The Meaning of 'Western Defense'
A greatly revised version of "The Defence of the Compass" (51.4), and Mailer's first appearance in Dissent — the magazine's second number, issued 1 April 1954. Mailer would serve on the Dissent editorial board from 1954 until the mid-1980s.
“The Meaning of ‘Western Defense.’” Dissent 1 (spring 1954), 157–65.
A greatly revised version of “The Defence of the Compass” (51.4) — Mailer’s Cold War essay against the prospect of a collision between Soviet state capitalism and U.S. monopoly capitalism — with the original’s extended Korean War commentary cut.
The essay carries Mailer’s first appearance in Dissent, which ran it in the magazine’s second number, issued 1 April 1954. Mailer was a member of the Dissent editorial board from 1954 until the mid-1980s. His “facetious” characterization here of Sidney Hook as a “liberal-with-muscles” prompts a follow-up letter, “In Re: Sidney Hook” (54.2), in the summer issue.
Rpt: Advertisements for Myself (59.13).