60.1

“A Program for the Nation.” Dissent 7 (winter), 67-70. Symposium contribution. Consists of five suggestions for debate in the 1960 presidential campaign, written “at the very beginning of 1960” in response to an Esquire questionnaire, but sent instead to Dissent. Rpt: 63.37 in a slightly abridged form. Mailer says in “Appendix B—Projects and Places” that it was “written at two or three in the morning in February 1959.” Social critic Paul Goodman called Mailer a “chump” for giving qualified support to President Kennedy in the essay, which led to Mailer writing a searing letter to the editors. See 13.2, 306–07; 14.3, 289–90.