During a nationally televised debate at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Gore Vidal called conservative commentator William F. Buckley a “crypto-Nazi” and Buckley — first employing a sexual epithet — pledged to “sock” Vidal in the face if he said such a thing a second time.

Months later, in the last sentence of an elaborately self-defensive article in Esquire, Buckley apologized. Vidal’s turn at Esquire was about as apologetic as a declaration of war. Along with some ugly shots that cost the magazine $115,000 in an out-of-court libel settlement, he said that Buckley’s “forehead suddenly opened” on the broadcast and “out sprang that wild cuckoo which I had always known was there … .”