Norman Mailer: Works and Days

The Nonviolent Norman Mailer

Myra MacPherson's account of Mailer's final hours in jail, where he counsels the antiwar movement toward nonviolence: 'to be violent is to strengthen Nixon's hand.'

“The Nonviolent Norman Mailer,” an article-interview by Myra MacPherson (Washington Post, 8 May 1970, Sec. B, 1–2), recounts Mailer’s final hours in prison serving a thirty-day sentence (twenty-five days suspended) for crossing a police line at the 22 October 1967 demonstration at the Pentagon (68.8), and a conversation in the offices of his lawyer, Phil Hirschkop. Mailer counsels the antiwar movement to be nonviolent, “because to be violent is to strengthen Nixon’s hand,” and characterizes Nixon’s fears of losing the war as “the babblings of a Chekovian character.”

First published: 1970-05-08
Form: article-interview
Lennon & Lennon: 70.11
Cite as: /works/1970-05-08-nonviolent-norman-mailer
Last updated: 2026-05-31