Best of Enemies

1968. Lacking the production budget for quality reporting from the leading party conventions, ABC television organized a debate among the leading intellectuals of the time: William F. Buckley Jr., a mainstay of the neo-conservative movement and Gore Vidal, a leftist writer dealing with gender and political prejudice and a declared homosexual (familiar to AFF 2014 audiences from the Gore Vidal: United State of Amnesia). To say the two represented different views would be a huge understatement. Each treated the other's views as a threat to humanity and reason for the imminent downfall of Western civilization. But what the two had in common was an unusual feel for the screen - both knew what television was and how to best appear on it. Two visions of America clashed as sparks flew in some of television's finest moments. The essence of the Buckley-Vidal debates is more than a story of ratings; they forever changed the face of the television.