Original subtitles

MAN: David, starting with camera two in four...

..three, two...

Cue David. And...

I spent a long time being

and thinking about David and getting to know him.

This was the biggest moment of his career,

this massive risk under so much pressure.

It never lost its intensity or its drama.

MAN: Four, three, two...

Tonight in this room,

former President Richard Nixon will be speaking publicly

about his years of power

for the first time since he resigned from office.

REPORTER: The biggest White House scandal in a century.

He isn't above the law, no one should be.

They should lock him up, as far as I'm concerned.

He'll be confronting the whole of his controversial presidential past,

from Vietnam... to Watergate.

BOB: It was a journalistic,

cultural, political coup.

This was not getting some TV anchor to interview him for a half hour.

Twenty-eight hours of taping over a period of a month.

BOB: This was going to be a real knockdown,

drag out cross examination.

It's YOUR recollection of a meeting. Isn't it better to let people judge?

MICHAEL: Frost's entire career after this depends on how this goes,

and the gatekeepers of journalism were saying he wouldn't be up to it.

When I resigned, people didn't think

it was enough to admit mistakes, fine.

WILFRIED: He had to get Nixon to admit wrong-doing.

If they want me to get down, grovel on the floor...

No. Never.

Hello. Good evening, and welcome.

We wanna involve both world leaders and world entertainers.

And what I've tried to talk with them about

are things that are not usually asked.

Every time a Black man's lynched, I'm lynched.

(DRAMATIC THEME MUSIC)

We're not living in ivory towers in Hollywood.

Am I paranoid?

The answer is, at times, yes.

I had betrayed a myth, an image.

I've never really known how to communicate

with people on a one-to-one basis.

(UPBEAT TV THEME MUSIC)

REPORTER: David Frost took American television by a storm

with a syndicated talk show in the early '70s.

Mr James Brown.

Miss Barbra Streisand. Mr Richard Burton. Mr Ray Charles.

But Frost's American rocket fizzled quickly.

He went from having eight nights a week in London and New York

to having no real interview platform on either side of the Atlantic.

Newsweek magazine said David Frost's American career had waned

after his talk show was dropped in 1972. Accurate?

Er... Well I wouldn't have said so

because it depends how you define a career, of course.

I would have said that my career was exploding at that particular point.

MAN: Five, four...

Welcome back, and we're on the verge now of a gastronomic summit...

breaking three speed-eating records.

William's made a good start there with those revolting-looking whelks,

down the end there...

I met him at a dinner party.

I got the impression that he was a very busy man.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're on a verge of a world record...

He did the Guinness Book of World Records...

(LAUGHS) ..the sword swallower.

He was paid to speak to this dental convention.

Truth was, he was struggling at that time...

..and I think quite a few people

were saying, "Well, Frost is yesterday business."

Deep down, he was quite worried

about what was gonna happen with the future.

He was kinda out of options,

and he was desperate to get back to the big time.

I love new challenges.

If people tell me something's impossible,

then I'll find it irresistible to do it.

When they say it can't be done, I find that irresistible.

CAROLINE: The idea was always to achieve the impossible interview

and after Watergate, that was Richard Nixon.

(CROWD CHEERS)

REPORTER: President Nixon appears to have won re-election

by the largest absolute majority ever in American history.

That was my first election that I was going to be able to vote in.

I voted for Nixon, mostly because I believed he was capable

of getting us out of Vietnam, and I was draft age.

So, when the Watergate scandal struck,

it was a shock.

The Senate tonight voted 77 to nothing

to establish a select committee to investigate

alleged political espionage in last year's election campaign.

That includes the Watergate bugging case

What did the President know, and when did he know it?

BOB: Carl Bernstein and I did the original stories on Watergate.

REPORTER: Bob, when did you first begin suspect

that this was a really big story

and not simply a bit of burglary? Well, I think the day after,

when it was established that one of the five men arrested

in the Democrats headquarters was the campaign security chief

for the president's re-election committee.

The break in was to plant microphones

so they could eavesdrop on the political opposition.

REPORTER: The biggest White House scandal in a century,

the Watergate scandal, broke wide open today.

REPORTER 2: Charges of a high-level campaign a political sabotage

unparallelled in American history.

I just don't believe anything that Mr Nixon is saying right now.

I don't think the American people should stand for it any longer.

I think we need a new president.

REPORTER: We are cancelling the remainder

of our regular programme scheduled for this evening

in order to bring you the following special report...

I have never been a quitter.

I was on the road promoting Happy Days.

and literally on the TV was Nixon resigning.

Because of the Watergate matter,

I might not have the support of the Congress

that I would consider necessary to carry out the duties of this office.

Therefore,

I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

RON: It was pretty shattering.

May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.

I, Gerald R. Ford,

president of the United States,

do grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon

for all offences against the United States.

Ford decided, for the unity of the country, that he'd pardon Nixon...

CROWD: (CHANTING): Justice! Justice! Justice! Justice!

..but certain people thought that Nixon should be

prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The American public won't find out what really went on.

Just getting off scot-free.

I had been hired in 1973

as one of the first members of the Watergate Prosecution Task Force.

We were terribly upset.

We would have liked to have indicted him...

so that he would have to plead to something and acknowledge his guilt.

REPORTER: Richard Nixon is in San Clemente tonight.

The challenge that faces him now is the toughest one of all:

how to begin to put back together a shattered life.

The day he resigned,

Nixon asked me to go out on Air Force One to California.

We were a very small band of brothers and sisters

isolated in the house in San Clemente.

We were loyalists,

and some of us were blind loyalists, I think.

The jackals were out to get him.

The whole establishment wanted Nixon's throat.

They got the resignation, they got him kicked out of office,

they took away his income.

He was broke.

He said, "Look, Ken,

to tell my story,

I have to tell it on television...

and I can reach millions and millions and millions of people."

Then came Mr Frost with an offer.

REPORTER: The former president has agreed to record

a series of interviews with David Frost.

REPORTER 2: The contract was signed at San Clemente

on the first anniversary of Mr Nixon's resignation.

I sense that he is ready to start reflecting on his achievements

and his mistakes. No subject,

including Watergate,

has been barred.

Nixon had other offers from the networks,

but Dad had outbid them.

Where was the money going to come from?

At that point, we just didn't know.

(VIA PHONE): I'm sorry it sounds strange,

but as so often, I'm in the car at the moment.

I'm off on Saturday, and I'm obviously going to be based

in California for the next two months.

People said, "Oh, this is a ridiculous idea. You must be mad."

But he genuinely believed that this opportunity

was going to take him to another stage... to the next level.

In the area of saying we were trying to keep them

to what they'd already agreed, or we were trying to get new concessions.

How do you think he'll respond to that?

REPORTER: Frost has had a team of researchers working for months

trying to prepare him for anything Mr Nixon might throw at him.

He is hardly going to confess on the air anything about Watergate.

Some people were very sceptical.

They thought, "That Englishman is not gonna get him to say anything."

Why would he give it to you?

It was kind of amazing to me that it was David Frost.

I mean, I knew who David Frost was.

He got a lot of great guests.

But the feeling was,

"Should he be in a position to interview a president?"

If you feel that he IS stonewalling...

..what do you do?I don't think that the Stonewall approach

will be the one he'll take. I hope the approach he would take

will be the one of... a cascade of candour.

"A cascade of candour" from Richard Nixon.

Is this what you expect? No.

It was just a phrase that I thought would appeal to you.

A cascade of candour...

because he's making fun of Mike Wallace there.

I just thought it was a phrase that might appeal to you.

People who consider themselves the real gatekeepers of journalism

and going, "Wha... Who do you think you are?"

I mean, he's just charm personified

but underneath is this steel.

The stakes couldn't have been higher because this was the first time

that Nixon was going to be seen publicly since he'd resigned.

It was the big news. I mean Nixon was finally talking.

And what were people looking for? They were looking for confession.

If Nixon could kinda skate through the interviews,

that would be doing a huge disservice to the nation,

and that's where the drama was

and ultimately putting this figure's feet to the fire.

The house that they set up for the interviews,

it was a one-story, tiny ranch house.

We were all squashed in,

and we had a monitor.

So we could see what was going on.

Everybody was on pins and needles. They didn't know

what was gonna happen. Nobody knew what would happen.

Got a hair out of place?

I must apologise by the way that I am giving your staff extra work

because I am now starting to get letters addressed to me

at San Clemente.You're much better off if you just burns them.

And then you don't have to answer them.(LAUGHS)

They are set.And then you can say, "Well, I never got it."Yes.

Well, we were all pretty excited.

The sort of buzz in the air.

President Nixon had appointed me to oversee the research.

I told him they were out for blood.

Excuse me one second. Well, now I can't move.

What is it? Can you just pull the collar?

The collar has just... What is it?

I said, "Look, David has a reputation at stake..."

That's perfect.

"and if he's not going to go for your throat,

then something's wrong.

He's going to be one tough bastard.

So don't expect a walk in the park."

MAN: Eight, seven, six...

..three, two...

We weren't sure what the first thing out of the box would be.

Mr President, we're going to be covering a lot of subjects

in a great deal of detail in the course of the next six hours.

But I must begin completely out of context

by asking you one question that, more than any other,

almost every American and people all over the world want me to ask.

Why didn't you burn the tapes?

Good evening. There was a surprise witness

at the Watergate hearings today, and he made a dramatic disclosure.

President Nixon ordered secret electronic listening devices

installed in his offices and on his telephone.

Nixon never imagined that the existence would be made public,

much less that the tapes themselves or any of them would be released.

The special prosecutor's office immediately subpoenaed them.

The country tonight is in the midst of what may be

the most serious constitutional crisis in its history.

The president announced that he would not obey a court order

to surrender the Watergate tapes.

REPORTER: Do you think he should give up the tapes?

Yes. Yes, definitely yes.

It took a Supreme Court order

to make them public and put them on the record.

GEORGE: The tapes became the central evidence

around the whole Watergate scandal.

Without the tapes, he would have remained in office.

Everybody says,

why didn't you burn the tapes?

And in a word, I wondered what your answer was?

Well, Mr Frost, as you know,

we agreed that we would cover the Watergate aspects

of these various programmes,

the White House years and the early life as well

in our last taping session.

It was an understanding that in the first taping

that no questions that were related to Watergate would be asked.

Right out of the box,

a question had been asked that had been agreed would not be asked,

at least in that order.

But er,

since you have that as a major concern

among your listeners and viewers,

why there's no reason I at least can't briefly respond to it now.

David made a big strategic error.

It disrupted the whole beginning of the interview.

First it takes a little bit more than a word

because you have to understand why they were put in.Right.

When I arrived in the White House

and saw the Oval Office...

The filibuster began with, "Let me start talking about

the background of how the tapes got in

and all this blah, blah, blah..."

I also learned that there was a what was called a taping system.

I didn't learn then how extensive it was but I understood that it was...

The president went on and on and on and on and on...

President Johnson was always... ..eating up time, and I could see

David was just squirming and going crazy.

But anyway, to come quickly,

more quickly to the direct answer as to why we didn't burn them.

It was pretty funny, actually.

I must admit, in all candour,

I don't believe they were going to come out.

Well, now, let me say, Mr President,

that as the tape continues rolling,

so this won't be used,

may I just suggest that...

And that was just intended, and it worked marvellously,

as a thing to just get us talking in this very, very, very relaxed way.

And in fact, we've been talking for 20 minutes,

as you can see, in that very relaxed way.

I guess a couple of uh...

The first interview did not go well.

Even David himself was slightly worried.

It's rare to see Dad not in control,

and on the first day, he wasn't.

After that first round, we thought David had flubbed a little bit.

We were high fiving.

Now the two titans,

the mini titan and the real titan,

we're gonna find out what they were made of.

(UPBEAT THEME MUSIC)

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

Tonight, my guest is a former president of your country,

now completely pardoned by his former vice president

for any crimes might have committed while in office.

Wow. Saturday Night Live. That's quite... If you're gonna have

a sort of backhanded compliment, that's it, isn't it?

May I perhaps begin these 20 hours of talks between you and me first

by asking you about your childhood.

Do you have any particularly strong childhood memories?

Well...

(CHUCKLES) ..of course I do have some childhood memories

that come back to me now and again.

I remember one particular morning in April of 1921.

I remember coming down to the kitchen

where my mother was preparing the meal that we called breakfast.

I changed the pot water, and you can always tell

because there were two spigots on either side of the fire...

I remember my father had a little round...Well,

while the ex-president is talking and so on,

let me just remind you there'll be another 19 hours of these talks...

That was his friend, Eric Idle,

weeks before broadcast, taking the piss out of Dad

and showing that people didn't believe he was gonna succeed.

I was thinking, "How on earth is David going to do this?"

I can remember David telling me not to worry

and his confidence that everything would be OK.

Dad was always incredibly optimistic.

When it was pouring with rain on holiday,

the sun WAS just about to come out. Always.

Well, we've only just begun,

but so far, after one session,

all the omens are good.

MAN: One minute. MAN 2: One minute.

MAN 3: Counting. We are ready.We are ready.

Four, three...

One of the big luxuries of having 28 hours

was the scope it offered to build a relationship.

Mr President, the whole area of foreign policy is such a vast one.

Days two to six were meant to focus on foreign policy,

an area that Nixon cared passionately about.

Whose idea was the initiative to China? Was it yours?

David was beginning to size up his subject.

He said, "Yes, Mao is a colossus,

but he is a colossus facing death."

CAROLINE: And Nixon was, I think,

too arrogant to really realise what David was up to.

Castro intervenes in Angola.

Japanese are difficult to negotiate with.

For three hours until past midnight,

Brezhnev hammered me on the Mid-East.

Nixon was rambling,

but now David let him ramble on.

That's a great political example,

great political example.

The quality of what you had to say was absolutely outstanding.

I said, "Remember Lot's wife...

..never look back."

So, the thing to do, just tell him privately.

"Look, you son of a bitch. Either do it or we'll kick you in the ass."

That's not pressure(!) (LAUGHS)

But of course, no one really cared

about what he had to say about foreign policy.

Dad HAD to get Nixon to admit wrongdoing.

Without that, the rest was irrelevant.

When we would drive back after each session,

David would be on the phone all the time to different companies

selling the idea that Nixon would confess.

After he outbid them,

the three networks decided, "We're not touching this programme."

And Dad had to start piecing together over 100 local TV stations

just to try and reach all of the corners of America.

And to recoup what he'd committed to spend.

REPORTER: Frost has lined up 138 stations.

He gives them the programmes.

In return, they give him the right to sell six one-minute commercials

in each of the four broadcasts,

and he keeps that money.

Rarely is the star

also the entrepreneur,

dancing between trying to sell advertising

and actually execute this socially politically significant interview.

The advertising started slowly

and then has picked up very well since.

At this point, we've sold half the time.

He says about half. I don't think he was anywhere near half.

He's saying he was halfway there. I mean, he's under massive pressure.

Weed Eater. I don't know what Weed Eater is,

but they have bought one spot, two spots?

Weed Eater. Well, I don't think any of us knew what the Weed Eater was.

Weed Eater is a product that you're going to come to know and love.

Let's be clear about this, we are seeking here advertisers

who realise this is history, but it's controversial history,

so we are seeking advertisers with courage,

and these people have courage.

Weed Eater has courage? Weed Eater has courage.

Our new Weed Eater weighs only eight pounds and it costs only $69.95.

Blue chip companies didn't want to be associated with it.

You know, if the interviews didn't work out, Dad would be seen

as the guy that financed a disgraced president's retirement

and let him walk all over him.

MAN: Mr President, won't you give me a pat?

OK. Try to clear it up. Thank you. Thank you very much.

He's trying to make me look good.

Five, four, three, two... And succeeding.

Let's turn now, if we could,

to the subject of the Huston Plan.

A White House aide named Tom Charles Huston came up with an interesting

but somewhat illegal plan for authorising wire taps,

break-ins and interception of mail to combat domestic unrest.

President Nixon approved the plan then withdrew...

The people that government was surveilling

and burglar-ing were left-wing political opponents

he considers to be dangerous to the country, i.e. to him.

The notion of undermining enemies was something

that he had made part of his kitbag,

even before Watergate.

In the Huston Plan,

it's stated very clearly,

"Use of this technique is clearly illegal.

It amounts to burglary."

Why did you approve a plan that included an element like that

that was clearly illegal?

Yes, "burglary" is the word.

But another way to put it is, you get the information that you need.

There are some actions that have to be covert.

By "covert"...

Let me put it this way- Or in this case, illegal.

Well... let me say that...

..it is legal, in my view...

So what, in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations,

and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them,

where the president can decide that it's in the best interest

of the nation or something and do something illegal.

Or when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.

By definition. Exactly.

If the president does it, it's legal by definition?

It was not legal,

and Nixon only escaped full accountability

because he was pardoned.

Yeah, no, but where do we draw the line?

Why shouldn't the same presidential power apply to somebody who

the president feels in the national interest should murder a dissenter?

Now Frost is in his zone,

guiding him without making him shut down. Leading him through the maze.

There are nuances.

I do not mean to suggest the president is above the law.

What I am suggesting, that a president does have,

under the Constitution, extraordinary powers

and must exert them.

It's amazing.

That's one of the best authentic revelations

of Nixon's way of thinking,

"I have a lot of power,

I'm doing something that I can make legal even though it's illegal."

Simple as that.

For the first time, in seven days,

Nixon had said something that would be a headline.

But Dad had to get him to a place

where he was willing to open up about Watergate.

KEN: From the outset,

we were going back and forth with the president

on how we were gonna deal with Watergate.

He didn't have an answer yet in his own mind.

Your perspiring is done mainly in the forehead rather than the...

Yes. Yes. You don't do it on the lip?No. No.

I said to the president,

"Frost is going to want you to say you committed a crime.

He's going to want to get what nobody else has gotten from you,

that you lied to the American public

and that you committed an impeachable offence."

MAN: Four, three, two...

That's the crown jewel of his interview.

David was working all the time.

He was not sleeping very well.

He worked most of the night.

He'd get up, have a big breakfast,

and then they'd start researching.

He knew it was on his shoulders to deliver.

MAN: Four, three, two...

Mr President, reviewing now your conduct

over the whole of the Watergate period,

do you feel that you ever obstructed justice

or were part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice?

Well, in answer to that question,

I think that the best procedure would be for us to do exactly

what you're going to do in this programme,

to go through the whole record.

I know what I did do.

And perhaps even more important, from my standpoint,

I know what I did not do. Well, I think that-

And I'd like the opportunity, finally,

to lay to rest the false charges that have been made.

Five men were arrested early Saturday

while trying to install eavesdropping equipment

at the Democratic National Committee.

And it turns out that one of them has an office in the headquarters

of the committee for the re-election of the president.

REPORTER: The White House denied and continues to deny involvement

in any wrongdoing.

I first learned from news reports...

..of the Watergate break in.

I was appalled at this senseless, illegal action.

At one point, I asked him,

"If you had known about it, would you have approved it?"

And he said, "No, absolutely not."

And then he said, "Not because it was wrong but because it was stupid.

You don't you don't bug the party headquarter, bug the candidate."

The Democratic national chairman calls

for a full-scale FBI investigation

to find out who was behind the incident.

REPORTER: Mr Nixon said the affair will not be covered up.

In fact, the tapes make it pretty clear

that the president, right at the beginning,

had tried to put the kibosh on this whole investigation.

It was using the power of presidency

to tell the FBI that they ought to stay away from this.

And it was his voice.

In the evidence that we have to hand,

you said, "Tell them, 'Don't go any further into this case, period.'

Get them to stop. They don't need to pursue it.

They've already got their case. Five suspects had been arrested.

This should be sufficient." So that is obstruction of justice. Period.

That's your conclusion...

It is. ..but now let's look at the facts.

The fact is, it didn't have any such effect whatever.

You have to judge an individual by his actions as well as by the words.

You can pick a few words out of a tape.

Let's face it, I was president of the United States.

I could hire, fire the head of the CIA or the FBI or anybody else.

I could've put a lot of pressure on, but I didn't.

But there's one very clear, self-contained quote,

and I read the whole of this conversation,

which I don't think's ever been published,

that I thought was- It hasn't been published, you say?

No, I think it's available to anybody who consults the records.

Oh, I see.But people don't consult all the records.

Just wondering if we'd seen it. (LAUGHS)Well, I'm sure you have,

yes, but... Where the President says this ...

"When I'm speaking about Watergate,

this tremendous investigation rests.

Unless one of the seven begins to talk.

That's the problem."

REPORTER: Good evening,

the Watergate bugging case tops the news tonight.

Seven people were indicted today,

the five who were caught by the police,

along with two others, a former White House aide

and a former consultant for the White House.

That was the link to the White House that made this more

than a third-rate burglary as the White House tried to describe it.

REPORTER: E. Howard Hunt, a former employee of the White House,

pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy,

burglary and eavesdropping.

REPORTER: Mr Hunt, If you testify before a grand jury,

will your testimony implicate higher ups or indicate a wider conspiracy?

What do we mean by one of the seven beginning to talk?

I certainly could believe that a man like Howard Hunt,

under the pressures of the moment,

could have started putting out all sorts of stories

to embarrass the administration. I still just think, though,

that one has to go contrary

to the normal usage of language

of almost 10,000 gangster movies.

To interpret "unless one of the seven begins to talk"

as anything other than some sort of conspiracy

to stop him talking about something damaging.

You can you can state your conclusion. And I've stated my view.

That's fair. So now we go on with the rest of it.

The tapes show repeatedly Nixon saying,

"How do we keep people from talking?"

Wouldn't you say that record in the meeting does show that you...

endorsed what was going on, with regard to the payment to Hunt?

When one reads, reading the whole conversation...

one, "You could get a million dollars,

and you could get it in cash. I know where it could be gotten."

Two, "Your major guy to keep under control is Hunt."

Three, "Don't you have to handle Hunt's financial situation?"

Four, "Let me put it frankly,

I wonder if that doesn't have to be continued."

Five, "Get the million bucks.

It would seem to me that would be worthwhile."

Money is the way you're buying silence.

There is no ambiguity.

Eleven, "The money can be provided.

Mitchell could provide the way to deliver it.

That could be done. See what I mean?" Twelve,

"But let's come back to the money." They were off on something else here,

desperate to get away from money, bored with references to money.

"A million dollars and so forth and so on.

Let me say that I think you could get that in cash."

Fourteen, "Would you agree that this is a buy-time thing?

You better damn well get that done. But fast."

Sixteen, "We have no choice." And so on.

Now, reading, as you've requested, the whole context-Alright, fine.

Let me just stop you right there. Right there.

David was very aggressive, and I had preached this from the beginning.

I said that he was a cold, ambitious bastard. (LAUGHS)

He was gonna go for the throat.

You're doing something here, which I am not doing.

You are reading there out of context,

out of order,

because I have read this and I know it really better than you do.

And I should know it better because I was there.

It's no reflection on you. You know better than anybody else I know,

incidentally, and you're doing it very well.

But I am not going to sit here and read the thing back to you.

I could have notes here. As you know,

I participated on all of these broadcasts

without a note in front of me.

I've done it all from recollection. I may have made some mistakes.

Let me quote to you then.

I've been through the record. I want to be totally fair.

But the last thing in the transcripts I can find about this subject

was you talking on April the 20th,

and you were recollecting this meeting,

and you said that you said, "Christ, turn over any cash we got."

That's YOUR recollection of the meeting.

It really is the bull and the matador.

He pushes Nixon to raise the emotion,

I guess instinctively feeling that's not gonna make Nixon shut down

but actually make Nixon kind of take the bait, which he does.

I did consider it.

I've told you that I considered it.

I considered it for reasons that I thought were very good ones.

Uh, I would not consider it for the other reasons,

which would have been, in my view, bad ones.

Surely those would've been the ones...

We never got a chance to go to trial.

But this is sort of the more public show business version.

My point is that without...

I mean, you see a witness is just collapsing.

I didn't endorse or ratify it. Why didn't you stop it?

I had no knowledge of the fact that it WAS going to be paid.

(CHUCKLES) They ask why he didn't burn the tapes.

You also sort of wonder, "Why did he do the interview?"

It's possible it's a mistake that I didn't stop.You said to him...

We all acknowledge that it was just a...

It was a bad day. I said, "You know, you were cornered."

And he said, Well, Ken, Watergate is all corners."

We've gone over time. We've gone over time.

But I think it's been a marvellous morning.

It was clearly a terrible day for Nixon.

This was a rare glimpse

of David Frost the prosecutor, but he needed more.

Thank you very much indeed.

And going into the final day,

Dad decided to change tactic.

This office is a sacred trust,

and I am determined to be worthy of that trust.

I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break in.

I neither took part in

nor knew about any of the subsequent cover up activities.

I have never obstructed justice.

After a couple of years in which Nixon had continued

to stonewall any acknowledgment of culpability...

I welcome this kind of examination because people have gotta know

whether or not their president's a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.

..just to acknowledge his guilt was very, very important historically.

This was the one opportunity the public might ever have.

MAN: Four, three, two...

Welcome back to Monarch Bay.

Um... (LOW BUZZING) Is that noise that we're just hearing...

Since we haven't started... I wouldn't ask about it normally.

Is that... What is it? It's a plane. A plane.

(PLANE ENGINE RUMBLES) It's coming so low,

it looks as though it's actually...

attacking. Attacking. Yes.

Alright. It's CBS.Yes. (LAUGHS)

Right, OK.

MAN: Alright, we're clear now.

Nixon had been thinking overnight,

"I got to get this finished, I gotta get it done.

There's got to be some pathway out of this."

MAN: Ten seconds, stand by.

Throughout the process, Frost's trying to find his way.

"How am I going to get this guy to be more human?"

Mr President,

er...

cos this is...

a difficult programme for you and a difficult programme for me...

er...

You've talked about the mistakes...

Er... (SIGHS)

We're at an extraordinary moment, in a way.

Would you...

do...

..what...

the American people yearn to hear,

not cos they yearn to hear it but just to...

tell all, level and so on?

Would you go further than "mistakes"?

In the Nixon camp,

there were differences of opinion of what he should or could say.

There was a hardcore belief among some that he owed nothing

and that if he gave an inch, a mile would be taken.

And then there were others who felt that it was important

that he acknowledge what a lot of people felt,

that he had put the nation through two years of hell.

Those were the two poles.

You've explained how you got caught up in this thing.

You've explained your motives.

I don't want to quibble about any of that.

But just coming to the sheer substance...

..would you go further than "mistakes"? The word...

..that seems not enough for people to understand.

What word would you express?

My goodness, that's a...

I would say-I-No. Let me say, let me say, let me say.

I- No, no, no, no. Let me try and say.

Cos I have qualified the mistakes. Yes.I've tried to say...

Let me say-..how bad they were. Well, let me say.

I'm basically trying to forget...

I've tried to forget the difference between a mistake and a crime.

The drama of throwing the clipboard away.

He knows this is a big moment.

Let me say that my concern is now not to,

which is why I chucked the clipboard away,

is not to be legalistic...

Mm-hm. That's good...or anything about obstructions of justice

and so on and things we've discussed so far and so on.

I think that there are three things,

since you asked me that heart stopping question,

I would like to hear you say,

I think the American people would like to hear you say.

One is...

.."There was probably more than...mistakes.

There was...

wrongdoing, whether it was a crime or not.

Yes, it may have been a crime too."

Secondly...

"I did abuse the power I had as president."

And thirdly...

.."I put the American people through two years of needless agony,

and I apologise for that." Mm-hm.

And I know how difficult it is for anyone and most of all you.

But I think...

that people need to hear it.

And I think unless you say it... Mm.

..you're going to be haunted for the rest of your life. Mm.

KEN: He can't respond right out of the box.

Let me say...

if I intended to cover up, believe me, I'd have done it.

That's a preamble.

You know I could've done it. So easily.

And as he's done the thousands and thousands of times in his life...

..whether it was negotiating with Brezhnev,

whether it was sitting with Mao...

he was formulating something.

Let me answer it in my own way about,

how do I feel about the American people?

That forces me to...

rationalise now

and give you a carefully prepared and cropped statement.

I didn't expect this question, frankly, though,

so I'm not going to give you that. But I can tell you this.

Nor did I.

I can tell you this.

I think I said it all...

in one of those moments that...

that you're not thinking,

sometimes you say the things that are really in your heart.

I had a lot of difficult meetings those last days before I resigned,

and...

And the most difficult one

and the only one where...

(CLICKS TONGUE)

..I... I broke into tears...

At the very end after saying, "Well,

thank you for all your support during these tough years,"

I must say, I sort of cracked up...

..started crying, pushed my chair back...

..and then I blurted it out.

And I said...

.."I'm sorry. I just hope I haven't let you down."

Well, when I said, "I just hope I haven't let you down,"...

..that said it all. I had.

I let down my friends.

I let down...

..the country.

I let down our system of government

and the dreams of all those young people

that ought to get into government

but'll think it's all too corrupt and the rest.

Yep, I-I...

I let the American people down.

And I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life.

My political life is over.

I will never yet

and never again...

have an opportunity to serve in any official position.

And so, I can only say that while...

technically I did not commit a crime...

an impeachable offence...

..these are legalisms.

As far as the handling of this matter here is concerned...

..it was so botched up.

I made so many bad judgements.

The worst ones, mistakes of the heart rather than the head.

But let me say,

a man in that top job,

he's gotta have a heart.

But his head must always rule his heart.

I think you've said it all, really. The...

you're saying if I understand it right, Mr President, you said...

..it's a burden that...

you've gotta carry with you for the rest of your life.

I think it might be a little lighter after what you've said.

I doubt it.

Frost has done it.

I don't think Nixon could ever have anticipated

that he would have been taken to where he got taken.

I'm sure it was torture for Nixon.

And maybe that's as much justice as we can hope for.

I mean, that was his punishment, finally.

Mr President, this is...

This has been more- Been tough for you?

(LAUGHS)Well, no, but I was going to say that, er...

I feel we've... Covered a lot of ground.

..been through a life almost rather than an interview.

And we thank you.

Alright. Have a good lunch.

Well, let's get out of here.

(INHALES SHARPLY)

Thank you. We'll say it again later,

but thank you again, everybody.

It's that old Aesop's fable.

The wind and the sun are having a competition

to get someone's coat off,

and the wind huffs and puffs,

and the man just draws his coat close around him,

and then the sun just shines warmly, and the man takes his coat off.

And really, you've, in a sense,

got to create a context in which people feel like taking the coat off.

REPORTER: Last night, Richard Nixon broke the silence

of his three-year exile in San Clemente.

...90 minutes of questions between

the disgraced former president and British showman David Frost.

Nixon was humbled, his defences shattered.

"I let down my friends I let down my country."

He, in his own mind, gave a lot,

by saying that it hurt. I think he really felt it.

Seemed like something out of a Greek tragedy

or something because he really seemed to react himself

as a human being to what he'd done as a politician,

and he was sorry for it.

It really affected me. My wife and I had tears in our eyes.

Did Nixon cry?I don't know where the dividing line is

between a glisten and a tear.

45 million viewers, the biggest audience for a political interview.

"An audience on a par, in terms of size,

with ABC's Happy Days sitcom." (LAUGHS)

REPORTER: The former president barely acknowledged reporters

as he arrived to play an afternoon round of golf.

His spokesman said it will be the ex-president's policy

not to comment on any of the Frost television interviews.

REPORTER: David Frost's finest journalistic hour

is now Hollywood legend.

The real-life drama of American politics

and the ambition of one young British journalist,

now an elderly knight of the realm.

Frost is television.

He understands what people react to on that side of the lens

but also what people respond to in front of it,

and you can't imagine anyone else being able to do it.

Basically, you want to find out what makes them tick.

How do you do that as a great interviewer?

(LAUGHS)

That's my secret.

(DRAMATIC THEME MUSIC)

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