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New documentary lays bare the heated Vidal-Buckley debates of 1968

It was in 1968, a presidential-election year, that ABC came up with a bold idea. What if, during the political conventions taking place that summer, these two notorious enemies [Gore Vidal and Bill Buckley] could be coaxed into appearing together on live TV to argue politics with each other? Wouldn’t that boost the network’s dismal third-place ratings? Wouldn’t it be ripping-good theater?

It proved to be more ripping than the network could foresee. Despite their aversion to each other, Buckley and Vidal were unable to resist this proposition: They both lusted for the sort of fame that television could provide them as salesmen for their ideas. (“Never turn down the opportunity to have sex or to be on television” was Vidal’s motto.) Their series of ten nightly clashes — beginning at the relatively staid Republican convention in Miami and continuing through the bloodily tumultuous Democratic convention in Chicago — went from stylish vituperation to arch bitchiness to near fisticuffs, culminating in an explosive exchangebetween the two combatants that left network executives and viewers at home not quite able to believe what they had heard: Vidal calling Buckley a “pro- or crypto-Nazi” and Buckley calling Vidal a “queer” and threatening to “sock” him “in the goddamn face.” Such language on television was unprecedented. As Dick Cavett later commented: “The network nearly shat.” …

The epic parry and thrust was unforgettable to those who saw it on TV — not quite rising, perhaps, to the standard of Gladstone and Disraeli, but certainly better than anything we’ve witnessed since. When Nixon was asked to what purpose he would put the auditorium of his presidential library, he said it should be used to reenact “great debates like — oh, Vidal and Buckley.”

But why reenact them when we have the tapes? A couple of years ago, I discovered that bits and pieces of the original debate broadcasts had been uploaded to YouTube. Out of nostalgia, I have watched them repeatedly — enough that I am able to do a fairly creditable impression of Vidal and Buckley, which I perform, without prompting, during any lull at a dinner party. I have learned to mimic the way Buckley meticulously intones all three syllables of the word “queer”: “Now, listen, you quee-ay-uh …”

And now the battle royal between Vidal and Buckley is the subject of a superbly entertaining documentary, Best of Enemies. Drawing on archival footage (supplemented by the actors Kelsey Grammer and John Lithgow), the film captures the high drama of the debates and provides a nostalgia bath for those of us wistful about that vanished era when men of letters would engage in highbrow jousting on national TV — and when everybody wanted to watch.

Read entire article at New York Magazine