A Program for the Nation
A Dissent symposium contribution consisting of five suggestions for debate in the 1960 presidential campaign — written, Mailer says, "at the very beginning of 1960" in answer to an Esquire questionnaire but sent instead to Dissent.
“A Program for the Nation.” Dissent 7 (winter 1960), 67–70. Symposium contribution.
Mailer wrote the five proposals in response to an Esquire questionnaire but sent them to Dissent. In “Appendix B — Projects and Places” he later dated the piece’s composition to “two or three in the morning in February 1959.” The social critic Paul Goodman called Mailer a “chump” for the qualified support he gave President Kennedy in the essay, which prompted Mailer to write a searing letter to the editors. Rpt: 63.37, in a slightly abridged form.
Related pages
- 1960 | Dissent | Paul Goodman
- Superman Comes to the Supermarket
- Norman Mailer: A Double Life (13.2) | Selected Letters of Norman Mailer (14.3)
- The Presidential Papers (63.37)