In the summer of 1968, a series of deliciously exhilarating debates put on air by a then-floundering ABC would alter the course of TV news forever. Seeking two political pundits to debate one another during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, ABC struck a nerve with the intellectual equivalent of the Ali- Frazier fights. On one end was William F. Buckley, a pillar of the modern conservative movement. His opponent? Gore Vidal, the liberal polemicist, out homosexual, and antithesis to everything Buckley stood for. With a deep-seated animosity stretching back decades that proved all too intoxicating for viewers, the bitter adversaries riveted audiences with their scathing rhetoric and explosive assault on each other’s ideologies, redefining the nature of public discourse with cutting jabs that seem civil by today’s standards. Get a front seat for this clash of brainy titans
