Next on booktv from our recent coverage of the Chicago Tribune printers row with dust, Kevin Schultz details the relationship between william f. Buckley junior and Norman Mailer. Todays program is being broadcast live on cspan2s booktv. We will leave some time at the end for audience questions then you can just come out up to the microphone to the side of the stage so the home viewing audience can hear the question. He can keep the spirit of that test lit fest going yearround with a subscription to the premium book section fiction series in membership program. Also please download the app for more info on lit fest as well as access to our digital book store store. We encourage everyone to post messages and photos to Facebook Instagram and twitter using the hashtag pr al f15. Before we begin we ask that you turn off your cell phone ringers and any flashes on your cameras. With that, please welcome our interviewer for todays program jane daly. [applause] thank you. Im jane daly from the university of chicago. I teach American History then im very happy to welcome my colleague from the university of illinois in chicago Kevin Schultz. Kevin is a historian of modern United States and american politics. He wrote a fabulous book on religion in american politics in the mid20th century. The book is called tristate america how postwar catholic and choose help america to its protestant promise. The title gives you a hint of how exciting and interesting the book is my urge you all to read it. That was a scholarly book and this book is equally a scholarly book. The difference between a scholarly book in a book thats not called a scholarly book is i think in the modesty of the author in making invisible all of the incredible archival work that he has done all of the notetaking and the months and months of questioning and finding sources and thinking critically about things. Kevin has written a wonderful new book that is just now being published. I believe the hardback copies are out there which you should all buy. This book is called buckley and mailer sub five. It of course deals with the friendship between William Buckley and Norman Mailer, a a friendship i did notice that until i read your book. So i guess i will start out by asking you how did you know this friendship existed . How did you get started on this book collects. Thank you very much for coming and that generous introduction. This book was so much fun to write because i knew of both of largerthanlife figures. Norman mailer this novelist and one at the inventors of new journalism and somebody who is just a great firstperson voice on the 1960s and just a huge personality and william f. Buckley who was any way large personality on the right founder of National Review and it never occurred to me that they would be friends. After Norman Mailer died he sold newspapers today. Ransom center at the university of texas in austin. A couple of those letters have picked up in a magazine and i was leafing through the magazine one night and i read some of the letters. I stopped cold because i read one of the letters between Norman Mailer and buck late and there was cutting humor. There was really deep insight into what was going on in the 1960s. They were obviously friends and i have been sitting around thinking about what to write on next as far as my next book to the 1960s i wanted to tell the story from the 1960s. It has become this time in our past that is almost mythologize but not quite. D. C. Madam madmen and some of the movie. I was there too and i thought that taking the figure on the left and the figure on the right both these articulate really smart really and voices and investigating their friendship was just a way to tell a great story about the 1960s. As i look at the archives and i looked at the letters and i looked at the debates and the Television Shows they were on together there they are debating the cold war. There are they are debating the civil Rights Movement. There they are debating the womens Rights Movement and their the whole friendship takes them on a tour for all the major events of the 60s and these brilliant articulate funnyman who are trying to figure it out in these gorgeous letters back and forth to each other. So i thought thats the book right there. I can tell the story of the 60s or a least a story from the 60s being attacked from the left being attacked from the right from this funny friendship friendship. I think its surprising to us today that sadly indicative of where we are politically that they could he absolute diehard political opponents. They both ran for mayor cleared city which was another thing i had forgotten. They founded as you pointed out their own magazines within weeks of each other National Review on the side of buckley and the Village Voice which again i didnt realize Norman Mailer had a big role in founding that. So there were clearly political opponents in the sense of their stands on the major questions of the day but they were not enemies. They were friends and thats part of what i think makes this such a compelling story. Why did they get along so well . They came from vastly different worlds as you point out. What was the bond that held their friendship together besides the love of arguing which i think is clearly something they both enjoyed. Absolutely they both love to argue. A couple of things. He said they came from different backgrounds and thats true to a point. Norman mailer was middleclass jewish boy from brooklyn aspirational family playing stick colon the streets. Just a really brilliant guy goes to harvard. Buckley on the other hand he is catholic, a staunch catholic that he lives more or less what we thought of as a quintessentially waspy life. He is raised in a huge mansion with 114 years. The house has a name, its called rate down. He has private tutors. There were 6 00 p. M. Mohsin this house so they would bring in a piano teacher to go from one kid to another and there were 10 in the family. Different backgrounds but then he goes to gail so they both are white men and they both get ivy league educations. They end up serving in world war ii the end of action on the referee of the action that they have that is common experience. Both of them have a complaint, dramatically different prescription for what america should be but they have a very similar complaint to one another but the common culture postwar america about to leave it to Beaver Society about the postworld war ii culture that gets built and so in that common complaint against this 1950s culture they realize that they had something in common so you have these two brilliant guys who are complaining about the same thing even though they want the country to go in completely different directions. Add to the common background the common complaint and also there really is, their love of argument their love for of cracking jokes and making fun of each other and thats where the friendship came from. Their love of making fun of everybody else to should be in there because they are as unsparing on pretty much anybody they talk about as they are about themselves. Tell us more about this thing they had in common this critique of america. What were they unhappy about and what was that . You can dislike leave it to beaver or ozzie and harriet but you dont have to start a magazine against it. So what was wrong with america in the early 1960s for these world war ii veterans . That was the interesting part for me to write to analyze this postworld war ii culture. It is in some accounts Richest Society that it was ever built. The income inequality was at the lowest it had ever been in since i should add so there were a lot of great things about the society and people coming out of this called the greatest generation and yet here are these two people coming from these generation who are pillorying it. I wanted to analyze it. What were the things they were complaining about so i set up a tripartite image of what the culture stood for what the beliefs were, the central belief and the rational thought that was going to carry the day for us. We could trust and the bureaucrats to cure us from the Great Depression or when the Second World War or develop the interstate highway system to get us places so there was this belief in rational thought and progress. Its a fundamentally american belief and in the 1950s it was at its peak. Then another part of this trip trip trip ticket i developed this is belief in a friendly capitalism where they government is going to take your corporations and corporations arent going to necessarily push back hard on paying taxes. Of course nobody likes to pay too high taxes but this is the time when the president of General Motors gets tapped to be the secretary of defense as i can imagine a time when i had to make a decision that would be bad for General Motors and bad for america. Intervene there to see if anybody can guess what the top personal income tax rate was under eisenhower. I think that was 78. Hard to imagine today. Now we are half that. And then the third part of my triptych painting here is what i call for rules of society which has to do a with sort of the basic demeanor the rules about a womans hair and how high her skirt had to be above her knee and a mans haircut above his ears and what kind of shoes he would wear also how you would address somebody your principle or your boss, mr. Or mrs. Very formal. There were these rules and embedded in these rules for the higher acute society how you were supposed to live in order to get ahead. And so both buckley and mailer looked at the society and even though it was the Richest Society in the history of man with a greater share of equality with higher taxes as you make mention they felt sort of limited. They felt like they couldnt be truly free. They couldnt push beyond and mailers case the sexual limitations or the use of bad words. He wanted these kinds of freedoms and buck lee for his part, he wanted freedom from the bureaucratic state. You wanted freedom from government to get government off of our backs to use the famous line. You talk about how freedom and how to get it and what it means and what to do with it is one of the clues that hold the friendship together and indeed that pulls them apart because their debates are quite divisive on this question. Freedom has got to mean more to them than haircuts and good manners. I will say that mailer flunks the haircut tests. I think at any point during this decade but i wonder if you can tell us, if id be illustrative to talk about their attitudes towards the civil Rights Movement because when you were saying we have these rules in which everyone says mr. And mrs. My thought was acceptable out people in which white people in the south at least deliberately withheld those terms of respect because they did not want to recognize africanamericans as people worth addressing with honorifics doctor, mr. Mrs. , professor. Yeah so the story in the book starts with this budding friendship which starts in 1962 in chicago. These two guys are brought together. They are both in their late 30s and it was as equally young promoter who wanted to get the left and the right are doing this guy named john golden who decided he was going to host a debate between but leanne mailer and he was a brilliant promoter because he was going to post it two days before a title fight promote this debate exactly the same way as the fight. Outside of the grayer tino theater outside of chicago he had the billboard opposite but we mailer and yet posters everywhere set up to be just like the title fight. They were brought together and they had this ears and funny debate. Buckleys first line out of the gates as i dont think i can hold the attention of mr. Mailer because he will never stop looking at the worlds glands and they went back and forth like this. You read this and you think what fun it would have been to have been there. There were people like Abbie Hoffman there are and a lot of the new left comes out of this and the new right was there. At the end of the debate they realize they dont want to score simple points like a debate but it occurs to both of them that they are both trying to shape the future. Theyre both trying to push out of the bounds of these cold war assumptions this postwar liberalism. They want to create what comes to be called as we all know at the 1960s. They want these radical movements on the right and the left to push beyond. One of the first that comes up that you speak of his civil Rights Movement and this is course of movement for freedom. Its called the freedom movement, the wash march on washington for jobs and freedom. Freedom is the key phrase there and buckley and mailer have complicated relations with the civil Rights Movement. Neither one can say we are sterling supporters of civil rights although to be fair mailer does support the civil Rights Movement and he did think the honorifics you are talking about were moved way more significant than a name. It was were spurred respecting the person as a fellow human being. Yet for his part he didnt have that many africanamerican friends. He had all sorts of problematic understandings of what my people were. He thought of them as hypersexualized, living for the moment kind of people because they never know if they are going to be around tomorrow. He wrote his famous essay in 1957 called the white and James Baldwin hated that. James baldwin and mailer were really good friends. He had a long response called a love letter to Norman Mailer a black void looks at a white way but elysee supports the movement. He understood the freedom honoring someone as a human being is capable of living up to their fulfillment. Mailer understood that. Buckley for his part has a problematic relationship with the civil Rights Movement have basically he helps articulate the conservative opposition to the civil Rights Movement. Which is how would you characterize that . Against everything. He could have taken a conservative libertarian argument which would Say Something like the state has no business telling you who can sit next to who. Instead he crafted to arguments that we recognize today for better or for worse really. He first of all thought that most africanamericans werent yet civilized to have access to the boat. He felt the same about uneducated white people too and of course there wasnt a systematic movement trying to prevent white people from voting while there was this Huge Movement to prevent black people from having to vote. There was this not yet civilized not yet ready argument. The other argument that buckley coined was what was called the bootstraps argument whereas he would say the irish the jewish came to america with nothing on the ship and they raise themselves up by their bootstraps and succeeded. How come africanamericans havent done that . What is wrong with your culture and your people . Deoxy says this and the celebrated debate against James Baldwin. The cast of characters in my book was so much fun. Theres James Baldwin and betty for dan and gore vidal and Truman Capote became to this story. In this debate with Baldwin Buckley spells out this bootstraps argument completely ignoring the fact that the g. I. Bill had all sorts of segregation regarding local control. The new deal had all sorts of segregation and how it would be implemented. White americans benefited from those pieces of legislation. One of the things that is interesting is the way these authors are going on tour around the world debating each other over and over again. I think people knew what they were getting if they had James Baldwin and William Buckley or William Buckley and Norman Mailer. One question is why did anyone care what these authors. . Its hard to imagine asking any of our major novelist today well tell us about your views on the social questions facing america today. Its a great question. I think this was a moment in American History when the experts were still ruling. People were looking to the smartest people in the world room to explain to the people what was going on. At this moment there was this incredibly small group of mostly white men but not entirely but mostly who were brilliant in their way who were articulate, who led these largerthanlife lives who could appear on the page six tablets as much as they could appear in the books section and an oped piece writing about the cold war. They could talk on all sorts of subjects. They were fun to listen to. I think really people enjoyed listening to them. As i talk about this book i had people come up to me and say i disagree with Everything Else up we ever said and yet i love to hear him talk and i love to hear him use his expansive vocabulary that the vocabulary that is famous for and i love the way he showed respect to the opposition. He let them air their opinions and have a voice and that he would destroy them. But he would destroy them with his intellect and his wet and not simply by yelling louder at them. Exact weight so i think the combination of these things really matters. Ive been asked quite a bit recently where are the public intellectuals of twoday . Where the people who are these largerthanlife people who can illuminate us on isis and the kardashians at the same time because this is the kind of thing that buckley and mailer and gore vidal and Truman Capote and James Baldwin were able to speak on all the subjects. I think there has been a decline. I dont think we are less earlier now than they were then but i do think there has been a decline. Part of the reason is because we now have 114 channels to choose from so everybody can go to their own corner and listen to the voices they want to hear and they know what they are going to get. Back in the 50s and 60s there were three networks. They were few outlets for people so if you are on the network to have a large platform. Somebody must have thought them the way to draw viewers was to have two people who disagree debate each other as opposed to today having five people all of whom agree with each other have a joint conversation about the things they agree about. Have we lost the capacity to tolerate opinions that dont conform precisely to our own . No, of course not. Maybe on tv we have but as human beings i dont think that at all. I think another thing that has happened is the changes thats especially mailer in the 60s were advocating have taken hold and that is to broaden the table, to invite more voices to sit at the table. Africanamerican, women, all sorts of underrepresented voices. That is what a lot of the 60s was about and to an extent they won. So now there was a time in the 60s when guys like buckley and mailer and the rest of the bunch felt like they could speak on behalf of the country. They felt like they could speak to the nation. They could be the walt women walt whitman and with the rights revolutions in the diversity of movements of the 60s and 70s that became exposed it was size fiction i guess but it became exposed as such and now it would take a whole lot of tenacity a whole lot of guts to say i can speak on behalf of the nation and i dont think anybody has done that quite successfully yet at least not as successfully as these people have. Wait a few weeks. I think there are a number of potential candidates out there who will definitely speak for america. It sounds a little bit like they invited so many people to the table that they lost their seats seats. In some ways thats exactly right. You talk about these largerthanlife figures and when he says larger than life mailer was married and divorced six times. Married six times come only divorced five times. Buckley was married once. When you talk about largerthanlife but named Truman Capote springs immediately to mind another one of our great novelists interesting bullying character. He had a ball the blackandwhite all and i have never understood how it is that Truman Capote we have a ball. It was referred to as Truman Capotes lack of my all in which anybody who is anybody went to. Can you tell us why thats important and not just something that makes us all long for gowns and elbow gloves. The story of the ball again as i wrote this book it was sort of come i wanted to engage with the 60s and there they are at german capotes ball. Buckley and mailer almost given if a spy. There they are debating germane greer. The story told itself radio is so much fun to write so one of the great pleasures as i could tell the story of Truman Capotes blackandwhite ball. In 1966 he had just finished in cold blood and was this huge success. He didnt have the book to write so he had all this money and all this time in no book to write. He always wanted to throw in a blackandwhite masquerade all so he did. He rented out the big ballroom in the plaza hotel in new york city and he invited all of his friends. Whats so interesting about this story and why the blackandwhite ball is really a fascinating moment in time is because you look at who his friends were and here they are all these literary intellectuals like Norman Mailer and william f. But lee. All of these politicians were there, kay graham the editor the Washington Post was the belle of the ball and that ensured a huge number of politicians coming from washington d. C. Defense secretaries and families and former president s. They were kennedys there in the truman spare and all sorts of families were there and of course he is new york socialites. This was the circle that Truman Capote mostly swam in. He brought together these new york wealthy elite the washington politicos, the cultural intellectuals and they were there dancing with frank senate trent lillian hellman. There was this moment when americans both ugly and mailer wrote about it afterwards. They looked at it as a time when americans pat themselves on the back and realize the health of the nation was good. But this is 1966. This is why they almost get in a fistfight. This is the moment where it starts to break down their relationship but also the sense that america as a whole is conscientiously part of a common good that can speak to everybody. As the eloquent blackandwhite dollars or walking to the plaza there are pictures. There were also people protesting saying theres a war going on. Vietnam is happening. How can you celebrate while this is happening quite for fistfight between but lee and mailer that doesnt happen and i hate to spoil it but mailer has two or three or 12 drinks ntcs george bundy working in the Defense Department the architect of the vietnam war. He started Holding Forth on how the words right to sink in and mailer goes up to him and challenges him and says how wonderful you possibly believe this . Because this is the blackandwhite ball. Lillian hellman is there and she knows both of these men and she starts dressing down norman. How can you possibly say this . How are you picking a fight at this ball . He felt like he was the younger brother and his older sister was dressing him down in front of the whole football team. He went back and had two or three drinks and it looked are some of the good fight wiki went up to william f. Buckley and he said put up your dukes. Lets fight about vietnam. He looks at them and says mailer is impossibly john kenny puts his arm around him and they walk off together. It was this amazing moment and its not just a celebrity story but filled with the substance of the breaking apart of American Life as reflected through his friendship. Pushing on the breaking up of American Life here because you admit that this idea of a common wheel meaning this idea that there is what is good for america is good for General Motors and vice versa that this is an idea that both mailer and buckley subscribe to. But certainly someone like James Baldwin knew all along that there was not one vision of this common wheel. There were at least two, probably three. You imagine tom hayden crashing the blackandwhite ball in Stokely Carmichael even better crashing the blackandwhite ball. Are they oblivious to the generational divide . Are they unwilling in 1966, are they unwilling to even factor in the civil Rights Movement as an important component part of the commonwealth or is a vital critique of the commonwealth . L carrying on. Starting to pick apart and 65 66 and 67 absolutely absolutely but there still is hope that we can reform this idea of the commonweal to the way that buckley and mailer wants to see fit. I dont want to say they dont see it taking apart but they sense theres this break is coming. There has been too much built up in the early 60s. Their there are challenges from the left and from the white right. What they dont see is the destruction of the commonwealth. The possibility that americans will develop on the good of the nation in favor of the good of themselves. When you say the destruction of the commonwealth that they see this happening and it is important they are though world war ii generation generation, theyre veterans may be not fighting for the same things but where the science it is breaking apart . Like Barry Goldwater . Related to the Political Parties or broader that will topple . There is the great moment i was delighted to discover 1968 buckley invites mailer on to a Television Show that was will be used to elevate him to another status. And right after he writes this incredible book and it is the story with the antiwar march and then to destroy the american war machine. That this was the stated goal. But mailer writes this incredible book on the firing line with is the great interview. But he asks the question that most middle americans wanted to know at the time. Anbar you no enemy of the country . Your protesting the government and the war does this make you an enemy . And mailer is flabbergasted. To make the best that possibly could be. But they both shared a love of country. As day protest against america or though war machine, that is where buckley and mailer pullback and in doingni so. You said something that sparked an idea. Talk about their humor he said it is fun to write the book because they are really funny but mailer writes his own obituary as a for were written by buckley. The edges of parity to talk about mailers death when they do for each other. That you would never know your 1979 to ask mailer to write his obituary. It is very, very funny how they called him about 12 syllables long but in 1975 a Charitable Organization is a night with bill buckley you could do that . Merman mailer. So here to auction off a night with bill buckley and Norman Mailer writes and it was very funny. And i was laughing and they said it doesnt make any sense. And he mailed off a clean copy. And buckley writes to say thanks i havent had them around long enough to know what you auctioned off. [laughter] lets get together for a drink and. It is a great archival find every single letter or debate to have so much fun making fun of the other but it was friendly to go too deep to make these personal cuts so they didnt let the personal debt in the way of those philosophical arguments spirit that was the biggest change from today it does seem to be very ad hominem to attack each other rather than contesting the idea. They did not pull their punches but they did not call each other names. But they defended the other person in late 1963 in North Carolina buckley was giving a speech to talk about Norman Mailer to engage with the radicals on the left not his wives or girlfriends but when you give up christian ethics then looked at how radical he talks about his bad words to talk about sex acts moi and they actually attacked him for using such foul language how can you engage if he does not have the ideas of her naylor to understand what the left is all about. I dont want to monopolize people are anxious to ask you questions from the audience. Please go to the microphone. You have not talked about the relationship to the womens movement. And mailer above the 80th enough to sleep with him. That is not big enough to be political to the world. There is a whole chapter on this exact chapter on this question. I had no business doing it in the first question is how you write a book of the 60s is too old white guys . Because it was so wrong in the section it is the last section of the book where buckley and mailer are starting to watch American Life move them move on without them being quietly as central as they were. They have to recalibrate before they can be involved in the public life and they see the rights of women. And he imagined himself as a leader of the sexual revolution in the 60s but he meant to have as many lovers as he could have and not be constrained by the constraints of society. With the paragon of the sexual revolution but 1969 Time Magazine was to interview Norman Mailer with the vote liberation movement. And when it comes out and has 30 pages it is fictional how it is all based on power and conquest. In that they were unwilling to acquiesce but then to promote that one above all else he has said debate in the york city town hall which is marvelous to bring feminist to come into the three piece suit he calls them ladies the whole time. He is in on the joke rather than take their side he plays odd man out. From public life to write about celebrities. It takes a full decade to recalibrate and when he does, he writes about for what america is like today. I was fortunate enough to read the paradigm and paranoid style of politics which is great to hear you talk about this these two men are so brilliant they could not make themselves demonize with the other person would say. So they could not go to that level. White sean handed a. Every time there is a long letter after dinner we could retire the two of the psychic cure you of all the problems of your thoughts you can carry you the problems in my thoughts. They had an intellect and a respect for each other as people that they made be able to teach them something as a spirit of engagement. 1. Was to figure out the way to have a filling life when as we just talked about but that is what grounded their friendship. Today people just are not as smart and we might do better if they were smart enough to figure out their own arguments. I am also think they are not rewarded to be thinkers to be engaged with the of their side. Few crosses the alliance . That is seen as a sideshow and isnt of bad parallel. But bill oreilly is very successful and john stuart is a comedian purport dont mean to criticize but there reworded in different ways than how buckley was rewarded. Mr. Buckley played a key role in the Republican Party would perhaps be better off if they could fill the vacuum. Could you speak to that. Wife he is such an important figure is in the 1950s not singlehandedly but a key player who took the very strands of conservative thought of vague traditional libertarian idea that is known as the Republican Party part of the reason is he did excommunicate the pure voices like i rand he excised her like the John Birch Society and even chastise the pope to curtail the ugly part of conservative even to get rid of stepped on images of. And that was the conservative party but if you look today something along those lines would be the front to be given a smaller part or a voice of the conservative party. In the one the republicans to win. But of the anthology to my political literature what would you submit as an excerpt or a transcript that is the most representative of a conflict in the 1960s to drink conservatism and liberalism . One of the things that united them was america was having a liberal center but Playboy Magazine whether great intellectual life with a heavy weight to battle it out in the transcript goes into Playboy Magazine over two issues with their name next to it was fantastic lizzies the fodder to say conservative versus liberal than one month later there is the letter that says i dont care what you call me a rebel or conservative or socialist but dont call me a liberal that is where they were attacking but specifically one of the favorite letters after thelma bill buckley was invited from the Catholic Organization trying to defend the Police Action at selma and did not go over well. In your post was attacking him to defend that plan at selma and the fathers of the society has the press conference immediately ran right when he starts to talk about so much the tape breaks when they fix it there is 30 seconds missing and it is the moment that he talks about selma so he has not recuperated at all then there is a beautiful and funny back and forth that says i suppose wed just replace me as the most hated man in American Life and talks about how the left should view the cops with the civilRights Movement and he engages with those ideas it is a dynamic interplay high degree understand them. That is a favorable wind. One of the points that you make is that each is peerless ages vilified many times the to tell things that they want to hear but to talk as a dissident intellectuals they feet that is their duty to say things that people may not want to hear there were told there were the smartest person in the room at one time on the firing line but he says supposed to the soviet union would you be more afraid of the mailer administration or the buckler administration . Mailer says im glad i am not the only egotist in the room. But they were not afraid to pick fights or to even lewis fights lose the fight but to their credit it came with baggage. Of person who would be considered Richard Nixon with the appropriation or the perversion of the word liberal they are trying times. This is about liberty and expression. I want to mention one little thing that buckley admired him very intellectual person as well. You didnt touch that he shot his wife. He stabbed her. [laughter] at a party. It took a little while but pressing charges. One but you mentioned buckley grew up in the white anglosaxon protestants that is another core group so i just say that is an area where they rebel so that leaves off another group. The very wealthy Kennedy Family to look at as well with j. Edgar hoover. I did use the phrase lofty as a cultural marker. Than what it meant to be catholic. As a fan of them but never wavered in his belief is so as whole life. We talked about the confidence that is what makes them more confident he was unsure he was in possession of the truth and he knew right from wrong. When you have possession of the truth when catholics were vilified or discriminated against, it helps him to develop the spirit of who he is rebelling against. Absolutely right his catholic faith was important and then as soon as he graduated you can see the product of a catholic as a rueful of protestants a room full but that would be a good group. If you want to study buckley you have to go back to yale we have to end some of program can continue. Thank you for coming in and supporting. Im sorry our author will be here to sign the books that you will buy right outside the door. Thank you. [applause] thank you to all of you for attending you can find him in the lobby outside. The grandson of the performer looking to the United States. According to the introduction