Norman Mailer vs. the Big Empty

In 1962, Norman Mailer sat down to debate his friend William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley was America’s most influential conservative, and Mailer was a homegrown radical. Mailer boldly proposed, “End the Cold War. Pull back our boundaries ... Let the Communists flounder in the countries they acquire. The more countries they hold, the less supportable will become the contradictions of their ideology. [...] Let it be their waste, not ours.”