwill

00:42:18it would be

00:42:19a disaster

00:42:20because the

00:42:21young, the

00:42:22black, the

00:42:23poor are

00:42:24disaffected

00:42:25and I don't

00:42:26see him

00:42:27ever drawing

00:42:28to it

00:42:29Vidal

00:42:30understood

00:42:31what it

00:42:32meant

00:42:33to take

00:42:34the positions

00:42:35that William

00:42:36F. Buckley

00:42:37was able

00:42:38to block

00:42:39civil rights

00:42:40legislations

00:42:41with the

00:42:42support

00:42:43of entities

00:42:44like the

00:42:45National Review

00:42:46and figures

00:42:47like William

00:42:48F. Buckley

00:42:49Jr.

00:42:50In the

00:42:51United States

00:42:525% of the

00:42:53population

00:42:54have 20%

00:42:55of the

00:42:56income

00:42:57and the

00:42:58bottom 20%

00:42:59have 5%

00:43:00of the

00:43:01income

00:43:02This seems

00:43:03to me

00:43:04I know

00:43:05that you

00:43:06say that

00:43:07again

00:43:08freedom breeds

00:43:09inequality

00:43:10now I'll say

00:43:11it a third time

00:43:12No, twice

00:43:13was enough

00:43:14I think you

00:43:15made your point

00:43:16Unless you

00:43:17have freedom

00:43:18to be unequal

00:43:19there is no

00:43:20such thing

00:43:21as freedom

00:43:22In Buckley

00:43:23you see a

00:43:24shrill defense

00:43:25of what he

00:43:26sees as a

00:43:27completely collapsing

00:43:28social and

00:43:29cultural order

00:43:30What can I

00:43:31say?

00:43:32You have

00:43:33given that

00:43:34ghastly

00:43:35to those

00:43:36who do

00:43:37and those

00:43:38who inherit

00:43:39money

00:43:40and believe

00:43:41that others

00:43:42do not

00:43:43must somehow

00:43:44achieve

00:43:45equality

00:43:46but in

00:43:47actual fact

00:43:48you're going

00:43:49to have a

00:43:50revolution

00:43:51if you don't

00:43:52give the

00:43:53people the

00:43:54things they

00:43:55want

00:43:56Now I'm

00:43:57putting it

00:43:58to your

00:43:59own self

00:44:00interest

00:44:01they're going

00:44:02to come

00:44:03and take

00:44:04what seems

00:44:05to be almost

00:44:06personal

00:44:07Buckley

00:44:08he didn't

00:44:09believe in

00:44:10democracy

00:44:11he believed

00:44:12in rule

00:44:13by elites

00:44:14starting with

00:44:15him

00:44:16The conservative

00:44:17party in

00:44:18New York

00:44:19State had

00:44:20gone to

00:44:21Buckley

00:44:22and said

00:44:23put your

00:44:24money where

00:44:25your mouth

00:44:26is run

00:44:27from me

00:44:28So it

00:44:29was Bill

00:44:30Buckley

00:44:31the

00:44:32conservative

00:44:33candidate

00:44:34and John

00:44:35Lindsay

00:44:36the darling

00:44:37of liberal

00:44:38republicans

00:44:39whom Buckley

00:44:40was intent

00:44:41on defeating

00:44:42He has said

00:44:43that you're out

00:44:44to destroy

00:44:45everything that

00:44:46he stands for

00:44:47That is roughly

00:44:48correct

00:44:49I couldn't have

00:44:50put it better

00:44:51I am out to

00:44:52destroy everything

00:44:53that he stands

00:44:54for hypocrisy

00:44:55and ultra

00:44:56leftism

00:44:57Conservatism

00:44:58in America

00:44:59is an insurgency

00:45:00It's not

00:45:01the right

00:45:02fighting

00:45:03the far

00:45:04left

00:45:05It's the right

00:45:06fighting

00:45:07people who

00:45:08are not

00:45:09quite far

00:45:10enough right

00:45:11Buckley

00:45:12discovered

00:45:13a new

00:45:14constituency

00:45:15for the

00:45:16republican

00:45:17party

00:45:18It was

00:45:19angry

00:45:20white

00:45:21ethnics

00:45:22in Brooklyn

00:45:23in Queens

00:45:24in Staten

00:45:25Island

00:45:26in the

00:45:27outer boroughs

00:45:28the same

00:45:29people who

00:45:30voted for

00:45:31the conservatives

00:45:32more than

00:45:33twelve hundred

00:45:34of them

00:45:35paid one

00:45:36dollar each

00:45:37to see

00:45:38William F.

00:45:39Buckley

00:45:40Jr.

00:45:41There was

00:45:42nothing fancy

00:45:43on the menu

00:45:44here

00:45:45just hot

00:45:46tongue and

00:45:47cold shoulder

00:45:48for everything

00:45:49distasteful

00:45:50to the

00:45:51conservatives

00:45:52Ladies and

00:45:53gentlemen

00:45:54the apparent

00:45:55winner of

00:45:56this election

00:45:57is Mr.

00:45:58John Lindsay

00:45:59He was

00:46:00the first

00:46:01Republican

00:46:02to win

00:46:03the

00:46:04big

00:46:05war

00:46:06What has

00:46:07made a

00:46:08difference

00:46:09is that

00:46:10thanks to

00:46:11your

00:46:12efforts

00:46:13we have

00:46:14begun to

00:46:15reintroduce

00:46:16the two

00:46:17party

00:46:18system

00:46:19to New

00:46:20York

00:46:21City

00:46:22What Buckley

00:46:23had found

00:46:24all through

00:46:25his career

00:46:26he wrote

00:46:27about this

00:46:28when he

00:46:29was a

00:46:30young

00:46:31man

00:46:32The next

00:46:33President

00:46:34of the

00:46:35United

00:46:36States

00:46:37Richard

00:46:38Nixon

00:46:39Bill Buckley

00:46:40says

00:46:41this election

00:46:42it'll be

00:46:43decided on

00:46:44the issue

00:46:45of law

00:46:46and order

00:46:47And he

00:46:48was right

00:46:49What is

00:46:50on people's

00:46:51minds

00:46:52what frightens

00:46:53them

00:46:54is the

00:46:55fear that

00:46:56a generation

00:46:57that by the

00:46:58way

00:46:59Bill was

00:47:00put into

00:47:01the middle

00:47:02class is

00:47:03now going

00:47:04to lose

00:47:05all of

00:47:06those gains

00:47:07These are

00:47:08the debates

00:47:09we're having

00:47:10today

00:47:11Thank you

00:47:12very much

00:47:13gentlemen

00:47:14She'll

00:47:15certainly be

00:47:16back

00:47:17I'm delighted

00:47:18to know

00:47:19for the

00:47:20Democratic

00:47:21Convention

00:47:22where Mr.

00:47:23Buckley

00:47:24may attack

00:47:25and Mr.

00:47:26Biddle

00:47:27may attack

00:47:28and Mr.

00:47:29Biddle

00:47:30may attack

00:47:31and Mr.

00:47:32Biddle

00:47:33may attack

00:47:34and Mr.

00:47:35Biddle

00:47:36may attack

00:47:37and Mr.

00:47:38Biddle

00:47:39may attack

00:47:40and Mr.

00:47:41Biddle

00:47:42may attack

00:47:43and Mr.

00:47:44Biddle

00:47:45may attack

00:47:46and Mr.

00:47:47Biddle

00:47:48may attack

00:47:49and Mr.

00:47:50Biddle

00:47:51may attack

00:47:52and Mr.

00:47:53Biddle

00:47:54may attack

00:47:55and Mr.

00:47:56Biddle

00:47:57may attack

00:47:58and Mr.

00:47:59Biddle

00:48:00may attack

00:48:01and Mr.

00:48:02Biddle

00:48:03may attack

00:48:04and Mr.

00:48:05Biddle

00:48:06may attack

00:48:07and Mr.

00:48:08Biddle

00:48:09may attack

00:48:10and Mr.

00:48:11Biddle

00:48:12may attack

00:48:13and Mr.

00:48:14Biddle

00:48:15may attack

00:48:16and Mr.

00:48:17Biddle

00:48:18may attack

00:48:19and Mr.

00:48:20Biddle

00:48:21may attack

00:48:22and Mr.

00:48:23Biddle

00:48:24may attack

00:48:25and Mr.

00:48:26Biddle

00:48:27may attack

00:48:28and Mr.

00:48:29Biddle

00:48:30may attack

00:48:31and Mr.

00:48:32Biddle

00:48:33may attack

00:48:34and Mr.

00:48:35Biddle

00:48:36may attack

00:48:37and Mr.

00:48:38Biddle

00:48:39may attack

00:48:40and Mr.

00:48:41Biddle

00:48:42may attack

00:48:43and Mr.

00:48:44Biddle

00:48:45may attack

00:48:46and Mr.

00:48:47Biddle

00:48:48may attack

00:48:49and Mr.

00:48:50Biddle

00:48:51may attack

00:48:52and Mr.

00:48:53Biddle

00:48:54Well, as Bertrand Russell said, people in a democracy tend to think they have less to

00:48:59fear from a stupid man than an intelligent one.

00:49:01Actually, it's the other way around.

00:49:03It's the stupid man.

00:49:04The Biddle interest in politics was not only ideological.

00:49:09It was a very personal and social thing.

00:49:13What image may you feel Senator Cantwell is projecting at the moment?

00:49:16I'm afraid I don't know anything about images.

00:49:18That's a term from advertising where you don't try to sell a product.

00:49:21You sell the image of the product.

00:49:22Sometimes the images are fake.

00:49:23But after all, your own image is...

00:49:24A poor thing, but mine own.

00:49:26Ain't me as I am.

00:49:27Ward and all.

00:49:28Gore was born into a political family.

00:49:30He's the grandson of a senator, T.P. Gore of Oklahoma.

00:49:33His father was in the Roosevelt administration.

00:49:35He saw himself as the heir to this political dynasty,

00:49:39and he was going to be the greatest of them all.

00:49:48Candidate Gore Biddle.

00:49:49Most of my plays, most of my writing is

00:49:52political or in criticism of society, shall we say.

00:49:56And for a change, I'm getting out and trying to do something.

00:50:00When Gore ran for Congress from upstate New York in 1960,

00:50:04he saw it as the first stepping stone to the presidency.

00:50:09He doesn't exactly have the common touch.

00:50:12He's not exactly someone who is going to

00:50:15appeal to the working class voters of the United States of America.

00:50:23He had a sense of himself as being equal to

00:50:27and belonging in the world of the powerful and the elite.

00:50:34Gore and Jackie Kennedy were related by marriage,

00:50:37and Jackie Kennedy gave campaign appearances for him.

00:50:41He was on the Kennedy ticket.

00:50:44He was a welcome visitor at the White House

00:50:48until there was a run-in with Bobby Kennedy.

00:50:53This will sound absurd with hindsight,

00:50:55but he probably saw Bobby Kennedy as competition

00:50:58for the presidency later in the 60s,

00:51:01and that's one reason Gore didn't like Bobby.

00:51:04Bobby Kennedy is neither a liberal nor is he much of anything

00:51:08except a political opportunist like most of them.

00:51:11The whole thing has been taken over by this camera,

00:51:14by people projecting images, ghastly word,

00:51:18and these are the cards with which we play.

00:51:23Bobby Kennedy immediately took a dislike to Gore Vidal,

00:51:28thought he was pompous, thought he was arrogant.

00:51:32What is your current relationship with Mrs. Onassis, your stepsister?

00:51:36I haven't seen her since 1962.

00:51:39There's no reason for our lines to cross.

00:51:41She was devoted to Bobby Kennedy,

00:51:43and I was, as you know, plainly not, and we fell out over that.

00:51:52When Gore fought a race for Congress

00:51:55that led to not only a disillusionment with politics,

00:51:59but a disillusionment with the United States...

00:52:03Naturally, I wanted to be a politician,

00:52:06but unfortunately I was born a writer,

00:52:09and I would not say that I exactly have had the life I wanted.

00:52:15Most of Vidal's work is done at Ravello on the Sorrentine coast,

00:52:19amid lemon groves and vineyards 2,000 feet above the sea.

00:52:24His house is improbably perched above a precipice,

00:52:27the ideal spot, as he would say, to observe the decline of the West.

00:52:34Playboy after dark, show number 15, take one.

00:52:39Mr. Vidal, will you please sign my copy of Myra Breckinridge?

00:52:43It would be with great pleasure, with my extra-special William Buckley.

00:52:48I wouldn't be seen without this pen.

00:52:53A gift from Bill.

00:52:55A gift from Bill? Bill's not as nice as he looks.

00:52:58I know Bill personally, so...

00:53:00I know both sides of Bill.

00:53:02Mr. Vidal, will you please sign my copy of Myra Breckinridge?

00:53:06I know Bill personally, so...

00:53:08I know both sides of him.

00:53:10That's the best way to know him, personally.

00:53:19In the interval between Miami and Chicago,

00:53:22I read Myra Breckinridge.

00:53:24It attempts heuristic allegory, but fails,

00:53:27giving gratification only to sadist homosexuals

00:53:30and challenge only to taxonomists of perversion.

00:53:36I thought and thought about it.

00:53:38There is nothing left to say about Myra.

00:53:44And so we met again in Chicago.

00:53:59Good evening from the International Amphitheater in Chicago.

00:54:02There are almost as many problems still to be solved

00:54:05as there are flies in this building

00:54:07located in the heart of Chicago's stockyards.

00:54:16The cheery welcome sign that is everywhere here

00:54:19is as much a command as an invitation.

00:54:22Mayor Daley has beautified everywhere,

00:54:25and what he cannot beautify,

00:54:27he has tried to hide behind new fences.

00:54:31Part of the tightest security checks in American City,

00:54:34no one under riot conditions has ever experienced.

00:54:41Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey arrived in Chicago today.

00:54:45The Democratic Party was in terrific disarray.

00:54:49Bobby Kennedy had just been killed a couple of months earlier.

00:54:54He was already becoming a martyr.

00:54:58The fight over the Democratic platform

00:55:01has moved here, right onto the floor of this convention,

00:55:04demanding a repudiation and a reversal

00:55:07of the Johnson administration policies on Vietnam.

00:55:11At this moment, it is the calm in the eye of the storm.

00:55:18Their wounds have had time to heal since Miami Beach.

00:55:21They've had time to restock their arsenal for new assaults.

00:55:24They, of course, are William Buckley and Gore Vidal.

00:55:28Mr. Vidal, do you feel more comfortable philosophically here

00:55:31than you did in Miami?

00:55:33Philosophically? I wonder if that word will ever be used again

00:55:37while we're here in Chicago.

00:55:39This place is a shambles. It's a police state.

00:55:43One's aware of the horrors of the world here,

00:55:46the smell of old blood, the shrieking of the pigs

00:55:49as they're slaughtered in the morning.

00:55:51All this reminds one of life and death.

00:55:54So in a sense, I do feel home in a way,

00:55:57but not happy.

00:56:00Buckley realized he had his intellectual equals

00:56:04sitting right next to him.

00:56:06Vidal had done the homework in Miami.

00:56:09By the time we got to Chicago,

00:56:11Buckley had caught up and done some homework as well.

00:56:14William Buckley, on the defensive in Miami,

00:56:16may now take the offensive.

00:56:18He was also an extremely aggressive debater,

00:56:21and so he thought that justified

00:56:23every technique he could use to win.

00:56:26As a matter of testamentary integrity,

00:56:30I reveal a concrete proposal

00:56:33contained in a letter sent to me by Senator Kennedy

00:56:36about six months ago.

00:56:38The piece of which was,

00:56:40I have changed my platform for 1968

00:56:44from let's give blood to the Viet Cong

00:56:47to let's give Gore Vidal to the Viet Cong.

00:56:50May I see that, really?

00:56:52I think, however, that would be immoderate.

00:56:54In any case, I do share Mr. Kennedy's notion

00:57:01that Mr. Vidal is mawed by his sort of strange fantasies

00:57:06concerning the realisms of politics.

00:57:09We all recognize that moment

00:57:11when we reach for a weapon that we know is sort of off-balance.

00:57:16This is Senator Bobby Kennedy.

00:57:18Yes, I realize.

00:57:19What a very curious handwriting.

00:57:21It also slants up,

00:57:22a sign of a manic depressive.

00:57:24Did you say that about Senator Kennedy?

00:57:26I did say that.

00:57:27Whether you forged it or not, I don't know,

00:57:29and I will have to have my handwriting experts,

00:57:31the graphologist, will have to look at it.

00:57:33I put nothing beyond you.

00:57:35But to get back to the plank,

00:57:37it's been fun inspecting your correspondence, but...

00:57:41Vidal is relatively unfazed.

00:57:44He had almost a Zen technique.

00:57:47You let the guy lean forward so that he falls over,

00:57:50and so each night, there was more spectacle to be had.

00:58:02Oh, say can you see

00:58:09The people of Chicago are proud to welcome

00:58:13a great political gathering of America.

00:58:18All this security makes me very nervous,

00:58:20because it's necessary, apparently.

00:58:22The delegates of Paul Newman, Mr. Arthur Miller.

00:58:26It's a little frightening, quite frankly,

00:58:28being in this fortress, trying to select a president.

00:58:38As long as I'm mayor of this town,

00:58:40there'll be law and order in Chicago.

00:58:44And the rocket's red glare

00:58:50The forces of history seem to be going towards a reckoning.

00:58:54It's like they've just got to blow.

00:59:00ABC crew cars were equipped with gas masks and helmets.

00:59:05We were asked to make sure the press didn't see this stuff.

00:59:10They were anticipating trouble right from the start.

00:59:24I would like to ask our guest commentators about Vietnam.

00:59:27How do we get out? Have we really been beaten?

00:59:30What matters here is that we have, in a word, lost the war.

00:59:33Something like 90% of the casualties are civilians,

00:59:36so when they accuse us of genocide,

00:59:38they are not without point.

00:59:40We have nothing to gain by this war.

00:59:42Now, wait a minute.

00:59:44We have not lost the war in Vietnam.

00:59:46What we have lost is an opportunity

00:59:49to press that war with such weapons

00:59:52as are especially at our disposal.

00:59:55The majority of the people of the United States,

00:59:57including the leadership of the Democratic Party

00:59:59and the leadership of the Republican Party,

01:00:01belong with me, while you go to Rome

01:00:04and expatriate yourselves.

01:00:06I think we should straighten this out now.

01:00:08I don't expatriate myself.

01:00:10I have an apartment in Rome, and I go there

01:00:12for two or three months every year

01:00:14to be close to the Vatican to contemplate William Buckley

01:00:16and his mad activities back here.

01:00:18And with enormous serenity, they're trying to get us, Bill.

01:00:22And I think, to be perfectly bleak and to be perfectly blunt,

01:00:26I think we're headed for total disaster,

01:00:28this empire with people like Mr. Buckley here beating the drum,

01:00:32and I think the instinct of the people,

01:00:34I think, was for peace.

01:00:35I think that now I come back and I see little American flags

01:00:38on the antennae of the car.

01:00:39They're getting ready for a war.

01:00:40They're getting ready for a war.

01:00:46What Vidal saw was that the American empire

01:00:50was completely overextended.

01:00:55These empires are very dangerous things to possess,

01:00:59as Pericles once pointed out,

01:01:01and once you get one, it's very difficult to let it go,

01:01:04but if we don't let it go, it's going to wreck us economically.

01:01:07We're already in trouble,

01:01:08and it has certainly divided the country

01:01:10at a time when resources should go to the slums and to the poor

01:01:14and to trying to revise an extremely shabby country.

01:01:18I tell you, the day Rome falls,

01:01:20there will be a shout of freedom such as the world

01:01:23has never heard before.

01:01:24Orbital, just like the United States of America,

01:01:27he always talked about the empire

01:01:29in which he is now right.

01:01:31Govindal was correct in prophesying

01:01:34that we would become an empire.

01:01:36That is our present dilemma.

01:01:40HEARTBEAT

01:01:50ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:01:52ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:01:54ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:01:56This is the year of the whole world is watching.

01:01:59This is the year where all politics is suddenly televisual.

01:02:02This is the year where the phrase living room war comes.

01:02:07It was as if a theater piece was taking place

01:02:10for the public watching television.

01:02:15ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:18ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:20ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:22ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:24ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:27If you do not leave, you will be the victor.

01:02:31ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:34ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:37ALL THE WORLD IS WATCHING!

01:02:57Gore asked me to drive him to an event with a couple of friends.

01:03:01So I had Gore Vidal, Arthur Miller, and Pohlnum in my car and we drove into a cloud of tear gas.

01:03:31We're going to get it. We're going to get it.

01:03:35All for the party! All for the party! All for the party!

01:03:41Uh, who is first? Mr. Vidal first.

01:03:45Uh, it's like living under a Soviet regime here. The guards, the soldiers, the agents provocateur on the parts of the police. You've seen the roughing up.

01:03:57There's very little that we can say after those pictures.

01:04:01That would be in any way adequate. Let Mr. Buckley comment now.

01:04:05The effort here, not only on your program tonight, but during the past two or three days in Chicago, has been to institutionalize this complaint.

01:04:15So as to march forward and say that we have got a sort of a fascist situation.

01:04:20But don't infer from individual and despicable acts of violence of Chicago policemen a case for implicit totalitarianism in the American system.

01:04:31If we could all work up an equal sweat, and if you all would be obliging enough to have your cameras handy every time a politician commits a demagogy,

01:04:40or every time a labor union beats up people who refuse to join his union, then maybe we could work up some kind of impartiality and resentment.

01:04:48These people came here with no desire other than anybody has ever been able to prove than to hold peaceful demonstrations.

01:04:53I can prove it. I was 14 windows above that gang last night, and the chant between 11 o'clock and 5 o'clock in this morning from four or five thousand voices

01:05:04was sheer, utter obscenities directed at the President of the United States.

01:05:08I say it is remarkable that there was as much restraint shown as was shown, for instance, last night by cops who were out there for 17 hours

01:05:17without inflicting a single wound on a single person, even though that kind of disgusting stuff was being thrown at them and at all of American society.

01:05:27Mr. Vidal, wasn't it a provocative act to try to raise the Viet Cong flag in the park in the film we just saw?

01:05:34Wouldn't that invite... Raising a Nazi flag in World War II would have had similar consequences.

01:05:40People in the United States happen to believe that the United States' policy is wrong in Vietnam, and the Viet Cong are correct in wanting to organize their country in their own way politically.

01:05:51If it is a novelty in Chicago, that is too bad, but I assume that the point of the American democracy is that you can express any point of view you want.

01:05:59Shut up a minute. No, I won't.

01:06:00Some people were pro-Nazi, and the answer is that they were well-treated by people who ostracized them, and I'm for ostracizing people who egg on other people to shoot American Marines and American soldiers.

01:06:12I know you don't care, but you don't feel any sense of identification.

01:06:15As far as I'm concerned, the only pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Failing that, I will only say that we can't have...

01:06:21Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi.

01:06:24Let's stop calling names.

01:06:26I'll slap you in your goddamn face, and you'll stay plastered.

01:06:28Gentlemen, let's...

01:06:30Let the author of My Little Brackenry go back to his pornography and stop making any allusions of nationalism to somebody who was in the infantry in the last war.

01:06:37You were not in the infantry as a matter of fact.

01:06:39I would like to ask you...

01:06:41You are not. You are distorting your own military record.

01:06:51The network nearly shat.

01:06:53Now listen, you queer.

01:06:55Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi.

01:06:56Let's stop calling names.

01:06:58I'll slap you in your goddamn face, and you'll stay plastered.

01:07:01I was watching it with a number of the news executives who were in the control room.

01:07:06Someone said, can they say that?

01:07:08Well, you know, it's live. They had.

01:07:12I think Gore Vidal was fortunate that Bill didn't punch him in the nose.

01:07:17Bill could have broken Gore Vidal over the back of his knee.

01:07:20When Gore Vidal called him a crypto-Nazi, Bill let him have it.

01:07:25It is a slur.

01:07:27And the rictus of loathing on Mr. Buckley's face is quite unmistakable.

01:07:32Buckley called Vidal queer on television.

01:07:36It's a slur. It would be considered a hate slur today.

01:07:42Profanity today is nigger, faggot, and cunt.

01:07:49Those are our only three truly profane words.

01:07:52In 1968, you could call somebody a crypto-Nazi or a queer, and that was fighting words.

01:08:00You have every right in this country to take any position you want to take because we are guaranteed freedom of speech.

01:08:06We've just listened to a certain example of it.

01:08:10I think we've run out of time, and I thank you very much for the discussion.

01:08:16It was a little more heat and a little less light than usual, but it was still very worth hearing.

01:08:23Tomorrow night you will have a chance to consider...

01:08:25My pulse was racing and my fingers trembled as wave after wave of indignation swept over me.

01:08:31And then suddenly, about to deposit the earphones on the table stand, I stopped, frozen.

01:08:38Vidal, arranging his own set, was whispering to me.

01:08:42Well, he said, smiling, I guess we gave them their money's worth tonight.

01:08:49It was a splendid moment.

01:08:52Eyes rolling, mouth twitching, long, weak arms waving.

01:08:57Buckley skittered from slander to glorious absurdity.

01:09:03I reached my trailer after taking great strides through the maze of technicians, operators, executives, reporters, guests.

01:09:12All of whom looked at me as I stomped by and then quickly looked away.

01:09:17Afraid, perhaps, that I would greet anyone guilty of a lingering glance with a sock on his goddamn face.

01:09:25The door slammed and I heard shouting.

01:09:28Paul Newman had been in Vidal's trailer and had been watching it on television, ran down the stairs, ran into Buckley's trailer.

01:09:36Buckley came in at about the same time.

01:09:38And Buckley, according to Newman, responded that it was a disaster.

01:09:46These ad hominem attacks were not at all characteristic of Bill.

01:09:53This was a totally unprecedented thing for him to do on television.

01:09:58Vidal was a smart enough tactician to know that he had won the debate in that moment.

01:10:05And of course that brings up one final question now that the election is over.

01:10:10Will Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal kiss and make up?

01:10:17I think Vidal would love that.

01:10:34After we did it, no network ever again did wall-to-wall, caval-to-caval coverage.

01:10:56It could be that some executives said, hey, whatever you may think of it, that Vidal-Buckley thing had a big impact.

01:11:04Get Mr. Pro and Mr. Con, Ms. For Abortion and Ms. Against Abortion.

01:11:10Jack, I spent the holidays flying back and forth across this country, and I'm worried.

01:11:15The place seems all out of focus, sea to shining sea.

01:11:19We've both flown many times, Shana, coast to coast, but we see a different land below.

01:11:24And you have them argue, and that's punditry. That's enlightenment.

01:11:28Dan, there's an old saying, behind every successful man there's a woman, a loving, giving, caring woman.

01:11:35Jane, you ignorant slut.

01:11:41The argument is sugar, and the rest of us are flies.

01:11:47Welcome to Radio 81. I think this is Ron, and Gore Vidal is also here.

01:11:52I invariably agree with your social views, the content of your ideas, and I detest William Buckley's views.

01:11:59But yet, when I hear you talk, and William Buckley talk, I feel that Buckley is the more honest man.

01:12:06In what way do you find him more honest than I?

01:12:09I think it goes way back to the debate you had with him on television.

01:12:15And you literally blew his mind. I've never seen Buckley lose it like that.

01:12:20He swore at you and stood up and said, how dare you call me a neo-Nazi?

01:12:24I fought in the Second World War, you see.

01:12:26I know, he was overexcited, yeah.

01:12:29What did you find dishonest about my performance?

01:12:32It had to do with the glee in your eyes that you could not hide.

01:12:37Well, I wasn't being dishonest. I am a happy warrior. I'm in battle. I'm enjoying it.

01:12:44This is what these things are about. He's somebody that I regard as a very bad person, politically.

01:12:50And to expose him on television for what he is, is my job.

01:12:54And I think I accomplished it very nicely. So did he. He brought suit against me as a result of it.

01:13:01A year after these debates, in August of 1969, Esquire published a long essay that Bill had written.

01:13:09Something like 12,000 words, trying to explore why he had reacted the way he did.

01:13:17Buckley couldn't let it go. He couldn't let this thing go.

01:13:21He thought he would avenge himself, or explain himself, by writing in a sophisticated way about Vidal in Esquire.

01:13:31For days and weeks, indeed for months, I tormented myself with the question, what should I have said?

01:13:40Was my mistake that of going on TV at all, in light of the abundant warnings with Vidal?

01:13:45Could it be that my emotional reaction was defensible, and even healthy, but that my words were ill-chosen?

01:13:53The problem was, instead of putting a cap on the debate, he's perpetuating it on another platform, which really made it worse.

01:14:05Vidal then replied in print to this barn-burner debate,

01:14:11to take the stage back.

01:14:17On Wednesday, August 28th, at 9.30 o'clock, in full view of 10 million people,

01:14:23the little door in William F. Buckley Jr.'s forehead suddenly opened,

01:14:28and out sprang that wild cuckoo which I had always known was there,

01:14:33but had wanted so much for others, preferably millions of others, to get a good look at.

01:14:38Vidal is always suspicious of Buckley's sexuality,

01:14:43and makes references that suggest that Buckley has an attraction to the homoerotic.

01:14:52There was always a question of, I don't know how to put it,

01:15:00that there was a kind of sexual ambiguity about this,

01:15:04that there was a kind of sexual ambiguity about Bill.

01:15:09There were rumors, none of them substantiated. It was more a matter of affect, really.

01:15:15Buckley was kind of an effete guy.

01:15:18If you read the piece, you are led to believe that, among other things,

01:15:24William F. Buckley Jr. was homosexual.

01:15:28Buckley instituted a suit against Esquire magazine and against Vidal.

01:15:35Vidal instituted a counter suit against Buckley.

01:15:40The litigation went on for three years.

01:15:45Is that still going back and forth in the courts?

01:15:48It's going more back than forth. It keeps on ticking away like a bomb.

01:15:52It keeps on ticking away like a bomb.

01:15:55At the time, it was probably one of the longest lawsuits

01:15:58between two American public intellectuals that had ever been.

01:16:01Neither of them ever tired of it,

01:16:03because it gave them enormous opportunity for the practice of malice.

01:16:06It's still litigious, is it?

01:16:09It's very litigious.

01:16:11By the third year, Esquire, you know, we've had enough.

01:16:17Esquire ended up settling, and then Buckley, in a stroke of brilliance,

01:16:22gives a press conference and declares victory.

01:16:25In the public imagination, people thought that he had won this lawsuit

01:16:30that they didn't understand in the first place.

01:16:32I know that Gore hated that.

01:16:34Was it ever resolved who came out ahead on that whole thing?

01:16:37Well, it sort of went on for several years,

01:16:40and then about a week before we'd go into court, he called off the suit.

01:16:44Pulled the suit out from under you, right?

01:16:46Exactly, exactly.

01:16:48I was looking forward to that.

01:16:59Why do you work so hard?

01:17:01Why do you work so darn hard?

01:17:04There's a lot to do.

01:17:06Bill Buckley, the popularizer,

01:17:08laid the foundation for the conservative movement,

01:17:11which enabled Ronald Reagan to come along

01:17:13and to win that presidency by the margin that he did.

01:17:18I can't tell you exactly when I discovered National Review.

01:17:22It had a profound impact on me.

01:17:27Well, my relationship with Ronald Reagan was pretty close.

01:17:31There was that affinity of ideas.

01:17:36I visited him, and he visited me.

01:17:39We took a liking to each other.

01:17:41I took a liking to each other, and he took a liking to him.

01:17:46When Ronald Reagan saluted William Buckley in National Review as president,

01:17:51Buckley became a kingmaker, and he was seen to be a kingmaker.

01:17:55And, you know, appearance is at least as important as reality in this world.

01:18:00When Buckley and Reagan were ascendant,

01:18:03and Vidal's kind of political ideology was taking a backseat,

01:18:07I think this was actually a great period for him.

01:18:09Some of his greatest writing occurred in the 80s,

01:18:12both in essays and in literature.

01:18:15When another right-wing critic attacked Gore Vidal as being anti-American,

01:18:20Gore's reply was, how can you call me anti-American?

01:18:23I'm the country's official biographer.

01:18:32In Burr, Vidal got off one of his great lines.

01:18:34It was the beginning of Vidal's attempted revenge on Buckley.

01:18:39I believe his name was William de la Touche Clancy.

01:18:44And I think Vidal said somewhere that it could not possibly be based on anyone,

01:18:49meaning that, of course, it's based on Bill.

01:18:53William de la Touche Clancy's voice is like that of a furious goose,

01:18:58all honks and hisses.

01:19:00He detests our democracy.

01:19:02He fills the pages of his magazine, America,

01:19:05with libelous comments on all things American.

01:19:08Despite a rich wife and five children,

01:19:11he is a compulsive sodomite,

01:19:13forever preying on country boys new to the city.

01:19:18It is extreme, and he was a good hater of Vidal.

01:19:25God knows what is at the very bottom of that animosity.

01:19:28He talked about it every day.

01:19:31You don't talk about something every day that didn't cut you.

01:19:36And I don't think that really ever healed.

01:19:40We were in Ravello.

01:19:42Not much to do after dinner.

01:19:45He had acquired a VHS copy of the Vidal-Buckley debates.

01:19:50I naively said, oh, do you think we could watch them?

01:19:53Little did I realize this was a VHS copy.

01:19:55Do you think we could watch them?

01:19:57Little did I realize this was the main event for the night.

01:20:02We then watched them, I think, again a couple nights later.

01:20:05And on subsequent trips, we watched them two or three times.

01:20:09And the thrill of the first viewing was gone,

01:20:12and you began to have the sensation that you were edging

01:20:15into Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond territory.

01:20:19It was Buckley who was distressed by it.

01:20:21Buckley let it become personal in a way

01:20:25that he'd been a maestro of being able to avoid.

01:20:28And that haunted him for a very long time.

01:20:34After 33 years on PBS,

01:20:37William F. Buckley Jr. taped his last program

01:20:40before an audience of invited guests.

01:20:43The last show was succeeded by an interview with Ted Koppel.

01:20:47And at one point, he showed the now already infamous clip.

01:20:53Now listen, you queer.

01:20:55Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi.

01:20:57Let's stop calling names.

01:20:59Or I'll slap you in your goddamn face,

01:21:01and you'll stay plastered.

01:21:03Gentlemen, let's bill.

01:21:05Buckley uncharacteristically said nothing,

01:21:08and then they went to the commercial break.

01:21:10I was in the audience that day,

01:21:12and he made a beeline up the aisle to where I was.

01:21:15And said,

01:21:17I thought that tape had been destroyed.

01:21:21More than 30 years after the original debates,

01:21:25he was still furious with Vidal

01:21:29and still shaken that he had reacted that way.

01:21:32Do you wish you were 20?

01:21:35No, absolutely not.

01:21:38No, I would...

01:21:40If I had a pill, which would reduce my age of 20,

01:21:42if I had a pill, which would reduce my age by 25 years,

01:21:46I wouldn't take it.

01:21:48Why not?

01:21:50Because I'm tired of life.

01:21:52Oh, really?

01:21:54Yeah. I really am.

01:21:56I'm utterly prepared to stop living on.

01:22:01Any regrets about this life that you have lived?

01:22:07Uh, yes.

01:22:09Like what?

01:22:10I'm just gonna tell you.

01:22:13Someone asked when Bill Buckley died what Gore thought.

01:22:18He said,

01:22:20I thought that hell will be a livelier place.

01:22:24That he will be permanently among those he served in life,

01:22:30applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatreds.

01:22:35The last line of that piece was W.F.B.

01:22:38W.F.B.

01:22:40Rest in hell.

01:22:42It seems a little far-fetched to say that Gore Vidal was waiting around

01:22:46for Buckley to die so he could have the last word,

01:22:49but I promise you that he took great pleasure in that.

01:22:53He was not satisfied if he didn't have something to fight against,

01:22:57and at the end of his life, I think he was fighting against the ghosts

01:23:00of all these enemies.

01:23:03Truman Capote once famously said that

01:23:06it wasn't a matter of when Gore Vidal

01:23:08would be forgotten, it was more or less

01:23:10when did he start to be forgotten.

01:23:13Gore was convinced this had happened already.

01:23:16The young had forgotten him.

01:23:18His books weren't being read anymore.

01:23:24These figures become most interesting

01:23:28when they're not listened to so much,

01:23:30because then there's a kind of big silence inside themselves.

01:23:34I compared it in an essay I wrote to Wallace Stevens's great poem,

01:23:39The Snowman,

01:23:42where he says you have to have a mind of winter

01:23:45to see nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

01:24:04I think these great debates are absolutely nonsense.

01:24:08The way they're set up, there's almost no interchange of ideas,

01:24:12very little even of personality.

01:24:14There's also the terrible thing about this medium

01:24:17that hardly anyone listens.

01:24:19They sort of get an impression of somebody

01:24:21and they think they figure out just what he's like

01:24:23by seeing him on television.

01:24:25The Buckley-Vidal debate

01:24:28was a harbinger of an unhappy future.

01:24:32Does television run America?

01:24:35There is an implicit conflict of interest

01:24:39between that which is highly viewable

01:24:42and that which is highly illuminating.

01:24:51That was a time when television was still a public square,

01:24:56where Americans gathered and saw programs

01:24:59Americans gathered and saw pretty much the same thing.

01:25:03There's nothing like that now.

01:25:21Well, it's because we're a debate show.

01:25:24No, no, no. Let me break.

01:25:26I would love to see a debate show.

01:25:27Let's make it a 24-hour day

01:25:29where we have each side on as best we can.

01:25:31No, no, no. That would be great.

01:25:33You're doing theater when you should be doing debate.

01:25:40The ability to talk the same language is gone.

01:25:44More and more, we're divided into communities of concern.

01:25:49Each side can ignore the other side

01:25:52and live in its own world.

01:25:54It makes us less of a nation

01:25:55because what binds us together is the pictures in our heads.

01:26:00But if those people are not sharing those ideas,

01:26:04they're not living in the same place.

01:27:25You've got a few more seconds.

01:27:27Are you capable of summing up in ten seconds?

01:27:29No.

01:27:55No.

Best of Enemies: Buckley vs Vidal (2015) | Full Documentary | Political Debate, Media History & Culture Clash

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