All language subtitles for Best.of.Enemies.2015.DOCU.1080p.BluRay.x264-PSYCHD

I keep nothing but a few
photographs in the bathroom

of myself at an earlier time.

The first shows me at the age of 25,
looking rather anxious.

I've just bought a large house
in the country

and cannot afford it.

Here you see the young author
of Williwaw at the age of 19,

still in uniform.

Here, above the bathtub,
in the place of honor,

are the debates
with William Buckley in 1968.

He was a well known
right-wing commentator

whose name seldom passes my lips.

Cameras, please. Cameras.

William F. Buckley.

Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen.

That was a very nice introduction.

On the other hand,
if it hadn't been,

I would've smashed you
in the goddamn face.

I do this so well...

and so terminally,

I have left the bleeding corpse
of William F. Buckley, Jr.

on the floor of
the convention hall in Chicago.

I would definitely have
Gore Vidal and Bill Buckley

on my television show.

I would guess that the rematch
of the great conflict

would attract people precisely
because it held out

- the possibility of something--
- Violence.

- Camera speeding.
- Action.

In the 60's

the institution in which
Americans had the greatest confidence

was television news.

Split-second organization
on a worldwide scale,

speed and efficiency in
the nerve centers of NBC News.

News was this big, bland center

that determined for us
what America was.

Which was white, Anglo-Saxon,

there were never any vowels
at the end of the names.

Chet Huntley and
David Brinkley

still are the team supreme

in the art of easygoing commentary.

Networks, did they deal
in controversy? No!

Did they invite controversy? No!

They were in the center.

They were cementers of idea,

not disrupters of idea.

This is the CBS Evening
News with Walter Cronkite.

Good evening from our CBS newsroom
in New York.

NBC and CBS
were fighting for the lead

and ABC was clearly number three.

The other two networks were doing
full coverage at the conventions,

gavel-to-gavel.

Turn the cameras and microphones on
and let them roll.

And ABC had less money to spend
on these things.

So, in 1968 ABC went to the truncated
version of convention coverage

to do an hour and a half
from 9:30 to 11:00 at night.

They didn't have Cronkite,
didn't have Huntley and Brinkley.

They didn't have the standards.

Cameras, please. Cameras.

ABC was the third
of the three networks.

Would've been fourth,
but there were only three.

They had the weaker programming.

Somebody famously said
that the way to end the Vietnam war

was to put it on ABC and
it'd be canceled in 13 weeks.

In order to be competitive,
with the 1968 convention,

ABC needed something.
Provocative.

A media event.

And they settled on
Buckley and Vidal.

It wasn't necessarily sensible.

It was a shot in the dark.

And it changed television... forever.

Why are the races unreconciled?

Why does poverty persevere?

Why are the young disenchanted?

Why do the birds sing so unhappily?

It is easy to be carried away.

And yet always there is
a strain of seriousness,

something in the system
that warns us.

Warns us that America had better
strike out on a different course,

rather than face another
four years of asphyxiation

by liberal premises.

This is William F. Buckley, Jr.
in New York.

Perfect.

This is the William
F. Buckley America knows best.

Grimacing or incredulous
or disdainful.

Readying himself
for a deceptively quiet attack

on his intellectual prey
of the moment.

This is the William F. Buckley
Barry Goldwater insists

fills a crying national need.

We want Buckley!
We want Buckley!

William F. Buckley, Jr.

has a strong
definite opinion on every subject.

So, wherever he goes,
he has to have an answer

about every question.

Do you think
America doesn't

believe in itself
as much as it used to?

Yes, I think that's true.

I think it's happening
because of a restlessness

for so long,
as liberalism suggested,

that it could bring
happiness to the individual.

Then people tended to look
to government agencies

for those narcotic substitutes
for a search for happiness

and contentment, which they ought
to have found in their religion,

in their institutions
and their culture themselves.

Buckley was the first
modern conservative intellectual

to see that ideological debates
were cultural debates.

And what he did was to put
conservatism on the march.

And that's the creation of
the movement that we have today.

He's stimulating.
He's exhausting. He's fun.

Sometimes I could kill him...
but not too often.

He could've been
the playboy of the Western world

but he chose to be the St. Paul
of the conservative movement.

Most work days,
he winds up

in the offices of
the National Review,

his journal
of conservative opinion

which reaches 110,000 subscribers
and is read by many more.

National Review
is the most influential

magazine of our time.

Why?
The magazine attached to a movement.

My brother, Bill,
he was a conservative,

right-wing libertarian Christian.

That's what he was.

But most of all,
Bill was a revolutionary.

When the people at ABC
had first approached Bill,

they had asked him would he
be willing to be

the conservative debater commentator
with the national conventions.

And he said, yes, he would.

And they asked him, "Well, is there
anybody you wouldn't go on with?"

And he said, "Well, I would
refuse to go on with a Communist."

"And, apart from that, the only one
I can think of is Gore Vidal."

Camera's rolling.

Men and women
who are sexually repressed

regard all sexual pleasure as
"dirty," "evil," "the devil's work."

Yet we are all prostitutes
in one sense or another,

ethically, if not sexually.

For Buckley, Vidal was the devil.

He represented everything
that was going to moral hell...

that was degenerative
about the country.

A cultural war has now joined
the race war in the United States.

And the change
is going to be very difficult.

And as our own
Thomas Jefferson once said,

"The tree of liberty must
occasionally be watered with blood."

In a sense, this was the beginning
of a war between an old order

and what I hoped
would be a new order.

Gore didn't just see
rioting in the streets,

he saw revolution breaking out.

Remember, Gore Vidal
was always an iconoclast.

An apostate.
A writer against the grain.

And he saw Buckley and his ideas
as anti-Democratic.

If Buckley were not taken out,
his ideas would take down the nation.

It occurred to me that the central
drive in human beings is power.

And that has always been my theme,
that ideal in politics,

which is an obvious
manifestation of power.

Gore Vidal is one of
America's most successful

and distinguished writers.

He also lives in a personal cloud
of outrageous legends.

After the early books, which first
brought him to the public eye,

came a group of highly praised
historical novels

which sold in the millions.

But it was Myra Breckinridge
that confirmed Vidal's place

as the enfant terrible of the
respectable American literary scene.

By 1968, he had just
published a bombshell of a book,

his greatest satire, and, I think,
one of the greatest satires written

in English, Myra Breckinridge.

And now, ladies and gentlemen,

what you've all been waiting for...

The book that couldn't be written

is now the motion picture
that couldn't be made:

Myra Breckinridge.

He'd gotten, you know,
the cover of TIME magazine for it.

And his career
was soaring at the time.

But, it was edgy material.

I don't know where Myra came from.

I really was like the character,
each day wondering what Myra would do

and roaring with laughter as this
thing presented herself to me.

Gentlemen...

I am Myron Breckinridge.

Uncle Buck, your fag nephew
became your niece

two years ago in Copenhagen,
and is now free as a bird

and happy in being the most
extraordinary woman in the world!

And suddenly, it occurred to me,
about sexual relations.

How indeed much of it is based
not upon any pleasure principle,

or even a procreative one,

but of people
gaining power over others.

Ah-ha! Gotcha!

And so I conceived
of my androgynous protagonist

who is a man who becomes a woman
who becomes a man.

A transsexual seducing men,

or in one case,
I believe, raping a man...

Yay-haa!

Uh...

The themes of Myra Breckinridge,

and also sexuality
and transsexuality,

was way ahead of its time

and got under Bill Buckley's skin.

Mr. Buckley, did you see the film
Myra Breckinridge, and why not?

That told the people at ABC:

"Wow, we have a chance
for some great theater here!

Let's get Gore Vidal."

Gore Vidal is a whore of debate.

And when it comes to values
of our country,

and of historical forces,

the man is brilliant.

And the man is fun to watch.

But there is always a residue,
in my opinion,

when I watch him,
of nausea.

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

It is under... No.

All right.

It is understandable
that the Republicans decided

to hold their convention
south of the Mason-Dixon line.

They had not done so in 104 years.

And it is obvious why anyone
might want to come to Miami Beach.

But the real reasons for
the Republican presence here

are less obvious.
And I blew that one. Let's--

This nine-mile-long sandbar
has one advantage above all others,

it is remote.

It's therefore easy
for the Republicans

to avoid the danger of large,
militant demonstrations.

There's a huge, almost empty
convention hall down there

waiting for
the 1968 Republican convention.

There's very little work left to do
before the first gavel on Monday.

Every political convention has
features no other before it has had.

What's going to be distinctive
about this one?

First of all, this is the first one
available to the public

completely in beautiful color,

and lady delegates have received
careful instructions

about how to dress so as
to appear vivid, but not garish.

Bill Buckley took off
for a week sailing

before the Republican
National Convention.

They sailed down to Cozumel.

I would be rather surprised
if he did any special preparation

for this encounter with Gore Vidal.

Buckley expected this to be

an opportunity to debate the issues,
to have some fun.

He was not prepared for Mr. Vidal.

Gore told me he hired a researcher.

He wanted to paint National Review
as being racist,

if he could, anti-Semitic.

I don't think he was really
interested in conducting a debate

about the issues
or about the parties

or about the policies or about
the platforms of the two parties.

What he wanted to do
was to expose Bill Buckley.

Their confrontation
is about lifestyle,

what kind of people should we be.

Their real argument,
in front of the public,

is "who is the better person."

In one minute, A Second Look
with William Buckley and Gore Vidal.

Across from us
was Howard K. Smith.

Suave, intelligent,
madly apprehensive.

Rehearsing with his lips the lines
he would presently deliver.

Thirty, 40, 50 technicians,
reporters, directors

filled the enormous room,

at one corner of which,
earphones attached,

Vidal and I awaited
the sound of the bell.

From past experience, I knew

that Buckley
would have done no research.

That what facts he had at his command
would be jumbled

by the strangest syntax.

We'd exchanged minimal amenities.

And I scribbled on my clipboard to
avoid having to banter with him.

And he did the same.

For all their
ideological differences,

they both see what the problem is.

That America can't stay
on the course it's on.

And that the country's
being split at the seams.

And each has staked out his position

in ways that portend where our
country is divided right now.

To help us extract meaning
from these conventions,

two of America's most eloquent
and most decided commentators

have joined us this year.

They are Gore Vidal
and William F. Buckley, Jr.

Can Mr. Vidal
assess the Republicans for us?

Can a political party based almost
entirely upon human greed

nominate anyone for President

for whom a majority
of the American people would vote?

May I comment, Mr. Smith?

- Please do.
- Yeah.

It seems to me that the author
of Myra Breckinridge

is well acquainted with
the imperatives of human greed.

Well, I would like to say,
Bill, if I may--

If I may say, Bill,
before you go any further,

I would like to say if there were a
contest for Mr. Myra Breckinridge

you would unquestionably win it.

I based her entire style
polemically upon you:

passionate and irrelevant.

Now, my point is that for Mr. Vidal
to contend a particular party

as engaged in the pursuit
of human greed,

requires us to understand
his rather eccentric definitions.

Is it greedy really
for a people to suggest

that what matters to poor people
is that they have houses?

Is it really greedy to want to
preserve our freedom?

We have the luxury of being able
to focus on those who are poor

in our midst as though we can
do something about it.

Which is something
that no other country

less occupied with human greed has--

The nice thing about the Republican
party is that every four years

after denigrating the poor
amongst themselves,

referring to them as "freeloaders,"
"they don't want to work,"

and I have many quotes here
from Ronald Reagan.

And then every four years you get
this sort of crocodile tears

for the poor people
because they need their vote.

It is quite true that Reagan is
capable of talking about freeloaders,

so am I,
because there are freeloaders.

It is one thing to say that
a society ought to concern itself

with the plight of its poor.
I think the Republican party

is saying that.

Perhaps the Republican party
should have

a platform on how to deal with Vidal.

If absolutely necessary, I will write
it for them, but meanwhile--

Meanwhile, I'd be very, very nervous.
You have written lately of your

intimacy with Reagan and with Nixon

and that you've discussed
the Vietnam War with them

and that you are satisfied
with their positions.

Since you're in favor of the nuclear
bombing of North Vietnam,

I'd be very worried about
your kind of odd neurosis--

Or more like neurosis being a friend
of anybody who might be a president.

I've never advocated the nuclear
bombing of North Vietnam.

You have, and I'll give you
time and place even.

- Well, you won't, because I never--
- I will.

I will if we don't mind.
The record--

No, now wait a minute,
don't duck away from the record.

You suggested the atom bombing
of the north of Vietnam

in your little magazine,
which I do not read,

but I'm told about,
on February 23, 1968.

So you're very hawkish.

And now, if both Nixon and Reagan
are listening to you,

I'm very worried for the country.

Now, it seems to me that
the Republican party

has shown a record of greater
sobriety than Mr. Vidal,

who boasts of not reading something
which he has prepared to misquote

in the presence of the person
who edits this.

Now, Bill Buckley,
if the quotation is exact...

Now don't be... We know your
tendency is to be feline, Mr. Vidal,

but just relax for a moment
and think very simply on this.

I have not advocated...
I'm not horrified at the prospect.

Bill, I just quoted where you said
these things and where.

- Are you saying you didn't say them?
- I'm saying that I didn't say them.

- You're taking them back?
- That your misquotation--

Tune in this time tomorrow night
and we will have further evidence

of Bill Buckley,
cold warrior turned hot.

Right, and about the human greed
of everybody in the world

- except yourself.
- There are saints.

Tomorrow, what Mr. Vidal
thinks about the Kennedys.

Good night, and let me tell you.

Excuse me, gentlemen.

It's been very enjoyable
hearing you articulate

two points of view.
Thank you very much indeed.

I think I detected some
unfinished lines of thought.

We'll have time to follow them
through tomorrow.

And tomorrow. And tomorrow.
Every night, we...

There's nothing feigned
about the mutual antipathy.

They really do despise one another.

Each thought that the other
was quite dangerous.

And it was drawn from quite a deep
well in both cases.

Gore Vidal and William Buckley
first clashed,

almost by proxy, in 1962
on The Jack Paar Program.

Vidal had gone on Jack Paar's show

and they both started
mocking Buckley:

his eccentric mannerisms,
the voice,

the facial tics, all the rest.

So, in effect,
Buckley was given equal time.

And he went on Jack Paar's show.

And Paar expected that kind of
troglodyte Neanderthal

man-of-the-right whom Vidal had
caricatured on the program.

And instead,
you have this genius of debate.

And Paar was stunned.

We next met in San Francisco, 1964,

during the Goldwater convention.

I confessed to having prepared
a trap for Buckley.

I egged him on.

The next day, Buckley sent me
a letter to the effect

that he never wanted to see me again.

I found this sentiment agreeable.

Buckley was eager
to be on television.

The downside of it for Gore was that
he contributed to Buckley's...

becoming an onscreen celebrity.

Mr. Buckley,
read by many, but not that many,

would be nothing if it wasn't for
his program Firing Line.

Buckley sat in his chair
with a clipboard

and would invite left-wingers
or liberals on his program,

and they would go back and forth
for half an hour.

People on the left are
more law-abiding than anybody else.

That's why they're on the left.

- Explain that, would you?
- I'd be happy to.

You're marvelous. I adore you.

You're the only man
who can ask your question,

and convict the man
before he can answer the question.

Television was happy to have Bill

because everybody else
was saying the same thing.

From my point of view,
what Elijah Muhammad is doing to you

is diseasing your mind.

You sit and tell me that we white
people like to divide and conquer.

- You do.
- I grew up as a white child,

I heard much more talk against Democrats
than I did against black people.

When he began Firing Line
he did it in part to show off.

But he actually did just what
pundit television should do.

Which is he elevated the discourse
and he educated people through it.

On the eve of the Republican
Convention, the heat is on.

We bring you a report
on who did what to whom

in the last hours before the gavel.

Plus commentary and some dissent
from our guest commentators:

author Gore Vidal...

ABC's unconventional
convention coverage

was a subject of ridicule

as we were abdicating our
journalistic responsibility.

But if the goal was to raise
ABC News' visibility,

we certainly succeeded.

Everybody watched the news.

Nearly 80 percent of the country
watched coverage

of the Republican and Democratic
conventions in 1968.

We're going live
to the West Coast

in about six or seven minutes.

And then, ABC News' studio collapsed.

The lighting grid fell down
onto the floor of the set.

And the roof fell in...
...literally.

It was built inside the arena.

Hard hats on.

ABC was really the Budget car rental
of television news.

Pieces of the ceiling start flying,
and then all of a sudden,

the whole thing started giving away.

Mr. Lower, ABC promised to be
unconventional this year

- but this is ridiculous.
- We're gonna be unconventional, Sam.

I can tell you that.

Thank you very much.
Now let's just cut it.

This is Miami, day one.

From Miami Beach,
ABC News presents...

Race to the White House.

They did what they could.

Basically, they hung a lot of drapes.

Lit the set with C stands and lamps.

Frankly, I think it was
an improvement.

We would like now to demonstrate how
the English language ought to be used

by two craftsmen,
our guest commentators.

On the air in ten...

If you view debate purely as sport,
let's call it blood sport.

Then really, all bets are off.

Nine, eight, seven, six.
Standby now!

You have one objective,
and that's to win in that moment.

When you attack
the position of your opponent,

you have to first attack it
clinically and rationally.

Six, five, four...

But mostly what you have to get at
is what's behind those things.

What is driving the human being
who is in front of you.

...three, two, one.

- Gore Vidal.
- Tonight, the key question

for every patriot is

"Can an aging, Hollywood, juvenile
actor with a right-wing script

defeat Richard Nixon,
a professional politician

who currently represents no
discernible interest except his own?"

As of yesterday morning,
Ronald Regan says,

"The only function of government

is to get out of our way and leave us
alone as much as possible."

Now, on this occasion,
I'm afraid I have to agree

with William Buckley,
the distinguished thinker,

when he says...

My favorite quotation from you.
I have a treasury here.

"Today as never before, the State
has the necessary instrument

of our proximate deliverance."

As usual, in your slightly Latinate
and inaccurate style.

But you do feel,
as most of us do,

that the State must
have some responsibility

for what happens in the country.
And now you have Ronald Regan,

whom you approve of,
who does not want to use

the federal government
to do anything at all.

Mr. Smith, I confess
that anything complicated

confuses Mr. Vidal.

This has been plain
for a very long time.

He has a great difficulty
reconciling

even axiomatic positions
concerning political philosophy,

but we were treated to
Mr. Gore Vidal, the playwright.

Saying that, after all,
Ronald Regan

was nothing more than
an "aging Hollywood juvenile actor."

Now, to begin with,
everybody's aging,

- even Mr. Vidal. That's right.
- Even you are, Bill.

- Perceptibly before our eyes.
- Then he said "Hollywood."

Now, one has either
acted in Hollywood

during the time Mr. Reagan acted,
or one didn't act at all.

Mr. Vidal sends all of his books
to Hollywood,

many of which are rejected,

but some of which
are ground out into--

Bill, I never send any there.

But he called him a juvenile actor
which is presumably

to be distinguished from
an adult actor. Now my point is--

Buckley was
his generation's greatest debater.

He knew very well
how to make an argument.

What he was even better at was
dismantling your argument.

- Now, I think this kind of--
- Now, Bill, I think...

- Bill, if I may say so--
- ...as I think ABC has the right...

Just as I think ABC has
the authority... I'm almost through.

No, you're n... In every sense.

Let Mr. Buckley finish his sentence.

Then, Mr. Vidal,
I assure you time to refute it.

If ABC has the authority to invite
the author of Myra Breckinridge

to come and to comment
on Republican politics,

I think that the people
of California have the right,

when they speak overwhelmingly,
to project somebody

into national politics
even if he did commit the sin

of having acted in movies that
were not written by Mr. Vidal.

If Buckley was the great debater
of his time,

Vidal was the great talker
of his time.

Well, as usual, Mr. Buckley...

with his enormous
and thrilling charm,

manages to get away from the issue
toward the comedy.

He's always to the right, I think,
and almost always in the wrong.

And you certainly must, Bill,
maintain your reputation as being

the Marie Antoinette
of the right wing

and continually imposing your own
rather bloodthirsty neuroses

on a political campaign.

He also rehearsed his ad libs.

All the great bon mot
that he unleashed on the air

he tried out first on the reporters
in the press room.

So calling Buckley the
Marie Antoinette of the right wing

he had done that
with a reporter beforehand.

This is the hobgoblinization

- of the Marxists.
- Gentlemen, you have about

one concluding sentence apiece.
Can you give us one?

Well, I think that it is
something for which

all of us have to be grateful,

that there are left in America people
who believe in the democratic process

sufficiently to know that
occasionally people can penetrate

such myths as have been energetically
projected by Mr. Vidal.

Which would be not only a philosophy
in an economy of stagnation,

but also a spiritual world
of stagnation.

Thank you very much indeed,
gentlemen. While...

So these two guys were
circling each other early on.

Why? Partly because each one
saw in the other

a kind of exaggerated image of his
own anxious version of himself.

It's almost as if they were
matter and anti-matter.

Sort of parallel lives.

They spoke with
these patrician languid accents.

They'd both been to boarding schools.

Very prestigious families
and backgrounds.

So everyone thought.

These were two guys who were not so
much of the Eastern establishment,

as conquerors
of the Eastern establishment.

Gore never went to college,

which he was very proud of actually.

We are savages, my family.

Father was from the frontier.

We didn't belong to Long Island
society, nor did we wish to.

This has always been
an anti-intellectual country.

These days, anybody who spoke
like those two men in public

would be seen to be heartless.

In fact, they're supposed to be what
American mass audience despises.

They're intellectual.
They sound like elites.

But people warmed to it.

Mr. Buckley, do you think miniskirts
are in good taste?

On you I think they are.

- Those legs are in good taste.
- Great legs.

I never would've
figured you for that kind.

Gore Vidal famously said,

sex and appearing on television."

- Go ahead, Gore.
- Joanne Woodward.

Very good.
That's one down and nine to go.

Hey, put on your--

They both instinctually knew
about the power of television

in a way that a lot of American
intellectuals of that era did not.

Why don't you just talk to me instead
of talking to the audience?

Well, by a curious thing,
we have not found ourselves

in a friendly neighborhood bar,
but both by election are sitting here

with an audience.
So therefore it would be

dishonest of us to pretend otherwise.

Mr. Buckley, I've noticed that
whenever you appear on television,

you're always seated.

Does this mean
you can't think on your feet?

It's very... very hard to stand up

carrying the...
the weight of what I know.

They were both very much aware that
TV is the present and the future.

And you have to be on it
and you have to use it well.

In a way, I think
the brilliant thing about Gore Vidal

is he had opinions and he was willing
to air them and very, very bravely.

I mean, this was the person that
wrote The City and the Pillar,

published in 1948.

It was the first novel
that dealt very openly...

with homosexuality as being
a perfectly normal sexual activity.

He was willing to take these risks

that almost no one statistically
was ever willing to take.

He deserved so much credit for that
that he does not get.

You have your own narrow views
of what is correct sexual behavior.

I happen to disagree with it

and I think there are
a great many people who do.

We cannot in any way encourage young
boys into this kind of relationship.

You have every right to propagandize
from the pulpit,

and give us the same right to
propagandize with books.

I certainly am not gonna try
to shut down your church,

as appalling
as I find your argument.

Vidal's view is that sexual
orientation

amongst civilized humans
is not named, discussed, or labeled.

Gore Vidal would never
answer to the question:

Are you gay?
"Yes, I'm gay."

You have to understand
that Gore was obsessed

with shedding sexual labels.

It is as natural
to be homosexual

as it is to be heterosexual.

And the difference between a
homosexual and a heterosexual

is about the difference between
somebody who has brown eyes

- and somebody who has blue eyes.
- Who says so?

I say so. It is a completely natural
act from the beginning of time.

The morays of the country
are going to hell.

And if there was one thing
William Buckley cared more about

than anything,
it would have been that.

We go on like this,
abortion will be on demand.

Women will have sex with women.
The family will be over.

The church won't be respected.

People will be screwing in the
street, frightening the horses.

Buggery will be legal.

And if you'd said all that to Gore,
he'd have said, "Okay, bring it on."

In a very moving piece
called "A Blow for Peace,"

in that magazine I will not mention,

on the 29th of December, 1964--

We know that you'd like nothing
to sully your lips.

You came out...
You will eat it first.

You came out in favor of history
at H for such an act of greatness.

That is the bombing of the Chinese
nuclear capacity.

Mr. Vidal, I have no doubt
that there are...

there is somebody in
Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village

who considers that your caricature
is fetching. I don't.

I was invited here and
am prepared to try to talk about

- the Republican Convention.
- Yes.

But I maintain that
it's very difficult to do so

when you have somebody like this
who speaks in such verse

and he likes to be naughty.

Which has proved to be
a professionally

highly merchandisable vice.

Not unlike your so public vices
and wickedness.

We have to keep in mind
the left-wing was never hesitant

about smearing anybody
from the right-wing.

That was a battle
Bill had to fight all the time.

The disease of the right
is greed, bigotry,

insensitivity and general stupidity.

On a radio interview,
you said that you thought

"the Jews tend to construct ongoing
political myth centered around

the Hitlerian experience,
which more or less suggests

that Hitler was the embodiment
of the ultra-right."

True. Most Jews suggest Hitler was
the embodiment of the ultra-right.

He certainly wasn't the embodiment
of the ultra-left.

And do you care to read the context,
or shall I cram it down your throat?

No, no, no.

If you are a right-winger,

you don't want to have
anything to do with

the Gnostic heresies
of Nazism and Fascism.

And that was a label that the
left-wing kept trying to pin

on the right-wing.

Which is the cherry bomb
that is waiting to go off.

And eventually does.

Good evening from Miami Beach.

Again we bring you in 90 minutes
all that's worth seeing and knowing

as the convention's moment of truth
comes near.

- Can you hear me?
- Yes!

I said "rich America!"

Quiet!

Never has obedience to law

been so disdained.

In 1968, you see the beginning

of a Republican kind of rhetoric

in which strategies of dividing
the country racially

are disguised with language
along the lines of law and order.

Let's make America first again,

in respect for order
and justice under law.

Now, isn't that what you want?!

Isn't that where
we're going to go?

You wanted law and order
in this town. You've got it.

He's bluffing, boys. Let's get him.

The next one gets a load of buckshot.
Any takers?

Must we avoid
our great cities by night,

as if they were guerilla-infested
hamlets out in Vietnam?

No!

10-27, we're setting up.

There was a racial
protest that turned into a riot

at the convention in Miami.

These were two visions
of America clashing.

Don't give me any
of that crap. Turn around.

Look at that man back there.
You wanna look? Look at that picture.

To be sure, this might have been
a trick by the lily-white climate

of the Republican Convention
which is in progress right now

just a few miles from here.

The fault lines in our politics
were decided in the 1968 election.

Alliances that connect
in shifting ways.

Racial, religious, socio-economic.

What we now call "identity politics"
was being formed then.

And Buckley knew it, because to
some extent he'd helped create it.

The subject for William
Buckley and Gore Vidal tonight:

"Beyond the Nominations."

What issues can the Republicans use
effectively to win?

Well, I think two primarily.

law and order.

I wish there was a way of saying
"law and order"

that didn't make critics say,

"You're talking about
the racial question."

I would like to know how to say
"law and order" by other means,

but still mean law and order.

And one of the problems that we face,
and that Nixon's gonna face, is this.

What do we do about the growth

of really mutinous members
of the American community?

These people have got to be faced
not only politically,

but philosophically.

And this is something which,
in my judgment, Mr. Nixon

has got to elevate into the status
of the genuine national debate.

I think that if Richard Nixon
were elected President,

it would be an absolute,
no matter with what good will,

it would be a disaster because
the young, the black, the poor

are disaffected and I don't see him
ever drawing them to him.

Vidal understood what
it meant to take the positions that

William F. Buckley, Jr. took towards
civil rights during those years.

This was at a time when political
leaders had been able to block

civil rights legislations
with the support

of entities like
the National Review

and figures like
William F. Buckley Jr.

In the United States,
five percent of the population

have 20 percent of the income.

And the bottom 20 percent
have five percent of the income.

- I think this is irrelevant.
- I know that you revel

in this kind of inequality.
Your business is based upon that.

I believe that freedom
breeds our inequality.

Say that again?

Freedom breeds inequality.

- I'll say it a third time.
- No, twice was enough.

- I think you made your point.
- Unless you have freedom

to be unequal,
there is no such thing as freedom.

And with Buckley, you see
a shrill defense of what he sees

as a completely collapsing
social and cultural order.

- What can I say?
- Not much.

You've given that
ghastly position once again

of the well to-do
and those who inherit money

and believe that others
who do not...

- This is balderdash.
- ...must somehow achieve equality.

But, in actual fact,
you're going to have a revolution,

if you don't give the people
the things they want.

Now, I'm putting it
to your own self-interest,

they're going to come
and take it away from you.

Because Vidal is so educated,

and so one of his class,

for Buckley,
the betrayal of those values

seems to be almost personal.

Buckley, he didn't believe
in democracy.

He believed in rule by elites,
starting with him.

The conservative party
in New York state

had gone to Buckley and said,
"Put your money where your mouth is.

Run for mayor."

So it was Bill Buckley,
the conservative candidate,

and John Lindsay, the darling
of liberal Republicans,

whom Buckley was intent on defeating.

He has said
that you're out to destroy

everything that he stands for.

That is roughly correct.
I couldn't have put it better.

I'm out to destroy
everything that he stands for:

hypocrisy and ultra-leftism.

Conservatism
in America is an insurgency.

It's not the right
fighting the far left,

it's the right fighting people
who are not quite far enough right.

Buckley discovered a new constituency
for the Republican party.

It was angry white ethnics

in Brooklyn, in Queens,

in Staten Island,
in the outer boroughs.

The same people who voted
for Goldwater in '64

at a time of mounting
racial unrest in America.

The conservatives,
more than 1,200 of them,

paid one dollar each
to see William F. Buckley Jr.

There was nothing fancy
on the menu here.

Just hot tongue and cold shoulder

for everything distasteful
to the conservatives.

Ladies and gentlemen, the
apparent winner of this election...

is Mr. John Lindsay.

He was realistic enough in 1965

to realize that he could not win.

What has made a difference is that
thanks to your efforts,

we have begun to reintroduce the
two-party system to New York City.

What Buckley had found
all through his career,

he wrote about this when he was
still a fairly young man,

is he said,
"I lose all the big battles,

but I win all the small,
personal ones."

He said it with kind of frustration.

What he wanted to do
was to win the big war.

The next president of
the United States, Richard Nixon!

Bill Buckley says,

"This election, it'll be decided
on the issue of law and order."

And he was right.

What is on people's minds,
what frightens them

is the fear that a generation that,
by the New Deal,

was put into the middle class is now
going to lose all of those gains.

These are the debates
we're having today.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

You'll certainly be back,
I'm delighted to know,

for the Democratic Convention,
where Mr. Buckley may attack

and Mr. Vidal will have to defend.

We'll be back after this message.

♪ ♪

ABC was very happy
with the coverage.

When you talk about Buckley-Vidal,
people took notice.

And they got noticed in the press.

That was very important in 1968
to everybody in television.

It turned out that
this was kind of a hit.

"About the only fun to be had
during the GOP convention,

from a television observer's
point of view,

was found
in the nightly tête-à-tête

between William F. Buckley
and Gore Vidal."

I'm never sure whether
politics leads what argument is,

or argument leads what politics is.

But together, Buckley and Vidal
are enormously successful.

I've always tried to keep my
political life and my literary life

somewhat apart.

But in 1959,
I decided to bring the two together

in a play that became a film.

Gore does have a sense
of a deep America and a deep history.

He's written The Best Man.

The best play ever written about
an American political convention.

Do you think people mistrust
intellectuals like you in politics?

Intellectual?
You mean I wrote a book?

Well, as Bertram Russell said,

"People in a democracy tend to think
they have less to fear

from a stupid man
than an intelligent one.

Actually, it's the other way around.
It's the stupid man--"

Vidal's interest in politics
was not only ideological.

It was a very personal
and social thing.

What image do you feel Senator
Campbell is projecting at the moment?

I'm afraid I don't know
anything about images.

That's a term from advertising where
you don't try to sell a product,

you sell the image of the product.
Sometimes, the image is a fake!

- After all, your own image is--
- A poor thing, but mine own.

Paint me as I am, wart and all.

Gore was born
into a political family.

He's the grandson of a senator,
T.P. Gore of Oklahoma.

His father was
in the Roosevelt administration.

He saw himself as the heir
to this political dynasty.

And he was going to be
the greatest of them all.

Candidate Gore Vidal.

Most of my plays,
most of my writing is political

or in criticism of society,
should we say.

Actually, for a change I'm getting
out and trying to do something.

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

he saw it as the first stepping stone
to the Presidency.

He doesn't exactly
have the common touch.

He's not exactly someone
who's going to appeal

to the working class voters
of the United States of America.

He had a sense of himself
as being equal to and belonging

in the world of
the powerful and the elite.

Gore and Jackie Kennedy
were related by marriage.

And Jack Kennedy gave campaign
appearances for him.

He was on the Kennedy ticket.

He was a welcome visitor
at the White House

until there was a run-in
with Bobby Kennedy.

This will sound absurd
with hindsight,

but he probably saw Bobby Kennedy
as competition for the presidency

later in the 60's.

And that's one reason
Gore didn't like Bobby.

Bobby Kennedy is neither liberal,
nor is he much of anything

except a political opportunist
like most of them.

The whole thing has been taken over
by this camera,

by people projecting images,
a ghastly word, and it's...

These are the cards
with which we play.

Bobby Kennedy immediately took
a dislike to Gore Vidal.

Thought he was pompous,
thought he was arrogant.

What is your
current relationship

with Mrs. Onassis, your stepsister?

I haven't seen her since 1962.

There's no reason
for our lines to cross.

She was devoted to Bobby Kennedy,
and I was, as you know, plainly not.

And we fell out over that.

When Gore lost
the race for Congress,

that led to not only a
disillusionment with politics,

but a disillusionment
with the United States.

Naturally,
I wanted to be a politician,

but unfortunately
I was born a writer.

And I would not say that
I've exactly had the life I wanted.

Most of Vidal's work
is done at Ravello

from the Sorrentine coast,

amid lemon groves and vineyards,
2,000 feet above the sea.

His house is improbably perched
above a precipice.

The ideal spot, as he would say,
to observe the decline of the West.

Playboy After Dark,
show number 15.

Take one.

Mr. Vidal, will you please sign
my copy of Myra Breckinridge?

With great pleasure, with my
extra-special William Buckley pen.

I wouldn't be seen without this pen.

- I think this is the property--
- A gift from Bill.

A gift from Bill?
Bill's not as nice as he looks.

I know Bill personally.

- I know both sides of him.
- That's the best way to know him.

Personally.

In the interval
between Miami and Chicago,

I read Myra Breckinridge.

It attempts heuristic allegory,
but fails,

giving gratification only
to sadist homosexuals

and challenge only to
taxonomists of perversion.

I thought and thought about it.

There is nothing left to say
about Myra.

And so we met again,
in Chicago.

Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman...

Good evening from the
International Amphitheater in Chicago.

There are almost as many problems
still to be solved

as there are flies
in this building

located in the heart
of Chicago's stockyards.

The cheery welcome sign
that is everywhere here

is as much a command
as an invitation.

Mayor Daley
has beautified everywhere.

What he cannot beautify,
he's tried to hide behind new fences.

Part of the tightest security checks
an American city

not under riot conditions
has ever experienced.

We want Eugene!
We want Eugene!

Eugene McCarthy and Hubert
Humphrey arrived in Chicago today.

The Democratic party
was in terrific disarray.

Bobby Kennedy had just been killed
a couple of months earlier.

He was already becoming a martyr.

The fight over the Democratic
platform will move here,

right onto the floor
of this convention

demanding a repudiation
and a reversal

of the Johnson administration
policies on Vietnam.

At this moment, it is
the calm in the eye of the storm.

Their wounds have had time to heal
since Miami Beach.

They've had time to restock their
arsenal for new assaults.

"They," of course,
are William Buckley and Gore Vidal.

Mr. Vidal, do you feel more
comfortable, philosophically, here

than you did in Miami?

Philosophically. I wonder if that
word will ever be used again

while we're here in Chicago.

This place is a shambles.
It's a police state.

One's aware of the horrors
of the world here:

the smell of old blood,

the shrieking of the pigs as
they're slaughtered in the morning,

all this reminds one of...
of life and death.

So, in a sense,
I do feel at home in a way,

but not happy.

Buckley realized
he had his intellectual equal

sitting right next to him.

Vidal had done
the homework in Miami.

By the time we got to Chicago,

Buckley had caught up
and done some homework as well.

William Buckley,
while on the defensive in Miami,

may now take the offensive.

He was also
an extremely aggressive debater.

And so he thought that justified
every technique he could use to win.

As a matter of
testamentary integrity,

I reveal a concrete proposal
contained in a letter

sent to me by Senator Kennedy
about six months ago.

The P.S. of which was:

"I have changed
my platform from 1968

from 'let's give blood
to the Viet Kong'

to 'let's give Gore Vidal
to the Viet Kong."'

May I see that? Really?

I think, however,
that would be immoderate.

In any case,
I do share Mr. Kennedy--

- I must say.
- Mr. Kennedy's notion that Mr. Vidal

is marred by his sort of
strange fantasies

concerning the realisms of politics.

We all recognize that moment
when we reach for a weapon

that we know is sort of off-bounds.

- This is Senator Bobby Kennedy.
- Yes, I realized.

What a very curious handwriting.
It also slants up.

Sign of a manic depressive.

You still mad about Senator Kennedy?

I did say that.
Whether you forged it or not,

I don't know and I will have to have
my handwriting experts,

the graphologists will have to look
at it. I put nothing beyond you.

But to get back to the plank
while we...

It's been fun inspecting your
correspondence, but...

Vidal is relatively unfazed.

He had almost a Zen technique.

You let the guy lean forward
so that he falls over.

And so, each night,
there was more spectacle to be had.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

The people of Chicago
are proud to welcome

a great political gathering
of Americans.

All this security
makes me very nervous.

Because it's necessary, apparently.

Our delegates are Paul Newman
and Mr. Arthur Miller.

It's a little frightening,
quite frankly,

being in this... fortress

trying to select a president.

Hell no, we won't go!
Hell no, we won't go!

As long as I'm mayor of this town,
there'll be law and order in Chicago!

♪ ♪

The forces of history seem to be
going towards a reckoning.

It's like they've just gotta blow.

ABC crew cars were equipped
with gas masks and helmets.

We were asked to make sure
the press didn't see this stuff.

They were anticipating trouble
right from the start.

♪ ♪

I would like to ask our guest
commentators about Vietnam.

How do we get out?
Have we really been beaten?

What matters here is that we have,
in a word, lost the war.

Something like 90 percent of
the casualties are civilians.

So when they accuse us of genocide,
they are not without point.

- Now, wait a minute.
- We've nothing to gain by this war.

We have not lost the war in Vietnam.

What we have lost is an opportunity
to press that war

with such weapons as are
especially at our disposal.

The majority of the people
of the United States,

including the leadership
of the Democratic party,

and the one of the Republican party,
belong with me,

while you go to Rome
and expatriate yourself.

I think we should
straighten this out now.

I don't expatriate myself.
I have an apartment in Rome.

I go there for two or three months
every year to be close to the Vatican

to contemplate William Buckley
and his mad activities back here.

And with enormous serenity,

they're trying to get us, Bill.

And I think, to be perfectly bleak,
and to be perfectly blunt,

I think we're headed
for total disaster, this empire,

with people like Mr. Buckley here
beating the drum.

And I think the instinct of the
people I used to think was for peace.

I think it, now I come back and
I see little American flags

on the antenna of the car.

They're getting ready
for a war.

They're getting ready for war.

What Vidal saw
was that the American empire

was completely overextended.

These empires are
very dangerous things to possess,

as Pericles once pointed out.

And once you get one,
it's very difficult to let it go.

But if we don't let it go,
it's going to wreck us economically.

We're already in trouble.

We're already in trouble.

And it has certainly divided
the country at a time

when resources should go
to the slums and to the poor

and to trying to revise
an extremely shabby country.

I tell you, the day Rome falls
there will be a shout of freedom

such as the world
has never heard before!

Gore Vidal disliked
the United States of America.

He always talked about the empire
in which he is now right.

Gore Vidal was correct
in prophesizing

that we would become an empire.

That is our present dilemma.

The whole world is watching!
The whole world is watching!

This is the year
of "the whole world is watching."

This is the year where all politics
is suddenly televisual.

This is the year where the phrase
"living room war" comes.

It was as if a theater
piece was taking place

for the public watching television.

Please, help me!

If you do not leave,
you will be subject to arrest!

Gore asked me to drive him
to an event with a couple of friends.

So I had Gore Vidal, Arthur Miller
and Paul Newman in my car.

And we drove
into a cloud of tear gas.

Get away from the police.
Step up here.

Put the flare down.
They're pushing and shoving.

- We're gonna get it.
- Stop!

The whole world is watching!
The whole world is watching!

Who is first?
Mr. Vidal first.

Uh, it's like living
under a Soviet regime here.

The guards, the soldiers,
the agents provocateur,

and the parts of the police,
you've seen the roughing up.

There's very little that we can say
after those pictures...

that would be in any way adequate.

Let Mr. Buckley comment now.

The effort here,
not only on your program tonight,

but during the past two
or three days in Chicago

has been to institutionalize
this complaint.

So as to march forward and say we've
got sort of a Fascist situation,

but don't infer from individual
and despicable acts of violence

of Chicago policemen,
a case for implicit totalitarianism

in the American system.

If we can all work up an equal sweat,

and if you all would be obliging
enough to have your cameras handy,

every time a politician
commits demagogy,

or every time a labor union beats up
people who refuse to join his union,

then maybe we can work up some kind
of impartiality and resentment.

These people came here
with no desire other

than anybody's been able to prove,

- than hold peaceful demonstration.
- I can prove it.

I was 14 windows
above that gang last night.

And the chant between 11:00
and 5:00 this morning

from four or 5,000 voices

was sheer utter obscenities

directed to the president
of the United States.

I think 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 without inflicting a
single wound on a single person,

even though that kind of disgusting
stuff is being thrown at them

and at all of American society.

Mr. Vidal, wasn't it a provocative
act to try to raise

the Viet Kong flag in the park
in the film we just saw?

Wouldn't that invite...
Raising a Nazi flag in WWII

would've had similar consequences.

- Yes, and--
- People in the United States

happen to believe that the United
States' policy is wrong in Vietnam

and that Viet Kong are correct in
wanting to organize their country

in their own way politically.

If it is a novelty in Chicago
that is too bad,

but I assume that the point
of the American democracy

is you can express
any point of view that you want.

- Shut up a minute.
- No, I won't.

Some 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.
I know you don't care--

As far as I'm concerned,
the only sort of pro

or crypto-Nazi I can think of
is yourself.

- Failing that, I will only say--
- Let's not call names.

Now listen, you queer,
stop calling me a crypto-Nazi

or I'll sock you in the goddamn
face and you'll stay plastered.

- Gentlemen, let's--
- Bill.

Tell the author of Myra Breckinridge
to go back to his pornography

and stop making
any allusions of Nazism.

I was in the Infantry
in the last war.

You were not in the Infantry.
As a matter of fact, you were not.

You're distorting
your own military record.

The network nearly shat.

Now listen, you queer,
stop calling me a crypto-Nazi.

Or I'll sock you in the goddamn face
and you'll stay plastered.

- Gentlemen--
- I was watching it

with a number of the news executives
in the control room.

Someone said,
"Can they say that?!"

Well, you know, it's live.
They had.

I think Gore Vidal was fortunate

that Bill didn't
punch him in the nose.

Bill could've broken Gore Vidal
over the back of his knee.

When Gore Vidal called him
a crypto-Nazi,

Bill let him have it.

It is a slur.

And the rictus of loathing
on Mr. Buckley's face

is quite understated.

Buckley called Vidal
"queer" on television.

It's a slur. It would be
considered a hate slur today.

Profanity today is "nigger,"
"faggot" and "cunt."

Those are our only three
truly profane words.

In 1968, you could
call somebody a crypto-Nazi

or a queer,
and that was fighting words.

You have every right in this country
to take any position you want to take

because we are guaranteed
freedom of speech.

We just listened to a rather
grotesque example of it.

I think we've run out of time

and I thank you very much
for the discussion.

It was a little more heat
and a little less light than usual,

but it was still very worth hearing.

Tomorrow night, you'll have
a chance to...

My pulse was racing
and my fingers trembled

as wave after wave
of indignation swept over me.

And then, suddenly,

about to deposit the earphones
on the table stand,

I stopped, frozen.

Vidal, arranging his own set
was whispering to me.

"Well," he said, smiling,

"I guess we gave them
their money's worth tonight."

It was a splendid moment.
Eyes rolling, mouth twitching,

long, weak arms waving.

Buckley skittered from slander
to glorious absurdity.

I reached my trailer
after taking great strides

through the maze of technicians,
operators, executives,

reporters, guests.

All of whom looked at me as I stomped
by, and then quickly looked away.

Afraid, perhaps, that I would greet
anyone guilty of a lingering glance

with a sock on his goddamn face.

The door slammed
and I heard shouting.

Paul Newman had been
in Vidal's trailer,

and had been watching it on
television, ran down the stairs,

ran into Buckley's trailer and
Buckley came in at the same time.

And Buckley, according to Newman,
responded that it was a disaster.

These ad hominem attacks
were not characteristic of Bill.

This was a totally unprecedented
thing for him to do on television.

Vidal was a smart enough
tactician to know

that he had won the debate
in that moment.

And that brings up the one final
question now the election is over.

Will Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal
kiss and make up?

I think Vidal would love that.

After we did it, no network
ever again did wall-to-wall,

gavel-to-gavel coverage.

It could be that some
executive said, "Hey,

whatever you may think of it, that
Vidal Buckley thing had a big impact.

Get Mr. Pro and Mr. Con,

Ms. For Abortion
and Ms. Against Abortion...

Jack, I spent the holidays flying
back and forth across this country

and I'm worried.

The place seems all out of focus,
sea to shining sea.

We've both flown many times, Shana,
coast to coast.

But we see a different land below.

And you have them argue
and that's punditry.

That's enlightenment.

Dan, there's an old saying:
"Behind every successful man

there's a woman,
a loving, giving, caring woman."

Jane, you ignorant slut.

Argument is sugar
and the rest of us are flies.

Welcome to Radio 81.

I think this is Ron
and Gore Vidal is also here.

I invariably agree
with your social views,

the content of your ideas.

And I contest with Buckley's views.

But I hear you talk,
and William Buckley talk,

I feel that Buckley
is the more honest man.

In what way do you find him
more honest than I?

I think it goes way back
to the debates

you had with him on television.

And you literally blew his mind.

I've never seen Buckley
lose it like that.

He swore at you
and stood up and said,

"How dare you call me a neo-Nazi!"

I thought him the scum of the world,
you see.

- I know, he was over-excited, yeah?
- Yes.

- But I think--
- What did you find dishonest

about my performance?

It had to do with
the glee in your face,

in your eyes,
that you could not hide.

Well, that isn't...
I wasn't being dishonest.

I am a happy warrior.

I'm in battle, I'm enjoying it.

This is what these things are about.

If somebody that I regard
is a very bad person...

politically, then to expose him
on television for what he is

is my job.

And I think I accomplished it
very nicely, so did he.

He brought suit against me
as a result of it.

A year after these debates,
in August of 1969,

Esquire published a long essay
that Bill had written,

something like 12,000 words

trying to explore why he had
reacted the way he did.

Buckley couldn't let it go.

He couldn't let this thing go.

He thought he would avenge himself
or explain himself

by writing in a sophisticated way
about Vidal in Esquire.

For days and weeks,
indeed for months,

I tormented myself
with the question...

"What should I have said?"

Was my mistake that of
going on TV at all,

in light of the abundant warnings,
with Vidal?

Could it be that my emotional
reaction was defensible

and even healthy,

but that my words were ill-chosen?

The problem was, instead of
putting a cap on the debate,

he's perpetuating it
on another platform,

which really made it worse.

Vidal then replied

in print to this barn burner piece
to take the stage back.

On Wednesday,
August 28, at 9:30,

in full view of ten million people,

the little door in William F. Buckley
Jr.'s forehead suddenly opened

and out sprang that wild cuckoo
which I had always known was there,

but had wanted so much for others,
preferably millions of others,

to get a good look at.

Vidal is always suspicious
of Buckley's sexuality.

And makes references
that suggest that

Buckley has an attraction
to the homoerotic.

There was always a question of...

Um...

I don't know how to put it.

That there was a kind of
sexual ambiguity about Bill.

There were rumors,
none of them substantiated.

It was more a manner of affect,
really.

Buckley was kind of an effete guy.

If you read the piece,
you are led to believe

that among other things, William F.
Buckley, Jr. was homosexual.

Buckley instituted a suit
against Esquire magazine

and against Vidal.

Vidal instituted a countersuit
against Buckley.

The litigation
went on for three years.

Is that still going back
and forth in the courts?

It's going more back than forth.

Just... it keeps on ticking away
like a bomb.

At the time, it was
one of the longest lawsuits

between two American public
intellectuals there'd ever been.

Neither of them ever tired of it.

It gave them enormous opportunity
for the practice of malice.

It's still litigious, is it?

Very litigious.

By the third year, Esquire
said, "We've had enough."

Esquire ended up settling.

And then Buckley,
in a stroke of brilliance,

gives a press conference
and declares victory.

In the public imagination,
people thought that he had won

this lawsuit they didn't
understand in the first place.

I know that Gore hated that.

Was it ever resolved, who came out
ahead on that whole thing?

Well, it sort of went on
for several years.

And then about a week
before we'd go into court,

he called off the suit.

- Pulled the suit out from under you?
- Exactly.

Exactly.
I was looking forward to that.

Why do you work so hard?
Why do you work so darn hard?

There's a lot to do.

Bill Buckley,
the popularizer, laid the foundation

for the conservative movement.

Which enabled Ronald Reagan
to come along

and to win that presidency
by the margin that he did.

I can't tell you exactly when
I discovered National Review.

It had a profound impact on me.

Well, my relationship
to Ronald Reagan was pretty close.

There was an affinity of ideas.

I visited him and he visited me.

We took a liking to each other.

Certainly I to him.

When Ronald Reagan
saluted William Buckley

and the National Review
as president,

Buckley became a king maker.

And he was seen to be a king maker.

And appearance is at least as
important as reality in this world.

When Buckley
and Reagan were ascended,

and Vidal's political ideology
was taking a backseat,

I think this was actually
a great period for him.

Some of his greatest writing
occurred in the '80s,

both in essays and in literature.

When another right-wing critic

attacked Gore Vidal
as being anti-American,

Gore's reply was,
"How can you call me anti-American?

I'm the country's official
biographer."

In Burr,
Vidal got off one of his great lines.

It was the beginning of Vidal's
attempt at revenge on Buckley.

I believe his name was
"William de la Touche Clancey".

And I think Vidal said somewhere

that it could not possibly
be based on anyone,

meaning that of course
it's based on Bill.

William de la Touche
Clancey's voice

is like that of a furious goose,

all honks and hisses.

He detests our democracy.

He fills the pages of his magazine,
America,

with libelous comments
on all things American.

Despite a rich wife
and five children,

he is a compulsive sodomite,

forever preying on country boys
new to the city.

It is extreme and...

He was a good hater, Vidal.

God knows what is at the very bottom
of that animosity.

He talked about it every day.

You don't talk about something
every day that didn't cut you.

And I don't think
that ever really healed.

We were in Ravello,
not much to do after dinner.

He had acquired a VHS copy
of the Vidal/Buckley debates.

I naively said,
"Do you think we could watch them?"

Little did I realize this was
the main event for the night.

We then watched them, I think,
again a couple nights later.

And on subsequent trips we watched
them two or three times.

And the thrill
of the first viewing was gone.

And you began to have the sensation

that you were edging
into Sunset Boulevard,

Norma Desmond territory.

It was Buckley
who was distressed by it.

Buckley let it become personal
in a way that he had been a maestro

of being able to avoid.

And that haunted him
for a very long time.

After 33 years on PBS,

William F. Buckley, Jr. taped his
last program before an audience

of invited guests.

The last show was succeeded

by an interview with Ted Koppel.

And at one point,
he showed

the now already infamous clip.

Now listen, you queer,
stop calling me a crypto-Nazi,

or I'll sock you in the goddamn face
and you'll stay plastered.

Buckley, uncharacteristically,
said nothing

and then they went
to the commercial break.

I was in the audience that day.

And he made a beeline up the aisle
to where I was sitting and said,

"I thought that tape
had been destroyed."

More than 30 years
after the original debates,

he was still furious with Vidal,

and still shaken
that he had reacted that way.

- Do you wish you were 20?
- No!

Absolutely not.

No, I would...

If I had a pill which would
reduce my age by 25 years,

- I wouldn't take it.
- Why not?

Because I'm tired of life.

- Are you really?
- Yeah.

I really am.

I'm utterly prepared to stop...

living on.

Any regrets about this life
that you have lived?

- Yeah...
- Like what?

Well, I'm not sure I'd tell you.

Someone asked when
Bill Buckley died what Gore thought.

He said, "I thought that hell
will be a livelier place,

that he will be permanently
among those he served in life,

applauding their prejudices
and fanning their hatreds."

The last line of that piece was:

"WFB, rest in hell."

It seems a little farfetched to say

that Gore Vidal was waiting around
for Buckley to die

so he could have the last word.

But I promise you
that he took great pleasure in that.

He was not satisfied if he didn't
have something to fight against.

And at the end of his life,
I think he was fighting

against the ghosts
of all these enemies.

Truman Capote once famously said,

that it wasn't a matter of when
Gore Vidal would be forgotten,

it was more or less
when did he start to be forgotten?

Gore was convinced this had
happened already.

The young had forgotten him.
His books weren't being read anymore.

These figures
become most interesting

when they're not listened to
so much.

Because then there's a kind of
big silence inside themselves.

I compared it in an essay I wrote
to Wallace Stevens' great poem,

The Snowman, where he says,

"You have to have
a mind of winter

to see nothing that is not there

and the nothing that is."

I think these great debates
are absolutely nonsense.

The way they're set up, there's
almost no interchange of ideas,

very little even of personality.

There's also a terrible thing
about this medium

that hardly anyone listens.

They sort of get an impression
of somebody

and they think they've figured out
just what he's like

by seeing him on television.

The Buckley-Vidal debate
was a harbinger

of an unhappy future.

Does television run America?

There is an implicit
conflict of interest

between that which is
highly viewable

and that which is
highly illuminating.

That was a time when
television was still a public square.

Where Americans gathered and saw
pretty much the same thing.

There's nothing like that now.

That's terrifying!

Well, it's because, see,
we're a debate show.

- It's like saying--
- No, that'd be great,

I would love to see a debate show.

...a 24-hour day where we have
each side on as best we can--

No. That would be great.
You're doing theater

when you should be doing debate.

The ability to talk
the same language is gone.

More and more, we're divided
into communities of concern.

Each side can ignore the other side
and live in its own world.

It makes us less of a nation.

Because, what binds us together
is the pictures in our heads.

But if those people
are not sharing those ideas...

they're not living
in the same place.

You've got a few more seconds.
Are you capable

- of summing up in ten seconds?
- No.

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