Norman Mailer: Works and Days

How the Wimp Won the War

Mailer's Vanity Fair essay on the 1991 Gulf War (May 1991); the discarded title was 'Cleaning the Augean Stables.'

“How the Wimp Won the War,” Mailer’s essay on the 1991 Gulf War, ran in Vanity Fair in May 1991 (138–43, 184, 186) — the title playing on the press’s old “wimp” tag for George H. W. Bush. Its discarded title was “Cleaning the Augean Stables.” Reprinted in 1992 (92.13), in The Time of Our Time (98.7, partial), and complete in Mind of an Outlaw (13.1).

First published: 1991-05
Form: essay
Lennon & Lennon: 91.2
Cite as: /works/1991-05-how-the-wimp-won-the-war
Last updated: 2026-06-06