04.17

Interview. Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of the American Empire. Edited by Sut Jhally and Jeremy Earp. Foreword by Howard Zinn. Northampton, Mass.: Interlink Publishing. Mailer joins 24 other interviewees, both conservatives such as Shadia Drury, and leftists such as Noam Chomsky, in commenting on the implications for American foreign policy created by the 9/11 attacks. In his seven-page interview recorded in Brooklyn on 29 October 2003, Mailer stresses that for President Bush 9/11 was a “golden opportunity,” one that enabled him unleash the American military on the international stage after the end of the Cold War, most notably in the invasion of Iraq. He says that 9/11, along with Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President Kennedy, are the three events in his lifetime that “that have altered American history.” See 03.13, 03.18, 03.21.