No one knew the American history better than Gore Vidal. It was
in his blood. He learnt it from a grandfather who served in the
Senate, and from his personal association with the great
American political families of his time. From his home atop a
Ravello cliff face he spun wonderful stories out of American
history, buttressed by a flawless memory and a talent for
mimicry. His historical novels chart the emergence of America as
a continental power with centralised government, and what he saw
as a descent into imperialism. He embodied an anti-imperial
tradition that goes back to Mark Twain – representing an
isolationist viewpoint that once ran deep in America. Gore Vidal
believed no foreign war justified a single American life and
this view was his fundamental political commitment. And he loved
a political feud – his own being a vendetta against Bobby
Kennedy, with whom he clashed while campaigning for the US
Congress in 1962. He told me once that addressing an anti-Nixon
rally in Boston he was asked, "Why is N