Gore Vidal, who died yesterday at the age of 86, was perhaps the last of the great writers of the 20th century whose oversized personality was perhaps better known that his writing.  Along with authors like Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, more people probably watched Vidal on television than read any of his essays, fiction, or plays.  (He also wrote teleplays and screenplays.)

Vidal’s maternal grandfather was Thomas Pryor Gore, one of the first two U.S.  senators from the new state of Oklahoma.  He was also blind.  Eugene Vidal Sr., his father, was an aviation pioneer who is said to have had a relationship with Amelia Earhart.  His stepfather would later become the stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.  He attended Sidwell Friends, St. Albans, and Exeter.  Following service in WWII (which even men of privilege did back then), Vidal became a writer and never looked back.

Perhaps the height of his fame — which he always seemed to relish — came in his 1968 debates with William F. Buckley, Jr.

The United States was at war in Vietnam and at war against itself — largely along generational lines.  Following the Tet Offensive, CBS News’ Walter Cronkite, the conscience of our nation, editorialized at the end of one broadcast that “… it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out [of Vietnam] will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”  President Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, followed by Bobby Kennedy.  Riots erupted and cities burned.  Students took over campuses from Howard to Columbia.  Many protests turned violent — police killed three students and injured 28 others after opening fire into a crowd in Orangeburg, South Carolina.  Violent crime was in a steep ascent, with the national murder rate eventually peaking at twice what it is today.  The Beatles traveled to India in search of spiritual enlightenment and released the nuanced single, “Revolution,” on the B-side of “Hey Jude” (their biggest seller).

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