William Buckley: Mister Norman Mailer was born in New Jersey, and was graduated from Harvard in 1943. At which point he went to Southeast Asia to fight a war he approved of, one of the last ever. He returned to write The Naked and the Dead, and to begin his ascent as he put it to the presidency, by which he means to his acceptance as the "top American writer alive". He has recently published a book called The Armies of the Night, which is the story of the campaign of he and Robert Lowell and Dwight Macdonald waged upon the Pentagon. The Pentagon won. Which has been greatly acclaimed, which is safe to say, that men of better critical judgement, than mister Mailer, now regard him as the best writer in America. His technique is one of unalloyed narcissism, mitigated by a recognition of, not to say a devotion to, his own shortcomings. One unappreciative reviewer, a couple of books back, summarized quote: "We are assured that our hero fought one his brawls after getting two hammer blows on the head, that put Kennedy in office, and could put Floyd Patterson back on his throne, that he out-debated Buckley, that he out-writes everybody since Hemingway, and out-loves everyone since Casanova. In short, that he can lick anybody in the house." It is a boast that he should be able to make with some confidence, after these tirades there cannot be many left in the house and they deserve their licking." We're here to talk about mister Mailer's book, and about mister Mailer, and if possible, not about the war in Vietnam. I should like to begin by asking mister Mailer to disclose: whether he believes that artists should be immune from the harassments of the law. Norman Mailer: Before we do that, I would like to correct one thing in your charming introductory remarks, and as I never claimed I was the greatest lover in the world. WB: Ah yeah, sorry. NM: Once again you were making your case too fine. No, I don't think artists should be, WB: Only since Casanova. NM: I don't even claim that. NM: I don't think artist should be let off anything. Quite the contrary. Whatever gave you that idea? WB: Well, what gave me the idea, was that you were sentenced for 5 days, in jail, and as I understand it, you were appealing on the grounds that it was...that you were sentenced because you were very famous. And that therefore this was a discriminating act. Now, do I therefore understand that only people who are not very famous should be sentenced when they break the law? NM: Well that's not my impression of, actually, when I got the sentence, I wanted to get out that day, just for reasons that were quite private and personal. When you're in jail, when you think you're going to be in jail for a day, it's mildly disagreeable to be in jail for five days. It's just a mildly disagreeable matter. There is no great injustice going on. And I could have stayed in jail for five days. I think looking back on that, I wanted to get out in one day because I had a feeling there was a book in me. And five days in jail could take the edge off of that book. I wanted to get back, I wanted to see my family. I thought if I could get out on bail in one day, I'd come back and serve the three or four days. At that point, the lawyers said, well it'll cost about a thousand dollars to appeal it. Well I said, good Lord then, I'm not going to appeal it. I'm going to go in, and serve the three days, or four days, that remained on my sentence, because that's certainly, you know, I think that's cheaper than a thousand dollars. You know. And, then they said later, well no, we're going to appeal them all in a group. And so far as I know, my case is one of twenty-five or thirty. Now, if they've used that language, as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly pleasant lawyer-talk, it has nothing to do with me. I think you know that you don't keep up with every last detail of your life because there are things written about you by friends or associates of yours that sometimes give you pause. If I'd been consulted I would have said: No, don't word it that way. It's not the proper way to word it. WB: Aha. So you wouldn't... NM: Although I think there is no doubt that I was given the largest sentence because I was well known. The judge said so. He said he was making it a point of me because well known. WB: But on the other hand you went down to Washington because you were well known, as you book makes clear. NM: Oh, I'm not objecting. I mean. In other words, if he would have given me a larger sentence because I'm well known, fine, that's the judge's discretion. It's just that the lawyers maybe thinking that, well that's unfair. That's what they're appealing on, fine. We've all made many jokes, my friends and I, about how this case is going to take five years and I'll get four days. But I've not been, I don't think there's any miscarriage of justice going on. WB: Well, do you, as a general proposition, believe that when you break the law you should go to jail? NM: Well that's an enormously complex matter, and I'm going to get into it with you later, But on this one, I'd say of course. You know, of course, in the sense, in the limited sense that, I was breaking, I was consciously breaking the law. On this matter. And, so I expected to be sent to jail. I also expected, I must admit that the sentence would be very slight. But if I'd known it was greater I think I still would have, you know, planned to get arrested. Because I wished to protest the war in Vietnam. Incidentally, I don't know how we're going to talk about all these matters without mentioning the war in Vietnam from time to time. WB: Well I don't mind particularly, except uhm, your agent told me that you, very emphatically didn't want to talk about the war in Vietnam NM: Well I wanted to talk about... I assume he was talking, or is he like your lawyer. NM: I have many lawyers, and many agents. WB: In other words, can we waive your agent? NM: Actually it wasn't the agent Bill, once again you are inaccurate, it was the publisher's representative. WB: I see. I should remember these distinctions. NM: No, I wanted to talk about the Armies of the Night. WB: Yes, yes, I'm trying to ask about it. NM: Which has a great bit to do about the war in Vietnam. NM: Actually, all I wanted was to keep us from getting into a general philosophical discussion because I don't see how we could do it in an hour. And I thought this would give us something to circle around. And also, the vast deference to your scholarship and your ability to mis-remember facts I've never learned. I wanted to have something I could have for a point of reference. That's why I wanted the book to be discussed. WB: Oh, sure. I'm very anxious to discuss your book. NM: Because I vaguely remember this WB: Which incidentally, I think everyone should read, because I think it's an extremely interesting and enjoyable book, if that's the right word for it. NM: Well I wish someone on the right wing would write a book that would be as good, because it'd be a great help for us on the left. I wanted to help the right wing understand... WB: You wouldn't notice it. NM: No, I would notice it. I have a love of literature. WB: Yes, yes. NM: I think ????? is a marvelous writer. WB: Yeah. NM: Unfortunately he's not an American. WB: Yeah. WB: Unfortunately he's dead. NM: That too. WB: Well the...I do think that one gets a sense, in reading your books, that you develop your own forms of expiation. And that, when you do something which is either ugly, or preposterous, which is worst, at least by your standards. You sort of work it out of your system by writing ruthlessly about it, but it may...it seems to me that part of the rules in your game, in which not everybody can play, is that, these powers that you develop of self-exculpation, are not necessarily those in which other people who don't belong to your own religion, fear. In other words, you can... NM: You mean the Jewish religion, or my private religion? WB: No, obviously I didn't mean the Jewish religion and you knew I didn't mean the Jewish religion. NM: I learned the art of aversion from William F. Buckley. Laughter WB: I mean that...your notion is that you can go down there, ...get uh... ...sloshed... ...and abusive things which Time Magazine writes up rather accurately NM:...parenthetically...witty things as well. They weren't just silly, they were also witty. Many of the remarks were quite witty. I saw a movie of that evening. Some of the stuff was pretty funny. WB: Well yes. NM: ...I was even better than I thought. WB: That's right...sure. And I don't doubt that one can be funny even while being all those other things...right? NM: Drunk. WB: Yeah, drunk, and... NM: Certainly you've seen people who've been funny and drunk. WB: Oh sure. WB: In fact, some people have to become drunk in order to be funny. NM: ...funny, drunk and abusive... NM: I first fell in love with the Irish because they...they had this great gift of being funny, drunk and abusive all at once. WB: It wasn't their religion that did it? NM: It..ah...oh...deep relation to their religion. It may be...yeah...founded a tangential way of Catholicism, which is why I went to Notre-Dame recently. WB: This is why what? NM: Which is why I went to Notre-Dame recently, to have a premiere of my movie... WB: Yes, yes. Because you're fond of the Irish. NM: Fond of the Irish, yes. WB: Well...uh... NM: I'm a racist. Laughter WB: The point, I think, is worth pressing because, a lot of people, as you know, spend many hours agonizing, as postulance, of your religion. And you think, that one of your forms, is this essay, this ruthless, self criticism. Which in itself is very interesting because we've seen it before, haven't we, Saint-Augustin and other of your predecessors, NM: That was very...flattered. WB: A point that no doubt was raised in Notre-Dame. NM: Yeah. Uh. The... WB: My point, is that at the end, you forgive yourself, as a generous man, NM: ...compassion. WB: That's right, yes, as a compassionate man, But this does necessarily happen to all the people who read you, I suppose. They tend to consider, as mitigating, the fact that your muse has been stimulated into Stakhanovite activity. Every time you get into a jam. But, this doesn't necessarily mean that you were right in what you did. Isn't that correct? NM: Well... WB: Doesn't your book in effect contend this? NM: No, what I was trying to do, in the book, if I can say what I was trying do... WB: Sure. NM: Because I listened with enormous interest to everything you were saying... Because it was as Greek to me... Really, I didn't see the book that way. I didn't see as a tremendous confession. I though it was rather a superficial presentation of myself, and my attitudes. WB: Why superficial? NM: Well, I didn't go deeply into...I mean I could write another book, below this book if you will, which would be three times as long, and happily ten times as deep. This book...because I was writing about myself in the third person I felt there was a comic vain that could not be ignored, which I liked, and enjoyed in fact, I think there's nothing more health restoring than to write about something in the third person, for, uh, you know, a period of nine weeks and ninety thousand words. It gives you an incredible detachment about yourself, and, some tolerance and good humor, not only about your foibles, but about your virtues, which is very important. Because, you know, we all tend to have a certain charity for our foibles, but, we always, you know, if we're not careful we get too serious about our virtues. Suddenly, we see the virtues in relation to the foibles, and we take a certain detachment from ourselves, things get a little less irritating, less maddening, a little less, you know, over-passionate. But what I would like to get back to really is that, what I intended in the book, was to show that, there is a, you know, for years, within this newspaper legend that was grown up about me which was overblown, and nominaless?, funny, it was ridiculous, it had me as some sort of, uh, savage, barbaric version of Hemingway. And, you know, I'm half the man's size, physically, and probably literary ways as well. And I just felt that it's part of the madness of America. You know, for years I felt that the greatest trouble with this country is that it's insane. Not the people. But the social mechanisms of the country are insane. Oddly enough, we'd agree on half of the social mechanisms that are insane, and part company altogether on the others. But one of the things I felt, one of the tiny things that I felt, it was certainly insane about, was me. Now, everyone has the idea, that because I write about myself all the time, I think I'm enormously important, I don't, but it's the one thing I really do know something about, it's one thing I'd claim to be an expert on, is myself and my own intellectual adventures. And, uh, in fact, even on the record, it's claiming that I'm an intellectual adventurer. Because for me, the interesting idea is not necessarily in, uh, verifying its certainty, because one rarely can, it's in getting an intimation of whether it's a well placed, or nicely proportioned idea, by the way you feel it, as it passes through you, or as an existential approach to the intellectual man. So I wrote this book, not to exculpate myself, but to show that Time Magazine, finally, was a little mad, They were part of the madness. That the newspaper coverage of this event was part of the madness, because it didn't enter it. You see, it condemned from without. Which is, by the way, the absolute mark of the psychotic. You know, I worked in a mental hospital, years ago when I was in college, for a summer, actually for a week, because I couldn't take it for too long, and, uh, one of the things about all psychotics, in this mental hospital, or almost all of them, was that they all condemned. They had an extraordinary power to condemn, it was absolutely unbelievable. Uh. They had very little perception of what was going on, but, so far as they could perceive anything, they immediately condemned it. WB: Well, uh, are we talking about psychotics and/or Time Magazine? NM: If you noticed, I lumped them together, yes. WB: Yeah. Well now, uh, I think it would be interesting, since you yourself selected that as a point of departure to understand your book in your entire experience, perhaps by considering the rendition of it that was reported in Time Magazine, which struck me even after reading your book, as perfectly, uh, as perfectly accurate. NM: Well, it was perfectly accurate in a superficial way. I chose that, not because it was a, well, we all know you can take an example of Time reporting, that would be inaccurate. I took this because superficially it was quite accurate, if you insist upon looking at everything I do in my book, on a superficial basis, then you'll find that Time Magazine version, is, uh, accurate. But, what I was interested in, is that the real quality of the experience is never captured by not only Time, but by everything that Time stands for, in other words, that kind of journalism. That journalism which appropriates experience, rather than entering it. NM: You see, ah...
WB: Excuse me a second. WB: Now, let's back up a moment. uh In fact, as you recognize in the book, you were very drunk, right? When you were addressing this protest audience. NM: Well no, not very drunk. Very drunk...First of all, Time said I was staggering, they were wrong on that, I wasn't staggering, the proof of that I wasn't staggering, or I wasn't that drunk, is that after the meeting was over, I got down off the stage, walked around, talked to people, went to a party, where I continued to drink for hours, and (unintelligible speech) You know... WB: Well, that's not exactly proof NM: Well it's proof... Generally, when a man's staggering, he's a remarkable fellow if he continues to stagger for the next five or six hours. WB: But you are a remarkable fellow.
NM: You got to be an Irishman to stagger for five to six hours. WB: Well I think that's value judgement maybe, but uh, Time Magazine's point, I think was, that, uh, you moved into the situation, uh, took advantage of it, perhaps because you were nervous, as indeed, you were. Self-conscious, as indeed you were, I'm quoting you not Time, at this particular moment, NM: Well, I wasn't nervous...
WB: It was a pretty conspicuous Mailer performance. Well, I mean the kind of thing people talk about for years to come. NM: I think in all these years I've probably had about three or four occasions, when I have had a lot to drink and talked in public. And, uh. NM: Maybe more..
WB: That's why it's highly conspicuous. NM: A highly conspicuous Mailer performance, when you say a Mailer performance, it seems it's the sort of thing that happens once a week. WB: No, no, no. I say highly conspicuous assuming that you were drunk every time you talked, it wouldn't have been highly conspicuous. And whether it would have been highly conspicuous if Joe E. Lewis let's say... NM: Well the sense I got...from your four words was that it was a typical Mailer performance. WB: Well... NM: You see, maybe I misinterpreted. WB: You should study the inflections of the language. NM: I was listening to the nuances of your voice. WB: (Laughing) WB: Well, what Time Magazine, after all, said: after more obscenities Mailer introduced poet Robert Lowell, who got annoyed at requests to speak louder, I'll bellow, but it won't do any good, he said, and proceeded to read from Lord Weary's Castle. By the time the actions shifts to the Pentagon, Mailer was perky enough to get himself arrested by two marshals. Quote: "I've transgressed a police line, he explained, with some pride on the way to the lock-up where the toilet facilities is scarce indeed and the coffee mugs are low octane." NM: Is that pure Time, "where the toilet facilities were scarce and..." WB: It's pretty good don't you think?
NM: It's good for Time. WB: After all, you were talking about...you were talking about micturition in your book, I never thought... NM: Well that's... WB: ...you utter with that many syllables. NM: ...It's the influence, it's because of our close and continuing correspondence. WB: (Laughter) NM: That's another example of Time Magazine at work though, you know they...earlier in this they talk of my engaging in a scatological solo, you know, extraordinary ambiguous remark, What was I doing, acting like a monkey? Throwing gobbets? You know, that's what you get from the idea of a scatological solo. Whereas actually I spent, the confession I made that night was about micturation, wasn't it? You see. There is a physical, spiritual and probably a philosophical difference between scatological matters and acts of micturation. WB: Well I can see you're a student of the subject. WB: But I...I...
NM: Well I'm glad you can keep up with me. WB: I didn't say I could. I though I could see (unintelligible speech). Let's try to re-focus the discussion. Mine is that Time Magazine observed a lot of people waiting to hear some lecturers, that you, uh, weren't, to use your own word, staggering, or is that their word? NM: Their word was that I was staggering. But my word and I give it to you in confidence, was that I was not. WB: Okay, that you were not, okay. NM: I was bobbing and weaving, but I always do that in public, I mean I'm doing it right now, you know. WB: Yeah, but you...
NM: Who knows where the next question is coming from? WB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But...I think, really, it's worthwhile, rather then to ask you now just, how uh, how sober were you? To ask, why was the fact of your drinking, and the fact of your behaving noticeably, which resulted in news stories in Times Magazine, and lots of whisperings around the country, why is that a part of the experience? As it relates to the to the moral of this book, because the book does have a moral doesn't it? NM: Well, I could answer that, I could answer you for five minutes uh Let me try to take two. To begin with... One of the reasons, let's say, one of the conscious purposeful reasons I was out there drinking, anytime a man gets drunk, he can't state to a certainty that he got drunk for a political reason, or philosophical reason, or a spiritual reason, he may have gotten drunk because he had to get drunk because he was upset about something, there's always that doubt implicit in it, (unintelligible speech) ...as I... ...know my reasons for getting drunk that night, and so far as they had a point, one of the points was, is that I've always found the left to be as stuffy as the right. In other words, the extreme left is about as boring as the extreme right. And I think both suffer terribly from this. And I just wanted to show them that there is a certain sort of, there's a cult of propriety about speaking in public, And uh, this cult insists that the speaker always be completely sober, whereas we know it for a fact, that most speakers, when they get up to speak, you know particularly at banquets and so forth, they're often dead drunk, it's just...they've found a way of doing it where... WB: You sound like Time Magazine. You're not dead drunk because you couldn't speak. NM: Right. Thank you. I'm glad you've learned the fine point I made earlier. WB: I learned that.
NM: Yes you do. You really do discriminate. The notion, I wanted just to get across was that, uh These people get up there, I mean any number of famous poets, authors, politicians and so forth, who really go mongering after a little spit, if I may quote myself for a phrase, they're up there, they're desperate to think of the next phrase because they're sodden with liquor, but they, you know, they take a sense in, before they go on, and they sip a lot of water and they speak slowly, and they say nothing, and they're dully applauded, and they go home. They don't create a disturbance. WB: Why are they asked back? NM: Hm? WB: Why are they asked back? NM: Because they have a name, because people forget, and because they're not trouble. Which is also important. I mean, sometimes you're asked back because you're trouble, sometimes you're asked back because you're not trouble. Depends on the little institution that's inviting you. WB: Yeah. NM: But at any rate, I just wanted to get up there to show them...I can be drunk, and make no pretensions about it, have a marvelous time. There's also a literary tradition, about a literary figure, so called, or legitimate, getting up in public, drunk, and having a good time. Some of the brightest things ever said, are said when you're drunk, because the devil is with you then. You know that as a good Catholic. And, uh, Brendon ??? for instance, I mean the poor man drank himself to death, but was fabulous in public, upon occasion when he was drunk, better then when he was sober. So I thought I was working within a good firm tradition, and I wanted to startle the left, I wanted to get the troops fired up, I wanted to give them a few laughs, and I also wanted to say a great many things. I also was appalled to see, by the uh, the general air of the occasion, there was a pole that hung over the left, because they were in terror before this thing, it was an extraordinary move. You know, people on the left are more law abiding then anybody else, that's why they're on the left. WB: Explain that would you?
NM: I'd be happy to. (Laughter) NM: It's exactly because their lives are so middle class, and full of propriety, that their political ideas become more and more powerful. You very rarely find a leftist who's the kind of guy that goes into a bar and gets drunk every night, and gets in a couple bar brawls. They're always somewhere comfortably between the center and the right, you know. I mean, nine out of ten. You know. I know that much of your support when you ran for Maire came from fellows like that. Because I used to run into them often. "Mailer what do you got against Buckley!" WB: Well, that's just proper enthusiasm. (Laughter) NM: I never resented it. I said if I didn't have an idea in my head I'd be for him myself. WB: You always find just the right words. Well, the uhm, Your point is that the political left, takes its politics so seriously that it understand the necessity for abiding by the law? NM: No sir.
WB: No? NM: No. No. I was talking about emotional matters, I was saying that the left, WB: Yeah. NM: generally...there's no joke... WB:...as involved in politics... NM: There's no joke on the left, that... you know, which is all the dentists yet hung on the barricades. You know. There's something about a proper life that tends to make one a little more radical on one's opinions. And I've always felt that this has been the disease of the left. Just as the disease of the right is greed, bigotry, insensitivity, and general stupidity. So the disease of the left, yourself excluded sir, I assure you of that, So the disease of the left has always been excessive propriety and family life, excessive obedience, to all the small laws of daily life, such as not ...you're only crossing at the corners, you'll find that many more, uh, communists and Trotskyists...will cross the corner, you see they're minutemen. Or FBI men, you know. WB: Well that's because they want to save them, themselves as lawbreakers for major occasions. NM: Well, they may say that to themselves, but I think that the real reason is that they, they think of overturning society because they do not know how to break a few small rules, and laws. Now, I as a existential leftist, as a left conservative, have often felt that what the left needed was a great deal of waking up. And of course, I've always considered myself ridiculous, because I'm always seeing myself as either larger or smaller then I am. You know, on this occasion I saw myself larger then I am. So I thought I could do it. That I could engage in some kind of Herculean activity, you see, lift this entire left movement up on my shoulders. Absolute madness. Narcissism if you will. Of course, what happens is that when you go in for such extraordinary narcissism, you know, it's like a great house cleaning, a spiritual house cleaning. The next day I was full of contrition. I felt very modest. I suddenly realized that these are terribly serious matters, and a funnier man could not only go to jail for a couple of days, but the country kept going the way it was going, if the war in Vietnam continued, that I, this great lifter of the left, was finally probably going to end up just a mean little convict, like any other, having to be in jail for a year, or two, or five because, finally I realized I became so opposed to this war, that I was ready, on a full hungover even, to go to jail, to protest against this war. That was very chastening. Those were the first two days of the, remember I'd said it would take a few minutes to this, WB: Yeah. NM: Those were the first two days... WB: Before you go on, I would like to ask you, uh this. You say that you had been ready to go to jail for a couple of days. But uh... NM: No. WB: Four, five days or whatever.
NM: Oh yes yes. WB: Because of the opposition to the war. But is there a point at which you would have considered that you would not have been prepared to disobey, the law that is to say WB: If the penalty was...
NM: Life imprisonment? NM: Well I think...
WB: Excuse me, about a second Norman, WB: I'm interested in you answering that question because people are groping for means of causing people to abide by the law. And some people, myself for instance, are about ready to believe that some of the punishment for breaking the law, are probably too trivial. So is there a specific point of which you would have been deterred, for instance Dwight Macdonald, made it very clear, on this program, a while ago, that he really didn't want to go to jail NM: Oh, I don't either. Who wants to go to jail? WB: Well, some people would love it. NM: A few do. A few do. But I can't say I'm one of them now. WB: Yeah. NM: No. I'm too much of a pleasure lover to even dream of enjoying jail. WB: Yeah, yeah. NM: But, in an answer to your question, let's say if the penalty had been life imprisonment, WB: To take an extreme. NM: Well I don't know what I would have done. I would have been forced into the underground. Or leave the country. Or turn into an enemy of the country. WB: Well, aren't you, in one sense, an enemy of the country? NM: No sir. Not yet. Not yet. WB: Now, what do you mean "not yet"? NM: Well, I mean I still believe that this country is a marvelous country, and that one fights within this country. If one's completely whipped off the board, in other words if you really have no way to fight for your ideas in this country then you have to decide one of two things, which is either one, your ideas are wrong, or two, the country is wrong. WB: Correct, but, we have, for instance, mister Gore Vidal, who says that unless we elect an anti-Vietnam war President in November of 1968, he will renounce his citizenship, his reasoning is, that if in fact the American people ratify a war he considers sort of detestable, then...then, he will become finally convinced that the American people are not worth associating with. On the contrary he must disassociate with. You don't share that? Do you? NM: Well, I don't, because I don't, for one thing, I don't think that the vote is a pure expression of the people at any given time anyway. The vote is a much too crude an instrument to measure what real feelings are in the country. Moreover, uh, politics is extraordinarily complex and dialectical and contradictory. For example, Nixon could get in, and get in on a pro-war policy and be the man to make the peace. Precisely because he's a republican, and that's a long theory of mine, it's the democrats who start the wars and republicans who finish them. Mainly because the democrats always have to prove they're not communists, so they always have to be militant against the communists. The republicans don't have to prove that, so they can make peace with the communists. If you look at the last few wars, that's how they've been going. WB: You regret that. WB: No. I think it's part of the pleasurable comedy of politics. As you can see. I don't take politicians seriously, except as adventurers. I think they're splendid fellows as adventurers. And I admire many of their qualities. I admire their ability to move from idea to idea, and bed to bed. At that they're exceptional. WB: Well the, uh the, you say that the democrats are always feeling the necessity to prove that they are not communists, but, are you glad that they are not communists? NM: Am I glad they are not communists?
WB: Yeah. NM: Listen, I detest communism, I detest it much more than you do because I know much more about it. I mean, I've read, for instance I've read Marx. You know, studied him, I've spent three months studying him. I love Marx, you see, I just detest communism, because it betrayed Marx. It's the way you might detest some awful Christian sect that had completely betrayed Christ. You know. WB: Yeah, uhm. I certainly understand what you're talking about. But it is of course true that the typical communist who lives, let's say, on the other side of the Iron Curtain, would be much less frightened by a Mailer administration than say a Buckley administration. NM: No, I think they could comprehend... WB: ...As far as they are concerned, I think they would probably consider, the people I support as more relevantly anti-communist than the people you support. The last time you were heard of on a political rampart was on a committee on being friends to Castro, a fair play for Castro committee, or NM: Oh, I'm still...I still am all for Castro, I think he's a remarkable man. Let me just say that, I think the the communists would probably, well I can't pretend that they'd ever be the least bit happy with you, they would feel a certain security, which is, they would feel, they would have some idea of what you're about to do next. They couldn't ever feel that with me. I love the way we treat each other as world leaders. You see I'm not the only narcissist in the house. WB: You always told me to respect your metaphors which I'm just doing. NM: I'm glad that we're getting to find some conjunction of discourse. I'm begging to...well...let it go at that. But the...the...No, for instance, see, I like to keep a certain freedom, a certain liberty to look at the lineaments of major figures. For instance, just until the strikes started in France, as of a week ago, I was saying I though that the two greatest political figures, in the world today, were Fidel Castro and Charles de Gaulle. Now, I think I may still be able to say that a week from now, because I think, so far I think de Gaulle has been acting sort of... ...I think he's the worlds greatest living conservative. You know, I think he's a remarkable man. I'm tremendously fond of him. I have great respect for him. I have great respect for Castro. The point is that...you know, it's just the way you would want, one could have great respect for a, saints and generals. for...euh...criminals and cops. You know, there is such a thing as great cop, and there is such a thing as a great criminal. And the way that I work, it's very hard to explain this to people, but I don't think in categories, I think... ...I'd rather think this way...that the world is better off, if every so called type, in the world, is better. There's a better world when the cops get better and the criminals get better. It's a poorer world where the cops are dull and the criminals are dull. In other words, as an existentialist what I believe is, what really is important at that moment, is how much life there is, how much psychic life, how much spiritual life, how much physical life, WB: Yeah, but I think we better stop and rescue that from banality. NM: Please do, because I can't see where the banality is, [Inaudible chatter] WB: What it is...what it is that decides that makes, for instance, a good criminal class, WB: for instance, we don't...
NM: Imagination. WB: Well...
NM: Vitality. NM: Brilliance.
WB: Well, for instance... WB: ....we might say, Hitler showed extraordinary imagination, when you consider the scale in which he undertook genocide. NM: He was absolutely...he was absolutely untrue to his own ideas. He betrayed his own ideas. WB: No, no, but, this is to introduce...this is to introduce another element. The presumed idea is that the criminal, whether the criminal is a mass murderer, or a, or an arson or a thief, is to perfect his craft. So if you're asking for a better criminal, I think you'd better make it clear what it is that you mean. NM: Let me say that I don't...I'm obviously not going to carry this to every ridiculous extreme. [Inaudible chatter] NM: A mass murderer, is not, is not a, is not necessarily a criminal. You know, one of the best remarks that Marx ever made, and I do recommend him for your reading, or maybe this was Engels in fact, euhm... NM: ...is that...
WB: You're asking me? NM: Oh no sir, no. If you'd know the answer that one I'll be in your service. Is that quantity changes quality. You see, a man who kills one man, may be moral, or immoral, we can't know, we have to go, we have to know intimately what happened. Generally the assumption is that he was immoral. Grievously immoral. At the very least we know that he has changed his life so profoundly, and that he has now, so much, if you believe in a mortal soul as I do, which you can gain or lose, euh...that he has so endangered his soul, that we can't look upon his condition as a light one, you know, and I would not presume to judge him too quickly. A man who murders four, five, people is already a man of an all of different sort. A man who murders millions, is a man who defies our conception of what it is to be a man. And so for that reason, euh, I would be perfectly willing for my hypothesis to dwindle and die long before we get to the man who kills three or four people. You see. We have to be allowed a little wit when we speak of these matters. WB: How long is long before you kill three of four people?
NM: One. WB: One.
NM: One. NM: Once a philosopher, twice a pervert. That's the key to keep in mind. WB: I don't promise to keep it in mind. I promise to keep it mind that you keep it in mind. NM: Well actually it's not mine it's Voltaire's. WB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well the euh... Your notion then that, euh, the improvement of people in categories, is something that which you as an artist desire, and you do not, or do, relate this to your position as a leftist. NM: Well it would be a left conservative.
WB: Yeah. NM: You know, and since that's an odd category to say the least, I don't, euh, think of myself as a leftist anymore. I think of myself as a left-conservative, you know. There are places, where a tree is quite as important as people. Euh...It...it...euh There are places where you have to draw the line. We have to say, well maybe it may even be better that a few people may go hungry, you see, then that everyone have banal food. You know, which is after all part of the problem, I think, of the modern temper. Which is, how do we solve, or listen. But. WB: Therefore, it makes no difference to you, as far as I can understand, what is the effect, of an individuals' regime, on the people that he rules. So much, euh, as it makes the difference what is the style by which he rules? For instance, we know, that the flight from Cuba is on the scale of the flight from Hitler, larger as a matter of fact, as a matter of percentage of national population. We know that, euh, euh... conventional and unconventional freedoms don't exist, including certain freedoms that you profess yourself, I'm sure convincingly, as attached to. And yet you admire Castro. What is it about Castro that you find so admirable? And how is it that you permit him to defy your "...twice a pervert..." rule? Since he's killed twice times a thousand. NM: Well, well, look, all government leaders kill people. I mean, you know, that you should take for granted. WB: Not all. NM: Bill...excuse me...Mister Buckley We cannot mix these categories. If we're talking about murderers, you know, I said I draw the line at one: Once a philosopher, twice a pervert. You're talking about governments. Governments kill one way or another. Euh. They killed all sorts of ways. We're beginning to talk about how people get killed in America. Now, we might have a, we might part company on it. You might say that they died because they get into all of the ??? accidents. I might...Ralph Nader might say they died because there's been a systematic lack of effort, to design cars properly to protect the people who drive them. NM: You see where I'm getting at.
WB: Yeah. NM: I could say that people die in New York City, in an incredible rate of lung cancer because the air in the city is no longer fit to breathe. You might say that, well that's part of the twentieth century, I might say it's part of the greed and blindness of the American capitalist system. WB: Yeah but, I think there is an obvious distinction here, that if you...that if it escapes you, or oughtn't to, which is that one has to distinguish between the quality of the act of somebody who kills somebody in an effort to insist that a society that oblige his views of how it ought to proceed and somebody who simply killed, in a sense, accidentally, as a result of how that particular society evolutionized. I don't think, for instance, that Henry Ford, the discoverer of the automobile, should go down in anybody's history book as the greatest mass murderer of the century even though more people have been killed by automobiles probably than by almost any other means short of war. This is, surely, elementary, but not so much... NM: I'm not...You're extending my point, to place where it becomes absurd, which is not quite the same as my point, which is over here. You know, not all remarks are to be extrapolated out to infinity. In fact most remarks fall off the table... WB: Remarks of a fanatic, yeah. NM: Yes. Anyone who would make that remark about Ford would be a fanatic. WB: Yeah NM: I'm not a fanatic, in fact I'm trying to...euh...extirpate fanaticism, in conversation wherever I find it. WB: You keep curious company under the circumstances. NM: You mean with Castro. Let's go back to Castro. WB: Also with some of the gang who go around saying that Lyndon Johnson is the greatest mass murderer of the age... NM: We'll I'll tell you what I will say about Lyndon Johnson... I'll tell you what I will say about Lyndon Johnson... which is that, given this country, given this sort of fine, marvelous country, with this extraordinarily agreeable genial life, you know, in so many ways, with the easiness of life in America, with the prosperity of life in America, the fact that we were around burning children in Asia, is...euh...makes him... in my mind a murderer of such...ominous and abominable propensities... I would not wish to say that he was superior to Hitler in that category. He is a shocking man. That I would say. W.B.: Yeah, well, I think it is a pretty shocking thing for you to say under the circumstances...euh...euh To being with, incredibly vulgar... [Inaudible] To say we go around burning children in Vietnam. There's a sense in which...[pause]...[pause]... Everyone, I think, ought to be mature enough to recognize that one of the things that makes war despicable is that was is despicable. And if you can have very pleasant wars in which women and children and men over 29... and under 19 were never hurt . And that all deaths should be neat and punctilious then might be able to speak about wars in other senses. But the very fact that children get burned in a war is simply an acknowledgment of the fact that children exist. It's exonerate of nothing else then that. And if you're trying to insinuate, then I think you should be apologetic for have done so, that Lyndon Johnson attempts to burn children because this is how he satisfies his perversity. N.M.: May I answer that? W.B.: And then you need to write another book with explanation. [Inaudible] N.M.: The thought that first occurs to me is that, there is a way to have the kind of war that your are talking about, a clean war. War by now, I believe, is fought for image. In other words, short of a nuclear war, in which there would be a real exchange of power, to which one country would finally end up physically dominant over another country. The sort of wars that go on now, are really wars which can affect state keep your peace, we are stronger than you. Do not move in on us. Do not invade. Do not attack. If we can just adopt a little convention, to have, to recognize that, that ground wars by now, and air wars, which are short of nuclear wars, are fought for image. We can buy [inaudible] of the amazon. W.B.: Why to you call it image? For instance, when Israel tries to rebuff the Arabs, do you call it image, that they designed? N.M.: That was altogether another war. Are we going to talk about all wars? W.B.: All wars are different except those that you say are the same. N.M.: No, no, no....I don't...I...I am perfectly... W.B.: Because, firstly, you started by saying, all wars, nowadays, are fought for image except for nuclear wars. So I brought up the Israeli war. And now you say, except it. Are you going to wrench everything as.... N.M.: I didn't all wars. I said all our wars. Sorry, I was imprecise. I'll give you that. All our wars are fought for image. All our war with communism are fought for image. We obviously cannot have a war with communism which is going to dominate communism. We're not capable of defeating the communists anymore. And the communists are not capable of defeating us any longer in a ground, air, war. It would have to be a nuclear war for one side to win, and then, obviously, or so it seems, there would be very little left. Let's go on and finish one point at a time. I don't want all these points to be left behind. Like Castro, Israel, what have you. I have a perfect right to separate wars. To speak of one war as being a good war and another war of not being a good war. Because if you don't do that then you have to argue that all wars are good or all wars are bad. And test the point of you that says all wars are bad. Because then you end up with, sort of, with nothing but vegetarians and pacifists. And I think that life is more active then that. And I think that, for instance, I believe, and this is the conservative side of my politics, that a young man who's is willing to die for his country is not a ignoble or a ridiculous young fellow. I think it's tragic, when he's asked to die in a war, which is absurd. But then you may say then, who am I to decide that war in Vietnam is absurd? Well then we have the argument on that ground. Whether it's an absurd war or not. W.B.: Which is certainly a ground that I don't funk. N.M.: No, no. You have your opinions and I have mine. And if you want we can get into that. But what I am getting at it that, is that I don't want to be boxed into a corner, where I'm trying to sweep the food off the table, through logical niceties. How is that for a mixed metaphor? W.B.: Pretty bad. [Laughter] W.B.: You were saying mister Mailer. N.M: I wanted to get back to some of the points that we bypassed... W.B.: Yeah. N.M.: While we were talking quickly. One of them is my feelings about Castro. W.B.: Yeah. To begin with, one of the reasons why, the number of, the rate of people not the absolute number, but the rate of people that left Cuba have been greater than those that have left Nazi Germany, which I take from you as being factual, it might not be... if it is, there are a number of reasons for it, one of them is that Castro let them out, not keep them from going out. He allowed them to leave. He didn't always allow them to leave. But there was a period... W.B.: Well, that's historically inaccurate. He'd allowed anybody to leave, but he wouldn't allow people to leave with their property. Castro has not allowed anybody to leave with his property. And has been extremely erratic in the flow of people that he allows out. For instance, he makes them go to Madrid. Which means for anybody who leaves has to be capitalized to the tune of about 800 dollars for a ticket to Madrid on over to North America, which is a form of torture that I don't think you particularly admire. N.M.: It's not agreeable. No, I would not admire that. And in fact, if I were ever to talk to him, I would talk to him and say, why do you do that? I wouldn't say cut it out, I would say why do you do that? W.B.: What would he say? N.M.: I'd be interested in his reply. Might be different than yours. W.B.: I hope so. N.M.: But at any rate, the reason I admire him is because the man has a heroic quality because the Cuba, I believe, the Cuba under Batista was far worse than it is today. I think it was an ugly, obscene, disgusting place. I think today, I have a hunch, that there are any number aspects of Cuba that I would detest, I that probably a fanaticism and militancy... W.B.: This is very fashionable, I heard this very very often , and I think it is thoughtlessly said, for instance, I hope you remember that National Review loathed Batista, but, under Batista, at his worst, there were certain things that you could do, for instance, you could found an opposition newspaper, for instance, you could publish your book, for instance, you could join a labor union, for instance, you could strike, for instance, you could travel in and out of the country, for instance, you could practice your religion freely. Now it seems to me that, here is a list of six things which even up against the personal vulgarity of Batista, made life in Cuba a hell of a lot preferable under him than his successor. N.M.: Well it's certainly different for the middle classes in Cuba. W.B.: Well, poor people too. Poor people read books. N.M.: Well, no. There was a very low literacy rate in Cuba. Castro has improved literacy rate enormously. W.B.: Well enormously, yeah. N.M.: Well I don't have the figures, so I won't say enormously. Certainly he's improved them. You won't pretend that he hasn't improved them. W.B.: No, no, I don't pretend that. For you to say, that after all, poor people don't really need freedom, whether economic or political... N.M.: I'm not saying that. I'm saying the opposite of that. W.B.: You're saying that in effect. You're saying, well these are middle class values. What about joining the labor union? You're suppose to be for that aren't you? N.M.: No, well, let's. One point at a time. The poor people never had any freedom under Batista. They had the freedom to starve in one place, they had the to being beaten half to death by the local police, W.B.: That isn't true you know. I gather you think this is true, because I'm sure you wouldn't say it otherwise, but in point in fact, it isn't true you know? The only people who were beaten by the Batista police, were people who wanted to replace him. He was a despot. I don't deny this. But I'm simply saying that since most people do not want to replace the government, and since in point in fact, it was the middle class who led the movement against Batista, not the lower class, in point in fact, therefore the lower class enjoyed a great many freedoms which were tangible things for them, and which nowadays are not allowed to enjoy. and for you to goblinize the whole era of the 50's as a period during which the poor people just simply had half a banana a day and spent the rest of their time in prison, it's just plain inaccurate. It's Mailer melodrama. Or the kind that makes it much easier for you to justify again the Mailer expiation. You're having subscribed to a committee which was bankrolled by Castro himself it turns out, called the Fair-play for Castro Committee. It's these myopia of yours that make you less than a reliable witness. You're a wonderful writer, but a terrible witness. N.M.: Well, are you done? Laughter N.M.: The point I would like to get back to which is why Castro is a great man. Great men are great men because they have the imagination to seize a moment in their history and embody it. And move a country from one condition to another. It's then left for the likes of you and me, to debate the points of whether a country has been improved or has not improved. I can answer everything you've said by saying that there's an extraordinary spirit in Cuba today, there's an atmosphere of hope, plenty things I've heard... W.B.: That's true of Nazi Germany too. N.M.: Well we could get to that too if we had time. Sometimes a country could feel great hope and not be moving in a good direction, be moving in a hideous direction. Sometimes a country could be moving in a hideous direction and feel great hope because the entire world is obscene. W.B.: Yeah, sure sure. N.M.: The world is moving into toward an abyss. And any orgy of killing releases this releases a pause of emotions because people feel animal again and alive. Whereas modern technological society is destroying them. These are enormous points. The one point I do want to make is that Castro, had the ability, to fight the 20th century. And that's why I admire him profoundly. When he landed in Cuba, to try to take Cuba from Batista, He landed with 80 men, 68 of them were killed in the first couple of days. They were without food for 5 days, wandering at night. At a certain point on the fifth day he turned to the other people and he said the days of the dictatorship are numbered. And the man who reported said I thought our leader was mad. And of course he was mad unless he succeeded. You see, many a man would say something like that on such an occasion. He succeeded. Which meant that he had...the man has a greatness which nobody on the right wing is able to, willing to allow him. By the same token De Gaulle had a greatness. De Gaulle had the ability to see that the only way France was going to be able to W.B.: Do you know why I disagree with you? For this very reason that expedition of this kind are not uncommon in this century or in others. And I join with you in admiring the quality of the stubborn idealism who join in these expeditions, But in point in fact, it's not, as a general rule, they who make them successful, it's historical, and accidental events. That decide whether or not Castro was going to descend from the Sierra Maestra. For instance, if it had been that a particular sharp shooter had actually sighted Castro, N.M.: They didn't. W.B.: Well, but the fact it was by pure accident. N.M.: I don't believe it was by pure accident. W.B.: It was an accident that John Kennedy was shot and Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasn't. By the assassin who killed Sumac instead. This doesn't make Oswald a man of history in the sense in which you're talking about. N.M.: Well we don't know that Oswald did the killing altogether do we? W.B.: I do.
N.M.: Well you see I don't. Laughter N.M.: Every time you speak or I speak we open a can of beans. W.B.: Yeah. The floor is littered with beans by now. W.B.: Would you mind answering this gentleman's question. He has...Excuse me. Gentleman: Mister Mailer, I just like to know what happened? I mean... When I read your work 'The Armies of the Night', when it was published in Harper's, you were so much more aggressive, I mean, you know, you said what you wanted, and you know, that was it. Here, I seem to think that you are...you're circling around... you're going around everything. W.B.: Anfractuous. N.M.: Factious, what is fractious? W.B.: Anfractuous, that's what Dwight Macdonald said about you. N.M.: I can only say that I was doing my best in speaking as quickly as I could, throwing in as much in it as I could, if you think I didn't do well I'm dashed. I hope that there are millions who disagree with you. Audience member: Mister Mailer you were talking before...this on?... You were talking before about your belief in the soul, and your belief in losing and gaining a soul. Yet you also have this feeling, this existential philosophy which you have, and the two seem very contradictory, the belief in soul and a God, I would believe, and an existentialism, which would be atheistic. They seem to contradict... N.M.: No, no, no.
W.B.: Kierkegaard was an existentialist. N.M.: Sartre is the leading existential atheist. But I'm not atheist at all. There's nothing about existentialism that lends itself to atheism, in fact, it's rather difficult, philosophically, to be an existentialist and an atheist because the first notion of existentialism is that the very feel of the existence that surrounds you at any given moment has enormous meaning, I mean it's a very crude way of putting it but Audience member: Yeah but it has meaning to you, not to... N.M.: Well, were I'm getting at is that from that point, it's easier to move philosophically to the idea, of at least a God, and probably a God and a Devil. And forces about one rather than to believe just that one's one own concrete body and there's no meaning beyond oneself. Audience member: Thank you. W.B.: And there was one more question I think. Yes sir. You need the mic handed back would you? Audience member: Mister Mailer you spoke earlier, at the same time you were talking about Castro about De Gaulle and called him something to the effect the most remarkable demi-conservative in the world today. Do you find that, are you basing that judgement upon the way he's sustained his regime over, in the context of the events of the past few days? And if so, how do you rationalize that with the fact that, his regime even allowed this, a general strike which encompassed ten million people to take place within his country. N.M.: Well, a man can you know, I can say a man is the greatest, I think is the greatest representative of his political philosophy, that doesn't mean he's going to be completely successful. In fact, he may even create a disaster eventually. Castro could fall, De Gaulle could fall. What I admire De Gaulle for is that at a certain point he had a profound comprehension of the French character if you will. And I think what he felt is that France was going to perish. From within. It was just going to dissipate itself if it tried to enter the European community and nations as one other nation. In other words, it would end up being the least important nation. And what he saw was that France had to become the power, again, in Europe. Because Frenchmen, just couldn't take themselves seriously unless they were the most important, at least the most important nation in Europe. And so he set out to do that. And he made a whole series of very bold strokes, which also consisted of breaking up a great many alliances with America and England. Which was a very risky thing for him to do. In other words, he was a bold man. He was very bold. He was bold like Churchill was bold. Took bold steps. The marker of a good conservative to me is that they're bold. Because... W.B.: Well, come on, come on, why is that the marker of a good conservative? N.M.: Well, because conservatism since it does hold to so many fixed positions, you see, is always in danger of dying of...not obesity but that thing where you have too much water...edema. I think edema is the natural disease of the conservative. And so...there's a certain boldness... the fact, the conservative modes of life, after all, most conservatives are horse jumpers. W.B.: In that parallel sense what would be the marker of a good liberal? N.M.: There are times where I say there is no such thing as a good liberal. W.B.: Stolidity? N.M.: I can't talk about liberals, because I think that they're the agents of the technological society all over the world. W.B.: Good night. Thank you. Laughter
