Vidal will be attending the execution of
Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy McVeigh.
Vidal, whose works include "Burr," "Lincoln" and "The Last Empire," said he began corresponding with McVeigh in 1988 when the bomber wrote him about an article he had written in Vanity Fair on "the shredding" of the Bill of Rights.
"We've exchanged several letters," the author said. "He's very intelligent. He's not insane."
Vidal was chosen by McVeigh as one of five witnesses for his friends or family.
"Do I approve of it?" Vidal asked of the bombing. "Of course I don't," he told The Oklahoman.
However Vidal said he and McVeigh have similar views about the erosion of constitutional rights and about the federal government's 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.
"This guy's got a case -- you don't send the FBI in to kill women and children," he said. "The boy has a sense of justice, That's what attracted me to him."
Vidal said he will write an article for Vanity Fair about the execution and may write a movie about McVeigh "and those of us who object to the tyranny of the U.S. government against its people."
Quotes taken from cnn.com
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In the end Vidal did not attend the excecution
because he could not be bothered to leave his retirement in Italy. McVeigh was not told that Vidal was not in attendance, and presumbably believed him to be present, for what that is worth. Source: Perpetual war for perpetual peace by Gore Vidal.
thanks for this last bit to Serjeant's Muse.