An Interview With Gore Vidal

"I'm Jealous of Cuba", an interview with Gore Vidal, one of our vital political and historical writers, was posted on Counterpunch on December 21, 2006 by Rosa Mariam Elizalde. I've excerpted a section related to 9/11. It's a great interview; Vidal traces the hidden history of American imperialism. gh

RM: Oliver Stone was recently sanctioned by the US State Department for violating the blockade against Cuba. His crime was traveling to Cuba to make two documentaries about Fidel. Are these measures constitutional?

Gore Vidal: Well of course it's a violation, as the first amendment grants us freedom of speech, the fourth amendment of the constitution is the bill of rights, which guarantees our rights to assembly and so forth. We have had since 9/11 a coup d´etat in the United States, the first we've ever had, in which a group of rather dishonest oil and gas people were able to seize the power of the State and by so doing they ended up with the Congress in their hands, they ended up with the presidency and much of the judiciary and much of the courts. It happened very fast. It's quite unique. It will be a great story one day at the moment it's just something the people don't understand. What they've never seen before doesn't exist really. Well they're seeing it now, in situ, as archaeologists, and it's a very unpleasant sight. Out of that come the sanctions, as you put it, on Oliver Stone, who has every right to make any movie that he wants to make and in whatever circumstance, as long as he breaks no laws, and no laws have been broken here. They [Bush and Cheney] just don't like it, oh! My goodness me!