This has got to be the funniest political anecdote I've read in years,

[closeupready]

particularly because I have always had a low opinion of Gore Vidal.

From Tim Bell, adviser to Magaret Thatcher (for context, this was at a dinner party Bell attended, where Gore Vidal was in attendance - Vidal was speaking badly of Pinochet (rightly), and he'd organized anti-Pinochet demonstrations apparently - in a moment of 'cheek', I think, Bell essentially interjected that Vidal's view was simpleminded):

... I carried on about how Pinochet’s predecessor, President Allende, had burned the electoral roll, making the point that there can’t be anything much more undemocratic than setting light to the basis on which everyone gets a vote.

Vidal was furious at this unexpected challenge, and he turned on me. With a seriously nasty snarl, he said: ‘What on earth do you know about Chile?’

So I said: ‘Well, actually, I know Jack Henderson, who was CIA director of operations in Santiago. I know him very well.’

This stopped Vidal in his tracks, and he started to bluster: ‘Oh, you knew Jack Henderson, did you? What do you know about him?’ To which I replied: ‘Well, I know that I just made him up, so you can’t have known him that well, can you?’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2775701/Not-Diana-s-thigh-high-skirt-airhead-Withering-verdict-LORD-BELL-Lady-Thatcher-s-favourite-ad-man.html