May 21, 2004
Friday
An Interview with Gore Vidal
by Amy
Goodman of Democracy
Now!
Listen to Amy Goodman's full interview
with Gore Vidal on the Democracy Now! web site at:
(You will find the interview 43 minutes
into the 1 hour broadcast.)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/21/1450256
Or if you'd rather listen to only the
interview with Gore Vidal,
you can choose one of the audio files below (15 minutes, 19
sec):
SOME QUOTES
FROM THE INTERVIEW:
- "We are a homeland now, under military surveillance,
and military control."
- "We have been
told nothing and every voice is silent."
- "It's a reign of terror now."
- "Well, isn't it pretty clear that the dictatorship
is in place?"
- "There will be no functioning historical memory of
our history."
- "Well, the election of 2000 was the end of the republic."
- "This is Corporate America, as one, putting in place
a President
who was not elected."
AMY GOODMAN:
This is Democracy
Now. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.
As we turn now to Gore Vidal, concerned about the events
of September 11th and many of the unanswered questions.
He has a new book
out now. It's called "Imperial America:
Reflections on the United States of Amnesia."
Gore Vidal, the
author of 22 novels, five plays, many screenplays,
more than 200 essays, his United States Essays, 1952 to 1992,
is one of the great American books of the 20th Century,
won the national book award in 1993.
I recently sat
down with Gore Vidal to talk with him
about where he was on September 11th.
GORE VIDAL:
Where was I on
9-11? I was south of Naples in a town called Ravello
and I turned on CNN, and the first thing I saw was a plane
going into
a tower and I knew that something dreadful had happened.
AMY GOODMAN:
And what were your
thoughts as the hours unfolded?
GORE VIDAL:
Who? What? Why?
I'm still wondering, Who? What? Why?
Since nobody else
bothers with those three questions.
The only three
questions which should ever have bothered us.
I assumed it was
Osama bin Laden, an Arabian.
I assumed it was
it was the people that they say were the
hijackers, who were mostly Arabians from Saudi Arabia.
And why, I've been
trying to workout ever since.
And what, I've been trying to work out.
In a normal country,
this would have all been investigated
by the Congress, by our various secret services, police services,
but the United States is not a normal country.
We are a homeland
now, under military surveillance, and military control.
The president asked
the Congress right after 9-11 not to conduct
a major investigation "as it might deter our search for
terrorism
wherever it may be in the world."
So Congress obediently
rolled over. There was, I remember
Pearl Harbor. I was a kid then, and within three years of
it,
I had enlisted in the army. That's what we did in those days.
We did not go off to the Texas Air Force and hide.
I realize the country's
totally changed, that the government
is not responsive to the people, either in protecting us from
something like 9-11, which they should have done, could have
done,
did not do, and then when it did happen, to investigate,
investigate, investigate.
So I wrote two
little books, one called "Perpetual War
for Perpetual Peace", in which I try to go into the why,
Osama bin Laden, if it were he, or whoever it was,
why it was done.
And I wrote another
one, "Dreaming War", on the why we were
not protected at 9-11, which ordinarily would have led to
the
impeachment of the President of the United States, who allowed
it to happen.
They said they
had no information.
Since then, every
day, the New York Times prints another
mountain of people who said they had warned the government,
they had warned the government.
President Putin
of Russia, he had warned us.
President Mubarrak, he had warned us.
Three members of
Mossad claim that they had come to the United
States to warn us that sometime in September something unpleasant
might come out of the sky in our direction.
Were we defended?
No, we were not defended.
Has this ever been investigated? No, it hasn't.
There was some
attempt at the midterm election.
There was a pro forma committee in Congress,
which has done nothing thus far, three years later.
This is shameful.
The media, which
is controlled by the great conglomerates,
which control the political system, has done an atrocious
job of reporting, though sometimes good stories get in...
I've worn my eyes
out studying the Wall Street Journal,
which despite its dreadful editorial policy, is a pretty
good newspaper of record, which the New York Times is not.
If you read the
Wall Street Journal, very carefully,
you can pretty much figure out what happened that day.
At the time of
the first highjacking, according to law,
FAA, it is mandatory within four minutes of a hijacking,
fighter planes from the nearest airbase, military base,
go up to scramble, that means go up and force the plane
down, find out who they are, find out what's happening.
For one hour and
50 minutes, I think it was, no fighter
plane went up.
During that hour
and 20 minutes, we lost the two towers
and one side of the Pentagon.
Why didn't they
go up?
No description
from the government.
No excuse.
A lot of mumbling
stories which were then retracted
or new stories replaced them.
That to me was
the end of the republic.
We no longer had
a Congress which would ask questions,
which it was supposed, it was in place to do,
to ask questions of the executive.
We have a commander
in chief who likes strutting around in
military uniform, which no previous commander-in-chief ever
did,
as they are supposed to be civilians to be in charge of the
military.
This thing is surrealistic
now and it is getting nastier and
nastier, as we are more and more kept in the dark about those
things which most affect us, which are war and peace, prosperity
and poverty. These are the main things that a government should
look after, and we the people should be told about.
We have been told
nothing and every voice is silent.
So I wrote two
little books, which were then noticed by people
who like to look at the Internet and 200,000 people have bought
them. And I don't come out with conspiracy theories.
I never became a journalist. I am a historian.
Because journalists
give you their opinions and pretend they're facts.
I don't give you my opinions because they may be valuable
to my mother,
but they are of no value to anybody else. They may be of value
to me.
I give the facts
as I find them and I list them.
And they're quite
deadly.
This government
is culpable of, if nothing less, negligence.
Why were we not
protected?
With all the air
bases, fighter planes up and down the eastern seaboard,
not one of them went aloft while the hijackings took place.
Finally, two from
Otis Field in Massachusetts, arrived
at the twin towers, I think at the time the second one was
hit.
If anybody had
been thinking, they would've gone on to Washington
to try and prevent the attack on the Pentagon. They went back
to
Otis, back to Massachusetts.
So I ask these
questions, which Congress should ask, does not ask,
which the press should ask, but it's too frightening.
It's a reign of
terror now.
AMY GOODMAN:
A recent expose
shows that even the congressional committee
that's looking into this can't get a hold of documents that
are classified and even public testimony is now being
reclassified.
GORE VIDAL:
Well, isn't it
pretty clear that the dictatorship is in place?
We're not supposed
to know certain things, and we're not going
to know them.
They're doing everything
to remove our history, to damage
the Freedom of Information Act.
Bush managed to
have a number of presidential papers, including
those of his father, put out of reach of historians or anybody
for a great length of time, during which they will probably
be shredded so they will never be available.
And what I've always
called jokingly the United States of Amnesia,
will be worse than an amnesiac, it will be, ah, have suffered
a lobotomy.
There will be no
functioning historical memory of our history.
AMY GOODMAN:
How has George
Bush accrued so much power?
GORE VIDAL:
Well, the election
of 2000 was the end of the republic.
It was the second
time it had happened that somebody
who got the popular vote didn't get the election.
1876, when Governor
Tilden, a Democrat of New York,
ah, won the election but, ah, they were able, we still had
troops in the south, they were able to turn the election
around, the electoral college.
Tilden didn't want
another Civil War so he just withdrew.
But there was no
sinister group taking charge. It was just a
party group of Republicans who wanted to continue the
reign of General Grant.
That was mildly
sleazy.
This is major corruption.
This is... This
is Corporate America, as one, putting in place
a President who was not elected. Getting the Supreme Court
to
delay and delay, when under the tenth amendment every decision
about the voting in Florida should be made by the Florida
Supreme
Court, not the U.S. Supreme Court, which the Constitution
rules out in matters of election.
AMY GOODMAN:
Well, how did that
happen? And how did, well,
isn't he your relative, Al Gore?
Well, there's nothing
I go through the streets boasting of, no.
But yes, he's my cousin.
and very un-Gore.
The Gores are very
known for their belligerency,
and he is not known for self-defense, let us say.
He should have
asked, if we say he should have,
but it was pretty clear at the time, I would have,
had I been in that situation
Count the total
Florida vote.
He has every right
to demand that.
And they couldn't have played games,
because it's too big a vote.
Instead he asked,
I think, three counties, Dade and Brower,
and one other, to do their count over again.
AMY GOODMAN:
Concerned that
he wouldn't win outside of those.
GORE VIDAL:
No, I think he
figured that he had won those.
Dade has certainly a large minority vote
which had all voted for him.
There's a wonderful
book by ah, Nichols, called
"Jews for Buchanan", and it's <laughing>
It's a marvelous shot of 4 jewish gentlemen
looking terribly alarmed, and you see
"Dade County Goes for Buchanan."
Even Buchanan says
look, these were not my votes,
down there, something's wrong.
It was stolen by
the Secretary of State, that lady
who now has been rewarded with a seat in Congress.
The president's
brother, the losing president candidate's
brother, with Governor. He took part in it.
And the court did,
by 5 to 4.
2 of the 5 should have recused themselves,
should have just withdrawn from the case
when "Gore vs Bush" came before the court.
Why?
One of them, Scalia,
had a son who was working for
the Bush team of lawyers before the Supreme Court.
Did Justice Scalia
recuse himself as he should because
his son is arguing?
No, he wants to
kill Gore.
He wants to make sure that the bad guys win.
Thomas, Wise (??),
was busy getting curriculum vitae
of potential people to serve in a Bush administration.
Clarence Thomas
should have recused himself and withdrawn
from the case, in which case, it would have been 4 to 3
for Gore, who would now be President, and Iraq and Afghanistan,
I can guarantee, would not have been knocked down in order
to benefit Halliburton and Bechtel.
AMY GOODMAN:
Antonin Scalia
recently went to Cleveland. He spoke at the
Cleveland City Club, which is known as the oldest free
speech forum in the country. He allowed no press in.
And the night before, he spoke in the city and he said that
that vote, choosing George Bush, was his proudest moment.
GORE VIDAL:
I would impeach
him and in a well run country, the Senate should
make a movement toward the impeachment of, the trial of anyway,
of Justice Scalia.
And back of that,
there's some interesting organization going on,
which is hard to determine, Opus Dei.
Both Scalia and
Thomas have connections with Opus Dei,
the secret Catholic order, originally fascist.
[ NOTE: They have their own web site at: www.opusdei.org
]
General Franco
in Spain was a sort of godfather to it, and
we don't know much about it. And it's all over the place.
About 80,000 worldwide.
Louis Freeh of
the FBI at that time was a member,
as was, Mr. Hansen, the spy, who had been giving
all of our secrets to the, uh, he was with the CIA.
He had been giving
our secrets to the Russians for many years.
I make no charges,
but I simply bring up questions.
Why not ask questions of these people?
Does it suit Opus
Dei that Bush is president?
Now we're getting
into god territory, which I normally
would stay away from, as any good American should.
It's not all my business, other people's religion.
But, Bush is born
again.
That's why he uses
biblical language.
He's evil.
He's evil.
The evildoer.
Well, that's theological
language.
When you say he's
a bad man, a dishonest man.
AMY GOODMAN:
Gore Vidal, his
latest book is "Imperial America:
Reflections on the United States of Amnesia"
and that does it for today's program.
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