America's eminent writer on corporate power, the decline of the Kennedys and the erosion of rights At 73, Gore Vidal is an esteemed author and provocateur. His novels include Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Washington, D.C., Hollywood and, most recently, The Smithsonian Institution. A collection of Vidal's essays, United States: 1952-1992, won the National Book Award in 1993. A memoir, Palimpsest, was published in 1995. His latest book, The American Presidency, appeared this fall.

His grandfather was Thomas P. Gore, Oklahoma's first U.S. senator; his distant cousin is Vice President Al Gore. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was his stepsister.

Joseph Dumas coaxed Vidal to answer our questions from his villa on Italy's Amalfi coast.

"He is everything attributed to him, and more."

Q1 Playboy: Hillary Rodham Clinton visited you in Italy. You discussed the failed attempt at creating a national health service. What happened?

Vidal: The health care proposals of the Clintons and the subsequent debacle show corporate America at its most vivid, protecting its turf and destroying anyone who tries to discipline it. Of course it was a conspiracy, though Hillary's phrase, "right wing," hardly defines it. I said to Hillary, "If you had made the insurance companies public enemy number one, the advantage--and perhaps victory--would have been the public's." She said, "We tried to be fair to everyone." Challenged by an attempt to bring the U.S. into the civilized world--all other first-world countries have national health programs--the insurance and the pharmaceutical companies, together with some high-spirited members of the American Medical Association, vowed that the U.S. will never have such a service. Why? A third of the costs for most health care under the present system goes to insurance companies for filling out forms and filling up their bank accounts, with not a Band-Aid for us. Then, just to make sure no other politician would try to give the American people anything for their tax money, they set out to destroy the Clintons personally with various lurid charges--necrophilia is in the wings--while taking endless legal actions against them, to bankrupt everyone. Those involved have now got the message: This is America. No one challenges the rich and their corporations. The only public money that can be spent for the public is for military procurement--that's how we've accumulated $5 trillion worth of debt. The Clintons were taught an expensive lesson about their humble place in society. Just another pair of lawyers in a government of lawyers for the benefit of lawyers. It is unlikely any president will ever again try to give the people anything for their tax money. Other than a war, of course.