WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Leading US author Gore Vidalon Tuesday defended his decision to witness the execution of Timothy McVeigh and said he shared the Oklahoma City bomber's view that "government had run amok" in America.

Vidal, whose novels include "Burr" and "Lincoln," said in a round of television interviews he was dreading watching McVeigh's execution on May 16 in a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, but had accepted his invitation to attend.

"I shall detest it, I don't like the death penalty, I'm not of a morbid disposition. But he (McVeigh) asked, and I thought, well we both have the same feelings about government running amok," he said from his home in Ravello, Italy.

"We have both seen an election hijack by a Supreme Court and we have all sorts of acts of violence against our own system, drug enforcement agencies and so on. I think it's a sign, well that there is somebody who is not violent, that's me, but who agrees (with McVeigh)," he told CBS's "The Early Show."

Vidal, like McVeigh in the past, took aim at former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno who ordered the 1993 government raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that ended in the deaths of more than 80 cult members.

"First I'm against the death penalty, second I'm against Timothy McVeigh blowing up people in Oklahoma City, but I'm even more against Attorney General Janet Reno," Vidal told ABC's "Good Morning America" program.

"She (Reno) did a terrible thing and in response to this, out of a sense of justice, he did the same thing. Do I approve of that? No. Do I approve of a general pattern of harassment of American people across the country? of course I don't."

McVeigh was quoted as saying in a recent book, "American Terrorist," that he detonated a truck bomb outside a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 to avenge the Waco raid.

McVeigh also said in a note released last month that he had considered assassinating Reno and others instead of bombing the Oklahoma City federal building, an act that killed 168 people.

Vidal, who plans to write an article about the execution for Vanity Fair magazine, said he began his correspondence with McVeigh after an article the author wrote for the magazine in 1998 about the "shredding" of the Bill of Rights in America.

"He wrote me and I became fascinated by him. First of all he's a very good, clear writer and he knows a lot about the Constitution and is very interested in the Bill of Rights," Vidal told ABC.

Vidal said he could not understand why people were angry with him for attending the execution, saying Plato advised that "the unexamined life was not worth living."

By attending the execution by lethal injection, Vidal said he was trying to show people how "sick" America was in terms of the erosion of civil rights.