Gore Vidal's United States of Fury (Interview)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gore-vidals-united-states-of-fury-1798601.html
Gore Vidal's United States of fury

At 84, the writer and activist may be confined to a wheelchair, but his rage – at his country, its leaders and citizens – burns as fiercely as ever. Johann Hari watches the sparks fly

Wednesday, 7 October 2009

In Russian, the phrase "gore vidal" means "he has seen grief". As Gore Vidal is wheeled towards me across an empty London hotel lobby, it seems for the first time like an apt translation. In the eight years since I saw him last, he has lost his partner of 50 years, most of his friends, most of his enemies, and the use of his legs. The man I met then – bristling with his own brilliance, scattering witticisms around like confetti – has withered. His skin is like parchment, but the famous cheekbones are still sharp beneath the crags. "It is so cold in here," he says, by way of introduction. "So fucking cold."

Gore Vidal is not only grieving for his own dead circle and his fading life, but for his country. At 83, he has lived through one third of the lifespan of the United States. If anyone incarnates the American century that has ended, it is him. He was America's greatest essayist, one of its best-selling novelists and the wit at every party. He holidayed with the Kennedys, cruised for men with Tennessee Williams, was urged to run for Congress by Eleanor Roosevelt, co-wrote some of the most iconic Hollywood films, damned US foreign policy from within, sued Truman Capote, got fellated by Jack Kerouac, watched his cousin Al Gore get elected President and still lose the White House, and – finally, bizarrely – befriended and championed the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh.

Yet now, he says, it is clear the American experiment has been "a failure". It was all for nothing. Soon the country will be ranked "somewhere between Brazil and Argentina, where it belongs." The Empire will collapse militarily in Afghanistan; the nation will collapse internally when Obama is broken "by the madhouse" and the Chinese call in the country's debts. A ruined United States will then be "the Yellow Man's Burden", and "they'll have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport".

A Scotch is fetched for him as he is wheeled into the corner of the bar. "I was like everyone else when Obama was elected – optimistic. Everything we had been saying about racial integration was vindicated," he says, "but he's incompetent. He will be defeated for re-election. It's a pity because he's the first intellectual president we've had in many years, but he can't hack it. He's not up to it. He's overwhelmed. And who wouldn't be? The United States is a madhouse. The country should be put away – and we're being told to go away. Nothing makes any sense." The President "wants to be liked by everybody, and he thought all he had to do was talk reason. But remember – the Republican Party is not a political party. It's a mindset, like Hitler Youth. It's full of hatred. You're not going to get them aboard. Don't even try. The only way to handle them is to terrify them. He's too delicate for that."

When he compares Obama to his old friend Jack Kennedy, he shakes his head. "He's twice the intellectual that Jack was, but Jack knew the great world. Remember he spent a long time in the navy, losing ships. This kid [Obama] has never heard a gun fired in anger. He's absolutely bowled over by generals, who tell him lies and he believes them. He hasn't done anything. If you were faced with great problems in chemistry – to find the perfect gas, to gas a population – you won't know for a long time whether it works. You have to go by what people tell you. He's like that. He's not ready for prime time and he's getting a lot of prime time on his plate at once."

Is there any hope? "Every sign I see is doom. But then people say" – he adopts a whiny, nasal voice – "'Oh Mr Vidal, you're so negative, can't you say something nice about America? It's a wonderful country, everybody wants to live here.' Oh yes? When was the last time you saw a Norwegian with a green card who wanted to come here because of the health service? I'll pay you if you can find one."

But there is, he says with sudden perkiness, some "good news. Afghanistan will be terminal for the American empire, yes. Which is a happy way of looking at it. We'll be out of the empire game, rapidly. But it's too late for the country and the constitution." He raises his drink, and smiles ironically. "To a better republic," he says, and drinks in one long gulp.


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