Allegations that Gore Vidal was a paedophile have been ignored by the BBC and the Guardian

Funny that, because they couldn’t get enough of the old bugger when he was slagging off people and things they didn’t approve of  - e.g. George W. Bush (he wanted him impeached for war crimes – Bush's “junta” was apparently responsible for 9/11), business, America’s military-industrial complex, Ronald Reagan (too stupid to live, obviously), Britain (should have been turned into an historical theme park), the idea that most people are heterosexual etc. But when members of his own family make the sensational claim that Vidal – who died last year – was a paedophile, it apparently isn’t worth reporting. The Telegraph disagreed (full story here):

The American man of letters, who died last year, had been “terrified” that a longstanding literary foe would release a file accusing him of having sex with underage boys, according to family members. 

They told Tim Teeman, the British author of In Bed With Gore Vidal, that he ran up a million-dollar legal bill trying to prevent the conservative journalist William F. Buckley from publishing the claims. 

“Gore didn’t want these records to come out,” Nina Straight, his half-sister, told Teeman. “He was very upset, terrified, about the material.” Ms Straight said she believed the records alleged that Vidal committed “Jerry Sandusky acts”.  

Sandusky, a football coach at Penn State University, was last year convicted of sexually abusing young boys. 

Asked whether Vidal believed Buckley had incriminating evidence of him having sex with underage men, Ms Straight told Mr Teeman: “You would not be incorrect in taking that from what I’ve said”.

Claims that he called the victims of paedophile Catholic priests “hustlers”, supported NAMBLA (the North American Man/Boy Love Association) in the Seventies, and “spent a lot of time in Bangkok” can be found in the Daily Mail (here). I have no idea if these are true, but in 2009, Vidal undoubtedly stated that he felt no sympathy for the 13-year old girl whom the film director Roman Polanski drugged and raped in Los Angeles, dismissing her as a “hooker”.

One might be less inclined to help spread these revolting allegations had Vidal not appeared at the launch of a Hollywood male prostitute’s sleazy kiss-and-tell memoirs two years ago – and attested to the blighter’s veracity. What's good for the goose, old boy! 

I wonder how our liberal media would have reacted had Bill Buckley’s family claimed that he had spent a million dollars suppressing a dossier compiled by Gore Vidal which allegedly revealed the great conservative writer's proclivity for sex with underage girls? (Just to be clear - nobody has ever made any such suggestion.) I suspect the BBC and the Guardian might have thought it worth mentioning – after all, they hated everything Buckley stood for.

My warm and generous obituary of Gore Vidal, posted last year, can be found here.