An interview with Gore Vidal
by Marc Cooper
HE MIGHT BE AMERICA'S LAST small-r republican.Gore Vidal, now 76, has made a lifetime out of critiquing America'simperial impulses and has -- through two dozen novels and hundreds ofessays -- argued tempestuously that the U.S. should retreat back toits more Jeffersonian roots, that it should stop meddling in theaffairs of other nations and the private affairs of its owncitizens.
That's the thread that runs through Vidal's latestbest-seller -- an oddly packaged collection of essays published inthe wake of September 11 titled Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace:How We Got To Be So Hated. To answer the question in his subtitle,Vidal posits that we have no right to scratch our heads over whatmotivated the perpetrators of the two biggest terror attacks in ourhistory, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and last September'stwin-tower holocaust.
Vidal writes: "It is a law of physics (still onthe books when last I looked) that in nature there is no actionwithout reaction. The same appears to be true in human nature -- thatis, history." The "action" Vidal refers to is the hubris of anAmerican empire abroad (illustrated by a 20-page chart of 200 U.S.overseas military adventures since the end of World War II) and abudding police state at home. The inevitable "reaction," says Vidal,is nothing less than the bloody handiwork of Osama bin Laden andTimothy McVeigh. "Each was enraged," he says, "by our government'sreckless assaults upon other societies" and was, therefore,"provoked" into answering with horrendous violence.
Some might take that to be a suggestion thatAmerica had it coming on September 11. So when I met up with Vidal inthe Hollywood Hills home he maintains (while still residing most ofhis time in Italy), the first question I asked him wasthis:
L.A. WEEKLY: Are you arguing that the 3,000civilians killed on September 11 somehow deserved theirfate?
GORE VIDAL: I don't think we, the American people,deserved what happened. Nor do we deserve the sort of governments wehave had over the last 40 years. Our governments have brought thisupon us by their actions all over the world. I have a list in my newbook that gives the reader some idea how busy we have been.Unfortunately, we only get disinformation from The New York Times andother official places. Americans have no idea of the extent of theirgovernment's mischief. The number of military strikes we have madeunprovoked, against other countries, since 1947-48 is more than 250.These are major strikes everywhere from Panama to Iran. And it isn'teven a complete list. It doesn't include places like Chile, as thatwas a CIA operation. I was only listing military attacks.
Americans are either not told about these thingsor are told we attacked them because . . . well . . . Noriega is thecenter of all world drug traffic and we have to get rid of him. So wekill some Panamanians in the process. Actually we killed quite a few.And we brought in our Air Force. Panama didn't have an air force. Butit looked good to have our Air Force there, busy, blowing upbuildings. Then we kidnap their leader, Noriega, a former CIA man whoworked loyally for the United States. We arrest him. Try him in anAmerican court that has no jurisdiction over him and lock him up --nobody knows why. And that was supposed to end the drug trade becausehe had been demonized by The New York Times and the rest of theimperial press.
[The government] plays off[Americans'] relative innocence, or ignorance to be moreprecise. This is probably why geography has not really been taughtsince World War II -- to keep people in the dark as to where we areblowing things up. Because Enron wants to blow them up. Or Unocal,the great pipeline company, wants a war going some place.
And people in the countries who are recipients ofour bombs get angry. The Afghans had nothing to do with what happenedto our country on September 11. But Saudi Arabia did. It seems likeOsama is involved, but we don't really know. I mean, when we wentinto Afghanistan to take over the place and blow it up, ourcommanding general was asked how long it was going to take to findOsama bin Laden. And the commanding general looked rather surprisedand said, well, that's not why we are here.
Oh no? So what was all this about? It was aboutthe Taliban being very, very bad people and that they treated womenvery badly, you see. They're not really into women's rights, and wehere are very strong on women's rights; and we should be with Bush onthat one because he's taking those burlap sacks off of women's heads.Well, that's not what it was about.
What it was really about -- and you won't get thisanywhere at the moment -- is that this is an imperial grab for energyresources. Until now, the Persian Gulf has been our main source forimported oil. We went there, to Afghanistan, not to get Osama andwreak our vengeance. We went to Afghanistan partly because theTaliban -- whom we had installed at the time of the Russianoccupation -- were getting too flaky and because Unocal, theCalifornia corporation, had made a deal with the Taliban for apipeline to get the Caspian-area oil, which is the richest oilreserve on Earth. They wanted to get that oil by pipeline throughAfghanistan to Pakistan to Karachi and from there to ship it off toChina, which would be enormously profitable. Whichever big companycould cash in would make a fortune. And you'll see that all thesecompanies go back to Bush or Cheney or to Rumsfeld or someone else onthe Gas and Oil Junta, which, along with the Pentagon, governs theUnited States.
We had planned to occupy Afghanistan in October,and Osama, or whoever it was who hit us in September, launched apre-emptory strike. They knew we were coming. And this was a warningto throw us off guard.
With that background, it now becomes explicablewhy the first thing Bush did after we were hit was to get SenatorDaschle and beg him not to hold an investigation of the sort anynormal country would have done. When Pearl Harbor was struck, within20 minutes the Senate and the House had a joint committee ready.Roosevelt beat them to it, because he knew why we had been hit, so heset up his own committee. But none of this was to come out, and ithasn't come out.
Still, even if one reads the chart of militaryinterventions in your book and concludes that, indeed, the U.S.government is a "source of evil" -- to lift a phrase -- can't youconceive that there might be other forces of evil as well? Can't youimagine forces of religious obscurantism, for example, that actindependently of us and might do bad things to us, just because theyare also evil?
Oh yes. But you picked the wrong group. You pickedone of the richest families in the world -- the bin Ladens. They areextremely close to the royal family of Saudi Arabia, which has connedus into acting as their bodyguard against their own people -- who areeven more fundamentalist than they are. So we are dealing with apowerful entity if it is Osama.
What isn't true is that people like him just comeout of the blue. You know, the average American thinks we just giveaway billions in foreign aid, when we are the lowest in foreign aidamong developed countries. And most of what we give goes to Israeland a little bit to Egypt.
I was in Guatemala when the CIA was preparing itsattack on the Arbenz government [in 1954]. Arbenz, who was ademocratically elected president, mildly socialist. His state had norevenues; its biggest income maker was United Fruit Company. SoArbenz put the tiniest of taxes on bananas, and Henry Cabot Lodge gotup in the Senate and said the Communists have taken over Guatemalaand we must act. He got to Eisenhower, who sent in the CIA, and theyoverthrew the government. We installed a military dictator, andthere's been nothing but bloodshed ever since.
Now, if I were a Guatemalan and I had the means todrop something on somebody in Washington, or anywhere Americans were,I would be tempted to do it. Especially if I had lost my entirefamily and seen my country blown to bits because United Fruit didn'twant to pay taxes. Now, that's the way we operate. And that's why wegot to be so hated.
You've spent decades bemoaning the erosion ofcivil liberties and the conversion of the U.S. from a republic intowhat you call an empire. Have the aftereffects of September 11,things like the USA Patriot bill, merely pushed us further down theroad or are they, in fact, some sort of historic turningpoint?
The second law of thermodynamics always rules:Everything is always running down. And so is our Bill of Rights. Thecurrent junta in charge of our affairs, one not legally elected, butput in charge of us by the Supreme Court in the interests of the oiland gas and defense lobbies, have used first Oklahoma City and nowSeptember 11 to further erode things.
And when it comes to Oklahoma City and TimMcVeigh, well, he had his reasons as well to carry out his dirtydeed. Millions of Americans agree with his general reasoning, thoughno one, I think, agrees with the value of blowing up children. Butthe American people, yes, they instinctively know when the governmentgoes off the rails like it did at Waco and Ruby Ridge. No one hasbeen elected president in the last 50 years unless he ran against thefederal government. So, the government should get through its headthat it is hated not only by foreigners whose countries we havewrecked, but also by Americans whose lives have beenwrecked.
The whole Patriot movement in the U.S. was basedon folks run off their family farms. Or had their parents orgrandparents run off. We have millions of disaffected Americancitizens who do not like the way the place is run and see no place init where they can prosper. They can be slaves. Or pick cotton. Orwhatever the latest uncomfortable thing there is to do. But they arenot going to have, as Richard Nixon said, "a piece of theaction."
And yet Americans seem quite susceptible to asort of jingoistic "enemy-of-the-month club" coming out ofWashington. You say millions of Americans hate the federalgovernment. But something like 75 percent of Americans say theysupport George W. Bush, especially on the issue of thewar.
I hope you don't believe those figures. Don't youknow how the polls are rigged? It's simple. After 9/11 the countrywas really shocked and terrified. [Bush] does a little wardance and talks about evil axis and all the countries he's going togo after. And how long it is all going to take, he says with a happysmile, because it means billions and trillions for the Pentagon andfor his oil friends. And it means curtailing our liberties, so thisis all very thrilling for him. He's right out there reacting, bombingAfghanistan. Well, he might as well have been bombing Denmark.Denmark had nothing to do with 9/11. And neither did Afghanistan, atleast the Afghanis didn't.
So the question is still asked, are you standingtall with the president? Are you standing with him as he defendsus?
Eventually, they will figure it out.
They being who? The Americanpeople?
Yeah, the American people. They are asked thesequick questions. Do you approve of him? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah,he blew up all those funny-sounding cities over there.
That doesn't mean they like him. Mark my words. Hewill leave office the most unpopular president in history. The juntahas done too much wreckage.
They were suspiciously very ready with the PatriotAct as soon as we were hit. Ready to lift habeas corpus, due process,the attorney-client privilege. They were ready. Which means they havealready got their police state. Just take a plane anywhere today andyou are in the hands of an arbitrary police state.
Don't you want to have that kind of protectionwhen you fly?
It's one thing to be careful, and we certainlywant airplanes to be careful against terrorist attacks. But this isjoy for them, for the federal government. Now they've got everybody,because everybody flies.
Let's pick away at one of your favorite bones,the American media. Some say they have done a better-than-usual jobsince 9/11. But I suspect you're not buying that?
No, I don't buy it. Part of the year I live inItaly. And I find out more about what's going on in the Middle Eastby reading the British, the French, even the Italian press.Everything here is slanted. I mean, to watch Bush doing his littlewar dance in Congress . . . about "evildoers" and this "axis of evil"-- Iran, Iraq and North Korea. I thought, he doesn't even
know what the word axis means. Somebody just gaveit to him. And the press didn't even call him on it. This is about asmindless a statement as you could make. Then he comes up with about adozen other countries that might have "evil people" in them, whomight commit "terrorist acts." What is a terrorist act? Whatever hethinks is a terrorist act. And we are going to go after them. Becausewe are good and they are evil. And we're "gonna git 'em."
Anybody who could get up and make that speech tothe American people is not himself an idiot, but he's convinced weare idiots. And we are not idiots. We are cowed. Cowed bydisinformation from the media, a skewed view of the world, andatrocious taxes that subsidize this permanent war machine. And wehave no representation. Only the corporations are represented inCongress.
That's why only 24 percent of the American peoplecast a vote for George W. Bush.
I know you'd hate to take this to the adhominem level, but indulge me for a moment. What about George W.Bush, the man?
You mean George W. Bush, the cheerleader. That'sthe only thing he ever did of some note in his life. He had someinvolvement with a baseball team . . .
He owned it . . .
Yeah, he owned it, bought with other people'smoney. Oil people's money. So he's never really worked, and he showsvery little capacity for learning.
For them to put him up as president and for theSupreme Court to make sure that he won was as insulting as when hisfather, George Bush, appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court-- done just to taunt the liberals. And then, when he picked Quaylefor his vice president, that showed such contempt for the Americanpeople. This was someone as clearly unqualified as Bush Sr. was to bepresident. Because Bush Sr., as Richard Nixon said to a friend ofmine when Bush was elected [imitating Nixon], "He's alightweight, a complete lightweight, there's nothing there. He's asort of person you appoint to things."
So the contempt for the American people has beenmade more vivid by the two Bushes than all of the presidents beforethem. Although many of them had the same contempt. But they were moreclever about concealing it.
Should the U.S. just pack up its military fromeverywhere and go home?
Yes. With no exceptions. We are not the world'spoliceman. And we cannot even police the United States, except tosteal money from the people and generally wreak havoc. The police areperceived quite often, and correctly, in most parts of the country asthe enemy. I think it is time we roll back the empire -- it is doingno one any good. It has cost us trillions of dollars, which makes mefeel it's going to fold on its own because there isn't going to beenough money left to run it.
You call yourself one of the last defenders ofthe American Republic against the American Empire. Do you have anyallies left? I mean, we really don't have a credible opposition inthis country, do we?
I sometimes feel like I am the last defender ofthe republic. There are plenty of legal minds who defend the Bill ofRights, but they don't seem very vigorous. I mean, after 9/11 therewas silence as one after another of these draconian, reallytotalitarian laws were put in place.
So what's the way out of this? Back in the '80syou used to call for a new sort of populist constitutionalconvention. Do you still believe that's the fix?
Well, it's the least bloody. Because there will betrouble, and big trouble. The loons got together to get abalanced-budget amendment, and they got a majority of states to agreeto a constitutional convention. Senator Sam Ervin, now dead,researched what would happen in such a convention, and apparentlyeverything would be up for grabs. Once we the people are assembled,as the Constitution requires, we can do anything, we can throw outthe whole executive, the judiciary, the Congress. We can put in aTibetan lama. Or turn the country into one big Scientologicalclearing center.
And the liberals, of course, are the slowest andthe stupidest, because they do not understand their interests. Theright wing are the bad guys, but they know what they want --everybody else's money. And they know they don't like blacks and theydon't like minorities. And they like to screw everyone along theway.
But once you know what you want, you are in astronger position than those who can only say, "Oh no, you mustn't dothat." That we must have free speech. Free speech for what? To agreewith The New York Times?
The liberals always say, "Oh my, if there is aconstitutional convention, they will take away the Bill of Rights."But they have already done it! It is gone. Hardly any of it is left.So if they, the famous "they," would prove to be a majority of theAmerican people and did not want a Bill of Rights, then I say, let'sjust get it over with. Let's just throw it out the window. If youdon't want it, you won't have it.
JULY 5 - 11, 2002
Copyright 2002 Gore Vidal/L.A. Weekly