Norman Mailer walked into the green room of The Dick Cavett Show in December 1971 with several drinks in him and a plan for his forehead. Gore Vidal sat waiting. Five months earlier, in the New York Review of Books, Vidal had filed Mailer under "M3," a line he drew from Henry Miller through Mailer to Charles Manson on the subject of how each man treated women. The essay also found room for the night in 1960 when Mailer stabbed his wife Adele with a penknife.
By Mailer's own account, Vidal laid a hand on the back of his neck and smiled like an old friend. Mailer tapped him across the cheek. Vidal slapped back. Mailer put his own hand on the back of Vidal's neck and butted him in the head. He had read somewhere that a blow to the skull cost a man twenty minutes of clear thought, and he wanted Vidal on camera without those minutes.
The plan failed on air. Mailer swaggered out, called Vidal a liar and a hypocrite, and told the host to look at his question sheet. Cavett suggested he fold it five ways and put it where the moon don't shine. Janet Flanner, seated between the two men, told them they were acting as if they were the only people in the room. The audience booed. Mailer yelled back at the audience.
Six years later, at a party in 1977, Mailer threw a drink at Vidal and then punched him. Vidal spoke from the floor: "Once again, words fail Norman Mailer."
Vidal had reviewed dozens of writers unkindly. The essay argued a thesis about American men. Mailer read a declaration of war and answered it, for six years, in front of everyone.
