The Nation - News from Jan. 13, 1986

Shouting authors twice interrupted Secretary of State George P. Shultz as he told an international conference of writers in New York that the Reagan Administration is “on your side” regarding freedom of expression. Norman Mailer, the president of the PEN American Center who invited Shultz to speak at the 48th International PEN Congress, apologized to him after the incident. Several writers had signed a protest letter accusing the United States of supporting “governments that silence, imprison, even torture their citizens for their beliefs.”