The climactic moment of the movie, as it was of the debates, comes after the moderator, Howard K. Smith, refers to the fact that some of the antiwar demonstrators in Grant Park had brandished Vietcong flags prior to the police onslaught. Here, in full, is the relevant frank exchange of views:
SMITH: Mr. Vidal, wasn’t it a provocative act to try to raise the Vietcong flag in the park in the film we just saw? Wouldn’t that invite—raising the Nazi flag during World War II would have had similar consequences.
VIDAL: You must realize what some of the political issues are here. There are many people in the United States who happen to believe that the United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Vietcong are correct in wanting to organize their own country in their own way politically. This happens to be pretty much the opinion of Western Europe and many other parts of the world. If it is a novelty in Chicago, that is too bad, but I assume that the point of the American democracy—
BUCKLEY: (interrupting): —and some people were pro-Nazi—
VIDAL: —is you can express any view you want—
BUCKLEY: —and some people were pro-Nazi—
VIDAL: Shut up a minute!
BUCKLEY: No, I won’t. Some people were pro-Nazi and, and the answer is they were well treated by people who ostracized them. And I’m for ostracizing people who egg on other people to shoot American Marines and American soldiers. I know you don’t care—
VIDAL (loftily): As far as I’m concerned, the only pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself. Failing that—
SMITH: Let’s, let’s not call names—
VIDAL: Failing that, I can only say that—
BUCKLEY (snarling, teeth bared): Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddam face, and you’ll stay plastered—
(Everybody talks at once. Unintelligible.)
SMITH: Gentlemen!