CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO -- SHOTS ARE FIRED, BUT THE CARAVAN MOVES ON

(Did You Sleep With the Models?)

On November 12, 1982, the New York Times reported at length about gay-hater Jerry Falwell's visit to Yale and to the office of university president A. Bartlett Giamatti. In view of Dr. Giamatti's attack on Falwell’s so-called Moral Majority in 1981 -- he assailed the group as propagating "dangerous, malicious nonsense" -- Mandate's editors were stunned and outraged that he would then receive such a demagogue and extend to him the hospitality of Yale University. The meeting took place at the behest of Vice President George H.W. Bush. Giamatti, as de facto employee of the Establishment — meaning conservative government and capitalistic overlordship of education, journalism, industry, the military, the arts, and much more — lacked the courage to refuse Bush’s offer. The following letters give the exchange of views between the editors and Giamatti. They appeared in Mandate’s “Mandata” column in May 1983.