Ugly Stuff at the Nation
Howe, Irving
This past March the Nation marked its 120th anniversary with a special issue containing articles of varying interest. One of them, alas, stood out—a racist diatribe by Gore Vidal concerning...
...Nor is it clear why Podhoretz's indifference to the Civil War leads to a state of mind in which "his first loyalty would always be to Israel...
...Vidal's piece aroused disgust not because of any issue it raised or taboo it violated, but because of the terms in which it was couched—terms about as close to anti-Semitism as anyone not an openly declared anti-Semite could reach...
...but rather, his first loyalty would always be to Israel...
...This bit of good fellowship out of the way, Vidal turns to the Jews...
...He attacks the neoconservative writers, Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, and Midge Decter...
...And their free exercise of such rights—whatever one may think of their opinions—does not depend on when their ancestors came to the United States...
...But surely his lack of interest in the Civil War doesn't demonstrate that he had ceased "planning" —notice the language—to become "an assimilated American...
...and the U.S.S.R.] don't band together, we are going to end up as farmers—or, worse, mere entertainment —for the more than one billion grimly efficient Asiatics...
...Unless, of course, it's in the Jewish genes...
...In what way, except for his being Jewish, did Podhoretz need to become an "assimilated American...
...q *The notion, long cherished by anti-Semites and other reactionaries, that Jews in a given country, whether born there or not, are present by sufference of their gentile "hosts" is not confined to Vidal...
...it had been subcontracted to a free-lancer named Uriah Heep...
...BUT WAIT A MINUTE...
...As if to make clear that his racist venom is not confined to Jews, Vidal starts out with a bit of "yellow peril" nativism that has a long tradition in America...
...If anything, this was still more shocking than the fact that the Nation had printed Vidal's piece...
...Many of us have publicly been engaged in precisely this discussion for years now, and one need only look through the files of various magazines—left, right, and center—to see how fierce this debate has been...
...The Nation editors wrote that Vidal had done a service "by violating the taboo that forbids the discussion of the relationship of the American Jewish community to the state of Israel...
...Marcel Proust, in his great novel, shows that the same ugly line of thought was present among French aristocrats after the Dreyfus Affair...
...Vidal's piece takes an ugly turn when he suggests that the most someone like Podhoretz—and other Jews also?—can be in America (his "host country," as Vidal so nicely puts it) is an "assimilated American...
...It is many years since I have read anything quite like this in a serious magazine...
...How could he have committed this defense of the unspeakable Vidal...
...The "Editor's Note" in the Nation puzzled me...
...If they "make propaganda and raise money for Israel," it may be because they sincerely believe this to be good for America or freedom...
...Now, if Podhoretz's worst fault were that he felt "remote" from the Civil War, one might easily forgive him...
...Soon after Vidal's article appeared there came a torrent of protesting letters to the Nation, which occasioned an "Editor's Note" in reply...
...Your Dreyfus might rather be convicted of breaking the laws of hospitality...
...Not too long ago such talk was called red-baiting, and it's no more attractive when it turns up as antiredbaiting...
...And then I came up with the answer: The "Note" had not been written by Navasky at all...
...Even, one may suppose, a WASP with 271 ancestry going back to the Mayflower might feel that way...
...It might, after all, lead to nothing more than a refusal to read books about the Civil War...
...After all, the white race is a minority race . . . and if the two great powers of the Northern Hemisphere [the U.S...
...But that's not the issue here...
...Baron de Charlus says of Dreyfus: "his crime is non-existent, your [Jewish] friend's compatriot would have committed a crime if he had betrayed Judea, but what has he to do with France...
...Whatever are the Nation editors talking about...
...And then, touching bottom, Vidal tells Podhoretz and Decter: "I don't much like your country, which is Israel...
...Why should Podhoretz, born in the United States, have to make any such "plans...
...Apparently, Vidal has never recovered from the shock of this impiety: "I realized that [Podhoretz] was not planning to become an 'assimilated American...
...I know its chief editor, Victor Navasky, as a decent and humane man...
...It's hardly a secret that we of Dissent disagree strongly with Podhoretz and Decter...
...Yet he and Midge stay on among us, in order to make propaganda and raise money for Israel...
...F]or Americans to survive economically in the coming Sino-Japanese world, an alliance with the Soviet Union is necessary...
...Some twenty-five years ago, it seems, Vidal told Podhoretz that he, Vidal, was writing a play about the American Civil War and Podhoretz (according to Vidal) said he found the Civil War "remote and irrelevant...
...For from this follows the slur about "first loyalty" and from that, the accusation that American Zionists are "our Israeli fifth columnists"— which means, does it not...
...Podhoretz and Decter have quite as much right as any other Americans whose Americanness is not thereby impugned to express their views about Israel or anything else...
...What taboo...
...At stake is whether people holding neoconservative views about Israel are to be branded "fifth columnists" in a liberal magazine...
...One of them, alas, stood out—a racist diatribe by Gore Vidal concerning Israel, American Jews, and "fifth columnists...
...And suppose one believes that the best kind of American is one who's just a little unassimilated...
...that they are disloyal to the United States...
Vol. 33 • July 1986 • No. 3
