Part I
1
It will be a sort of intellectual Rocky.”
The speaker was the writer Peter Morgan, and the time was January 2004. Peter and his producer, Matthew Byam-Shaw, had come to my office to talk about their idea for a stage play, to be called Frost/Nixon, which would tell the story of the Nixon interviews and Nixon’s dramatic mea culpa in 1977.
They had three main requests. First: As the holder of the rights, would I give them permission to go ahead with the project? After some discussion, I said that, in principle, I would. That led to the second request: Would I let them have these rights for nothing? Peter and Matthew are both charming and persuasive, as you can tell by the fact that I said yes to this request. Frost/Nixon, they hoped, would open at the Donmar Warehouse in London and hopefully transfer into the West End. I said that my free grant of rights would extend to both these eventualities but not to any further manifestations of Frost/Nixon.
Oddly enough, it was not the money, it was the third request that gave me the most pause. Peter said that they both thought that Frost/Nixon would have more credibility if I had no editorial control. That was more difficult, and I said that I needed time to think about it.
It was a couple of months later before I gave them the green light on this issue. I felt very fifty-fifty about it at the time because I would be entrusting a project that was very precious to me to third parties. On the other hand, they felt that the play would get a better hearing if it were independent of my or my company Paradine’s editorial control. In the end, I decided that the advantages probably just about outweighed the disadvantages, though when I saw the first draft, I was not so sure. Later drafts upset me less. I think that was because they were an improvement, or maybe I was just getting inured to the experience!
It is a curious feeling to go to the theater and watch yourself onstage—particularly if the “Frost” character is depicting some of the most dramatic episodes of your life. They were events that had taken place thirty years before, but somehow it did not feel that way. Peter had promised that he could make these events seem relevant, even current, and he had achieved that.
I attended a preview of Frost/Nixon two or three nights before the play opened in August 2006. I thought it was brilliantly written, directed, and acted. There were more fictionalizations than I would have preferred, although one such piece of fictionalization—Nixon’s phone call to me on the eve of Watergate—was, I thought, a masterpiece.
I was not so sure about some of the other fictionalizations. Why was Watergate now the twelfth of the twelve sessions and not—as actually happened—two sessions in the middle, at sessions eight and nine? Why did James Reston’s discoveries from the Watergate tapes only reach me on the morning of the Watergate session and not eight months earlier, as had actually been the case? Why did the early sessions, which contained a lot of good material, have to be depicted so negatively? Why do we see Swifty Lazar, Nixon’s agent, making a series of demands without learning that they had been successfully rejected? Whenever I made these points to Peter, he would simply sigh and say, “David, you’ve got to remember this is a play, not a documentary.” However, aware of my concern, he thoughtfully added an author’s note to the program, making the point that he had sometimes found it irresistible to let his imagination take over.
And the play was an instant hit. The rave reviews were unanimous and Peter, the director, Michael Grandage, and both Michael Sheen (“Frost”) and Frank Langella (“Nixon”) were deservedly saluted.
Frank Langella did not look like Nixon, but he was Nixon. “I have never been a Method actor,” he told me. “Normally, when I’m offstage during a Broadway play, I chat to the stage manager about how the Mets are doing or whatever, but with this play, the tension is such that I did not want to go out of character, even for a minute, when I was offstage. I would go to the darkest corner at the back of the stage and just stay with my thoughts and wait. When I was required, the stage manager had to come over to me and say, ‘Mr. President, you are needed onstage.’”
I met Michael Sheen for the first time after attending that preview. The cast had not been told that I was there. Michael said that they were all bewildered because for the first twenty minutes the audience seemed nervous and there was less response than usual. I don’t know whether people expected me to leap up and say, “Stop! That’s not true!”
When I interviewed Michael last December, shortly after the Broadway production and the film had been announced, Michael said, “I’m going to be playing David Frost for the next year.”
“That’s a coincidence,” I said. “So am I.”
How did the Nixon interviews come to pass in the first place? Well, I must say that as I look back now, I marvel at the fact that we managed to pull them off. There were so many obstacles and challenges to overcome.
First, there was the challenge of getting Richard Nixon to say yes.
“Don’t waste your time,” said an Australian, adding cheerfully, “you’ve got Buckley’s”—a piece of Australian vernacular intended to make a lost cause seem roseate by comparison.
“In the words of David Schoenbrun, talking about a possible interview during World War Two,” I replied, “‘let de Gaulle say no.’”
I knew from experience that getting a clear response—whether yes or no—would not be easy. Experience came from The David Frost Show. Following the interview with then candidate Nixon that I had done in 1968, we would make annual requests for the president to appear on the program. The annual White House response had an almost ritual quality to it. It would be signed by Mr. Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler. Always Ziegler would begin by saying, “I accept your invitation for the President to appear on a show with you.” And, always, after “accepting” the invitation, Ziegler would state that the question of if and when to actually make the appearance on the show would be taken up with the president, with further information to be provided should Mr. Nixon actually agree to be interviewed.
This touching little habit of accepting pieces of paper on which invitations were written without responding affirmatively to the invitations themselves, I came to accept as a wholly innocent indication of Ziegler’s ability to render the English language inoperative, even in matters not involving alleged presidential culpability. Just once, though, I would have liked to have Ziegler reject my invitation and Mr. Nixon agree to be interviewed.
But that, of course, never came to pass. Neither, understandably enough, was there an immediate response to my phone calls, now to San Clemente, California. The breakthrough came in late June 1975, when the New York magazine publisher, Clay Felker, returning from a weekend in the Hamptons, telephoned to say that he had encountered Swifty Lazar at a party. Swifty Lazar was the representative that Richard Nixon was said to be using. Clay said that he had gained a distinct impression that Swifty was now authorized to act for Nixon in the area of television as well as that of books, and that, indeed, one of Swifty’s purposes in visiting the East Coast was to see what sort of interest in a Nixon interview he could whip up among the three networks. I knew I had to move quickly—and alone. Apart from Felker and a few close colleagues, the Nixon interviews were something I had not spoken to anybody about—partially for fear of being declared certifiable but more because I didn’t want to give the idea to anyone who did not have it already.
I was glad that I was dealing with Swifty Lazar. Noted for his legendary ability to enter a revolving door behind you and come out in front, Swifty believed in getting right to the point. He wanted $750,000 for his client for a maximum of four one-hour shows. The main competitor—later revealed to be NBC—was currently on $300,000 and on its way to $400,000 for two hours and would not guarantee more than two hours. That seemed to me to be a heavy rate per hour—and an underestimate of how much Nixon had to offer, in terms of both information and public interest. I said I was thinking of a maximum of $500,000 for a minimum of four hours. Before returning to the question of a fee, however, I ticked off the points I regarded as mandatory.
First, the point on which I expected the most trouble: editorial control. I must have sole control of editing and content; Nixon must have none. Given the history of Swifty’s client’s relations with the media, it was a tall order, I knew, but it was essential. On the question of editorial control, Swifty would check with his client.
Second: Watergate. I knew that the recently announced Warner book deal contained no specific reference to Watergate at all. Reports on other approaches suggested that the Watergate factor might have been a problem in those negotiations. But regardless of all that, I had to have a cast-iron assurance that Watergate would be the subject of one of the four shows. That was new, and Swifty would investigate.
Third: exclusivity—before and after—was a must. An independent venture ran far greater risk, and we could just not afford to take, say, a $2 million risk and then be undercut at the last moment by some network with a valid-sounding interview pretext.
Fourth: time for interviewing. Although Swifty was talking about four hours on the air, I would want the right to many more hours of taping than that, a ratio of at least four to one, in case Nixon should ramble, or stern and persistent cross-examination proved necessary. “Sixteen hours,” Swifty mused. He could see the point, but that was asking a heck of a lot.
Finally, I told Swifty that there was one other vital point. The book for which he had negotiated such a large contract—when was it due?
“Delivery of the whole book,” Swifty told me, “or one of two books, is due in October 1976 with publication the following year.”
“Well,” I said, “we have to ensure that the television interviews precede the book—and the serialization of the book—by a minimum of three months.”
“Are you sure?” asked Swifty. “That might cause me problems with Warner Bros., and after all, they have a first option on the television rights too.”
“Yes, but they must have passed on those, Swifty.”
“True—but they might reconsider.”
“Well, that is their right.” As far as I was concerned, the television had to come first.
“A lot of these points are new,” said Swifty. “I’ll be back to you.” I gave him my phone numbers in London and waited.
Within days, the word came back: the response was not unfavorable. Swifty, God bless him, felt “duty-bound” to tell me that the “rival quote” was now $400,000 for two hours and then returned to his magic figure of $750,000. I said I could not really go beyond my original figure unless I had more time on the air. We compromised at $600,000 plus 20 percent of the profits, if any, for four ninety-minute shows (rather than one-hour shows), with $200,000 of that to be paid on signature.
However, the financial side of our negotiations took the smallest amount of time. Now we had to turn to the other points, almost any of which could break the deal.
First the sine qua non: What was the position on absolute editorial control? I waited for an explosion.
“Agreed,” barked Swifty.
“He does realize that means he has no right to know the questions in advance?” I asked somewhat incredulously.
“Of course,” said Swifty, “but I think he also realizes that the bona fides of these interviews have to be demonstrable if they are to have any impact at all.”
The former president was worried about the exclusivity.
“Other television and radio interviews being out is understandable, but how about one-or two-minute statements for the news bulletins?” asked Swifty.
I took a deep breath. I rarely seemed to have the time to look back to my childhood, but for a moment I wanted to pinch myself that a Methodist minister’s son from Beccles, Suffolk, was really laying down conditions like this for the former president of the Western world. I confirmed to myself that indeed I was.
“Only by mutual agreement,” I told Swifty.
Next, did the former president understand the need for me to be protected from the book?
“Yes, he does,” said Swifty, to my relief. Though, naturally, the former president felt very strongly that the publishers had to be protected too when it came to the Watergate period. “Watergate,” said Swifty, “is the main problem.”
And it had all been going so well, I thought. But then Swifty amplified his point. It was not that the former president had any objection to Watergate being part of the contract, it was just that he could not possibly speak out freely on the subject as long as he might affect the appeals of John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman, which were still in progress. It seemed a fair point and we wrestled with the principles over the telephone, reaching a broad agreement, which was eventually enshrined in a cautious and complex clause.
August 9 was the chosen date for the parties to meet at San Clemente to sign the contract. Coincidentally, it was the first anniversary of Nixon’s resignation. Nixon, dressed in his familiar dark blue suit, was waiting for us in his office. His handshake was firm, his gaze steady, his voice relaxed and confident. He had gained weight. He looked good—reassuringly good—to someone who was about to have to start a worldwide search for life insurance.
We exchanged pleasantries. Small talk. Always the most difficult part of any conversation with Richard Nixon. But today there was news in the papers of Leonid Brezhnev. Clutching at straws, I mentioned it.
“I would not like to be a Russian leader,” said Nixon, shaking his head. “They never know when they’re being taped.”
Not a hint of a smile. Was he aware of the irony? Or just keeping the straightest face in the business?
“Communism stifles art,” he said a moment or two later. “There is little important art you can cite from Communist countries. Solzhenitsyn is not nearly as impressive as Tolstoy.”
But the purpose of the meeting was business. And for close to six hours, interrupted only by crab salad, Nixon paid attention to the task at hand. Finally, he asked his secretary to call in a tax attorney who had apparently been waiting in the wings to review the final document. As he entered, Nixon half smiled. “If I’d used this man four years ago, I wouldn’t have gotten into all that trouble with the IRS!”
The moment came for signatures. And then the check. With a firm hand but a slightly trembling mind, I wrote the name “Richard M. Nixon” and then the words “Two Hundred Thousand Dollars” and then the numbers “$200,000.”
Nixon reached for his billfold, but Swifty cut him short.
“Can I have the check, please?” he demanded.
“It’s made out to me,” the former president protested. “I’ll deposit it.”
“No, no, give it to me. That is the customary procedure.”
“But what about the bank?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“But, but—”
“Will you give it to me…please,” said Swifty, this time enunciating every word separately and distinctly.
Nixon handed the check to Swifty with the forlorn look of a little boy not allowed to consume the cookie he has swiped from the jar before dinner.
In the months that followed, Swifty had a falling-out with Nixon. Apparently he had been asked at a Hollywood party, “How on Earth can you represent a man like Richard Nixon?” And he had replied, “Listen, I’d represent Adolf Hitler if there was money in it.”
Needless to say, the former president had not appreciated the linkage when it was related to him, and relations cooled.
It was a year or two later that I asked Swifty why on earth he had said that he’d represent Adolf Hitler if there was money in it. And he replied, “No, I never said that. I only said, ‘I am not a literary censor, I would represent Mein Kampf if requested to do so.’”
I think I know which of the two quotes sounds more like Swifty to me, but it was probably a blessing for the project because Swifty loved his Hollywood parties and if you are an agent and you’re behind the scenes, it’s only by revealing what goes on behind the scenes that you can be the center of attention, and Swifty was always determined to be at least one of the centers of attention.
Had Swifty been present for the interviews, the two-month gap between the tapings and the transmissions would have presented him with an almost irresistible temptation.
The second major obstacle we encountered was the Nixon team.
Later on, we grew to like the Nixon team, and our relationships worked pretty well. But we had certainly not reached that stage during the buildup to the interviews. A couple of examples…
When I met with Jack Brennan and Frank Gannon in Los Angeles, there was bad news. Richard Nixon had apparently fallen far behind his October 1976 deadline for his memoirs. Indeed, it now appeared that the memoirs would not be finished until April or May 1977. Breaking off for the months it would take him to prepare for the interviews, not to mention the months of arduous taping sessions, was totally unacceptable. There was just no way we could get to that business until May or June of the following year.
June 1977. That, I thought, would be a disaster. Agreements and contracts were due to be drawn up with the major networks in Great Britain, France, Italy, and Australia. This sort of unexpected delay would mean we would have to wait until the following season, and Brennan and Gannon must know that. What the hell did they think they were playing at?
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” I snapped. “I have made commitments on the basis of your commitments to me. Even on our current schedule, one of my investors will have had his money tied up for eighteen months. That sort of delay is out of the question.”
Brennan then unveiled his doomsday weapon: “If that’s the case, then the president would prefer to return your check and call the whole thing off.”
“Fine, Jack,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I would say that will cost him between fifteen and twenty million dollars in damages growing out of his breach of contract. There are worldwide rights at stake now, not to mention our whole credibility. And I know what our rights are and what his obligation is. When we drafted the contract, we didn’t leave ourselves vulnerable to this sort of game playing.”
Brennan had no immediate answer but said he would carry my response back to Mr. Nixon and await further instructions. We parted company, and I flew to New York.
When Brennan called back, he said, “We’ve had discussions with the president and he is very anxious that you don’t get screwed. He wants you to know that.”
That was nice.
“And you were quite correct about the contract. It is your right to start taping after the election. That’s fine, but obviously, also under contract, we won’t be able to discuss Watergate yet. The Court of Appeals has yet to rule.”
“Well, that’s a great relief,” I said. “I look forward to going in November and December with everything except Watergate if the Court of Appeals has not yet ruled.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “everything except Watergate. Which, as we define it, covers the break-in and the cover-up and also the resignation and the pardon and the final days. Because obviously they all bring up the whole question of guilt, which you can’t discuss without discussing Watergate.”
Before I could express my vehement disagreement with that interpretation, Gannon chimed in. “It also rules out the mind-set leading to Watergate, of course,” he added. “All the security leaks, whether of a national security or a political security nature.”
Needless to say, I could scarcely believe what I was hearing, but I might as well hear it all. What exactly did they feel the “mind-set” would exclude?
“Oh, the installation of the taping system, the Pentagon Papers, the early wiretaps, and the plumbers and Ellsberg of course. And anything from June ’72 is difficult.”
I am not quite sure how I managed to end the call in a civil fashion but I murmured something to the effect that we would have to discuss all this further.
Whichever way you looked at it, this was a pure wrecking operation. No Pentagon Papers. No Ellsberg. No plumbers. No wiretaps. No taping system. No mind-set leading to Watergate. What did they expect me to talk about for eighteen hours? The Postal Reform Act and the 1969 Ohio State–Purdue football game? We could be staring defeat in the face.
While I was abroad in July taping another series in Iran, John Birt, controller of current affairs for LWT, made a vital trip to San Clemente and made significant progress. I followed on September 9 with my colleague Marv Minoff to meet with Nixon. I explained to the president that I had to be back at Los Angeles airport to catch the 1 P.M. flight to Chicago for a lecture at the University of Northern Illinois.
“Are you getting paid?”
“Certainly.”
“Just make sure you pay your taxes,” he warned. “Otherwise you can get yourself in a lot of trouble.”
Thanking him for the advice, I turned to the subject at hand. The prospect of waiting until May or June was devastating, I argued. That would mean we couldn’t complete the editing until July and it would be August at the earliest until the shows would be aired. And no stations or advertisers would be confident of getting a large audience in August.
“I don’t know about that,” said Nixon. “We got a hell of an audience on August 9, 1974.”
“Yes,” I said, “but what do you do for an encore?”
We had another meeting at San Clemente on September 14; then a new clause of the contract was drawn up and mailed to San Clemente on September 30. Then there were objections to that from the Nixon team and a new letter was sent off on November 3, but even that did not bring an immediate signature. So when I was in Los Angeles on December 7, I arranged to meet Frank Gannon for a drink and some hard discussion later.
I began by reviewing point by point the terms that had been derived from both the September 9 meeting, at which he’d been present, and the September 14 meeting, which he had missed. Clearly I was reciting nothing he hadn’t seen with his own eyes or heard about at the time.
“Frank,” I said, “the thing that puzzles me is that when we have these problems, always in the end the president acts honorably and helpfully. But for the life of me I can’t understand why it’s done in such a way as to invariably deprive him of any credit he might otherwise earn by being cooperative. I don’t know if it’s the advice he’s given or what, but why are we getting f—ed around like this?”
Gannon said he would look into it. The next day we received word that the letter of understanding had been signed in the form submitted.
At last I had my contract, barely more than three months before the first interview session.
Third, we needed to assemble the team.
This was, of course, a category that was not so much an obstacle as a challenge.
The first priority was to locate a producer—or “coproducer,” as we on this project would later call ourselves. The job definition, as I ticked it off, was daunting. My producer would not only have to be a first-rate journalist in his own right, to be able to command the respect of other first-rate journalists on the project, he had to be someone who could deal diplomatically with the Nixon people, who could make wise decisions fast under what might become incredible pressure, and who would constantly test my own instincts and conclusions. He had to be a conceptual thinker and, at the same time, know television technique and equipment as if it were second nature to him.
Did such a paragon exist? Fortunately I knew that at least one did. John Birt was the most outstanding current affairs producer I had ever worked with. He was now the controller of current affairs for LWT and, after weeks of discussion, he obtained a three-month leave of absence from November to January (which later had to be adjusted) to devote himself to the project. The quality of the rest of the team could also make or break the project. In June, I contacted the columnist Joseph Kraft, a longtime friend whose journalistic stature was attested to by the fact that he had been on more presidential hit lists than any other columnist in living memory.
Kraft first recommended James Reston, Jr., who had not followed his distinguished father onto The New York Times but was pursuing a successful career as a novelist and English instructor at the University of North Carolina. A bit later, Kraft recommended Robert Zelnick, a veteran reporter and, until recently, National Public Radio bureau chief, hardly known outside Washington but well respected by his colleagues. Bob would recruit a third reporter when we needed one and would generally act as the bureau chief of the smallest bureau in Washington.
After due consideration, he chose an outstanding investigative journalist, Phil Stanford, who had worked for us on abuses of power (non-Watergate).
We set July 1 as the starting date for Bob and Jim. John Birt would fly from London to Washington to meet them a few days later on July 12. The tempo of events was quickening. During May and June, the BBC in London had said yes, and Pacific Video of Los Angeles had agreed to become the facilities and technical unit for the production, deferring its fee of $290,000 to be recouped out of income.
During June, we had also found our “network erector.” Syndicast Services would organize our network for us, deferring its fee of $175,000 in a similar way as Pacific Video. We set July 12 as the day on which we would announce that the special network was about to come into being. I was confident, but I could not help recalling the recent words of one reluctant noninvestor.
“The networks have said no,” he told me. “The stations won’t dare go it alone.”
In Washington, Birt met first with Zelnick. From their initial handshake, they hit it off. Birt told Zelnick we wanted four “program briefing books,” each dealing with a separate aspect of the Nixon administration. While the shape of the programs would be defined finally by the material generated by the interview sessions themselves, it was not too early to be thinking in terms of Nixon’s foreign and domestic policies, Watergate, and the other abuse areas. There was also Nixon, the man himself. John asked Zelnick to prepare briefing books on Nixon’s foreign and domestic policies.
Birt’s first session with Reston, he found less encouraging. Jim regarded Nixon as the epitome of evil and, despite his resignation, a continuing threat to the American body politic. He felt that Nixon would know more about all areas of his presidency—including Watergate—than we could ever learn and thought it inevitable that he would win any confrontation between us based on an evidentiary interrogation. Jim was speaking partly as a novelist. What he seemed to want was a psychohistory of the Nixon presidency that would explain both the mind of Richard Nixon and the dark forces in American society that had carried him to the pinnacle of political power. Birt and Zelnick felt as I did: that it was the whole record of Richard Nixon that had to be examined. “The biggest danger,” said Bob, “is in failing to do a thorough job and not putting this man on record on things about his presidency which he has never had to address in a comprehensive way.”
I arrived in Washington on the fifteenth to find the argument still going on and Birt by now harboring serious doubts about whether he and Jim could ever work fruitfully together. I was all for providing insight into the Nixon character, if at all possible. But to make that the be-all and end-all was setting the sights far too low. However, I decided that Jim should stay on the team. If he lacked Birt’s combination of intellect and television professionalism or Zelnick’s tactical and logical intuition, he added a dimension of passion and creativity that could prove exceedingly valuable. It was a decision I would never regret. While Reston would continue to press doggedly with his lonely plea for a quasi-psychiatric interrogation of Nixon, he did a masterful researching and organizing of the Watergate material.
Indeed, by mid-September, while perusing the Watergate trial transcript at the Federal Courthouse on John Marshall Place, Jim came up with a gem. Leafing through the prosecution exhibits, he came upon a conversation between Nixon and Charles Colson dated June 20, 1972, just three days after the break-in. And other conversations on February 13, 1973, with Nixon saying, “When I’m speaking about Watergate, that’s the whole point of the election: this tremendous investigation rests unless one of the seven begins to talk: that’s the problem.” And on February 14, Nixon says, “That’s where we’ve got to cut our losses. My losses are to be cut. The president’s loss has got to be cut on the cover-up deal.”
These tapes were new, and the dates on which they had been recorded were devastating. It was the best kind of scoop—developed not through a leak or a breach of ethics on anyone’s part but through Jim’s own sheer shoe-leather diligence.
Fourth, we had to raise the money.
Finance—or the lack of it—was a perpetual subtext of the Nixon interviews. For instance, the bankers who had promised that first $200,000 of the Nixon check that we had to present on signature had reneged with just twenty-four hours to go. That crisis was averted when James Wolfensohn—then at J. Henry Schroder in New York—came to the rescue. It was soon clear that the overall cost of the Nixon interviews was going to be in the region of $2 million and that was the sum we had to raise. Polygram, the German-Dutch musical entertainment conglomerate, soon came into the picture with the $200,000 that enabled me to repay Jim Wolfensohn. Later on it also came in for an additional $400,000.
Financier James Goldsmith said that he would match that sum. But it was soon clear that raising $2 million by financial contributions alone was going to be difficult, if not impossible. We had to have presales as well, around the world. I was in Sydney, Australia, when Kerry Packer of the National 9 Network said yes at dinner on the night of July 1. We would settle the details over the phone before I left for Los Angeles the next day. After completing a week’s stint from 9 A.M. til noon on radio on Sydney’s 2SM network throughout Australia, I called Kerry in his office. Kerry confirmed that he wanted to take the Nixon interviews but said he would not go a cent above $160,000. I said I would not come down a cent below $175,000 because at that stage every dollar mattered. An impasse like that—particularly between friends—can easily end in disaster.
“Let’s toss for it,” I said.
“Okay, Frostie,” said Kerry. “You call…”
“Tails.”
“Tails it is, old son.”
I had equally fruitful conversations with TF1 in France, RAI in Italy, and the BBC in London. The gap was beginning to close, but then one other investor who had pledged his support withdrew and the gap began to open again.
Fifth, where would we broadcast the interviews?
Despite perfectly amiable conversations, it became clear that the three network news departments would not change their minds about broadcasting the Nixon interviews. NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News rarely, if ever, took independent productions from outside companies. In this case, with something that they could see would have considerable impact, they were even more adamant that they did not want to take on this independent production.
So I had to erect my own network, making syndication deals in each market in the country. It had never been done before, but it was the only way. I was fortunate enough to find a syndication distribution company, Syndicast, which was prepared to take on the challenge. Friday, July 16, 1976, was a crucial day. I met with Syndicast at 8:15 A.M. to check on the progress to date. The people there told me that in the previous four days, since July 12, two of the nation’s most respected station groups—Scripps Howard, whose markets were Cleveland, Cincinnati, Memphis, and West Palm Beach, and Corinthian, with stations in Houston, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Fort Wayne, and Tulsa—had committed to the Nixon interviews. At 8:45 A.M., Syndicast had arranged a meeting with George Moynihan and Pat Polillo of Group W Westinghouse Broadcasting, who had produced The David Frost Show and whose markets were Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Baltimore. And at ten o’clock, with another old friend, Larry Fraiberg of Channel 5 in New York, who was representing the Metromedia group of stations in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Kansas City, and Minneapolis. Both meetings went well, and by lunchtime both station groups had said yes. We had 40 percent of the nation in one week! That left only another 170 stations to go…
Sixth, there was the little matter of sponsors.
In order to construct a one-off network like this, the arrangement with the individual stations had to be as follows:
In the course of each ninety-minute program there would be twelve minutes of commercials. The local station would broadcast six minutes of our national commercials and in return have six minutes that they could sell themselves. So we had six minutes in each show to fill with our commercials.
As an adman explained to me, “Look, you’ve got a big problem. Out of the companies you’re approaching, fifty percent wouldn’t have wanted to be seen having anything to do with Nixon even when he was president, and the other fifty percent are trying to make people forget that they did.”
Michael Johnson, the president of Syndicast, wrote to thirty major companies to see if they would be interested in sole sponsorship of all four programs. “The opportunity exists…to perform an unprecedented national service and to reach, at the same time, a very large and intense audience.”
If the matter had not been so serious, the responses would have been hilarious. The thirty companies were unanimous. “We would have no interest whatsoever in programs of this type,” said one. “I’m sorry to tell you that our television strategy over the next several years does not include these kinds of programs.”
One advertiser’s letter seemed to have two distinct authors: “While we agree with you about the outstanding historic nature of these broadcasts, I’m sure you can see it would be dangerous for us to be associated with an enterprise like that.”
No sole sponsors, then.
It was Datsun who made the first verbal commitment for four thirty-second spots. The first signed agreement came on January 7 from Weed Eater in Houston. It obtained its reward on 60 Minutes four months later, when it became a subject of national debate on that outstanding newsmagazine.
“Weed Eater,” said Mike Wallace. “I don’t know what Weed Eater is, but they have bought one spot, two spots?” I was not, I must confess, totally equipped to answer him.
FROST: Weed Eater is a product that you’re going to come to know and love and understand, but first I hope that I come to understand it. Let’s be clear about this. We’re seeking advertisers who realize it is history, but it’s controversial history. So we are seeking advertisers with courage, and these people have courage. But we are—
WALLACE: Weed Eater has courage?
FROST: Weed Eater has courage.
So did Richard Gelb of Bristol-Myers, who came in with a really positive contribution, but when we started taping the interviews in March, we still did not have a full lineup. Halfway through the taping of the interviews, we had the reassuring news that we were sold out.
And so all the obstacles were eventually—and sometimes at the last minute—overcome. Of course, while all of this business planning was going on, so was the research.
Bob Zelnick, Jim Reston, and Phil Stanford, our third journalistic contributor, were producing the briefing books in Washington. John Birt and I were working on those and of course on the tapes in London.
We were amateurs in the cloak-and-dagger business, but we did our best. We had strict confidentiality clauses for everyone in sight. We knew the name “Nixon” immediately attracted attention, so in telexes, we referred to “the subject,” and when we met in restaurants, whenever waiters or others approached, Richard Nixon would become “William Holden” or “Charlton Heston,” but I would be hard pressed to claim that we ever fooled anyone with our little moments of melodrama.
Leaving the table briefly during one of our sessions at the Rive Gauche in Washington, Zelnick encountered one of our regular waiters.
“Mr. Zelnick,” he said, “I hate to interfere, but I have waited on William Holden dozens of times, and he just doesn’t seem like the sort of fellow who would tell witnesses to lie to juries.”
Before Zelnick could think of a response, the waiter went on, “But Richard Nixon does, and I hope Mr. Frost gives him hell.”
The Rive Gauche was about to give way to the delights of the Beverly Hilton. Unfortunately, Phil Stanford would not join us because of prior commitments, but otherwise we were at full strength. John Birt had arrived from London, followed a day or two later by Libby Reeves-Purdie, my London secretary and girl Friday. Marv Minoff, Bob Zelnick, and Jim Reston were commuting between the hotel and our offices in Century City, where Don and Susan Clark and Stewart Hillner were handling the awesome logistics associated with the project, poring over airline schedules, and trying to work out in advance how to dispatch tapes to Denmark to meet a deadline and get them transferred from 525 lines to 625 lines on the way. Over at Don Stern Productions, Jørn Winther, our director; Don Stern himself, who was to be our editor; and Tony Hudz had been reviewing thousands of feet of newsreel film and tape supplied by our film researcher in New York, Ann Dean. John had brought Bernard Lodge’s titles and Dudley Simpson’s music over from London, and he and Jørn were busy checking out the final technical arrangements with Pacific Video. It was a team, small and ad hoc though it may have been, good enough to fill any executive producer with confidence. And, as I write their names again now, gratitude.
After we had arrived in California, Jack Brennan and I had one more rousing confrontation before the interviews began. We were lunching at the Quiet Cannon near San Clemente. “How do we know,” asked Brennan, “that you’re not going to screw us with the editing?”
I demurred and quickly put forth the question that was on my mind: “How do we know you’re not going to screw us with the stonewalling?”
We had both stated as boldly as possible our basic fears. We had not put each other’s minds at rest, but at least it did make dialogue easier.
Brennan went on. “You know, sixty percent of what this guy did in office was right,” he said, “and thirty percent might have been wrong but he thought it was right at the time.”
I stared at Mr. Brennan without having to say a word. Both of us had passed arithmetic in elementary school. Ten percent of what Nixon had done was wrong and he knew it was wrong.
Brennan finally broke the silence. “If you screw us on the sixty percent, I’m going to ruin you if it takes the rest of my life.”
I did not want to quibble over the exact percentages. Putting my arm around him, I replied, “and if you stonewall us on the ten percent, I’m going to ruin you if it takes the rest of my life.”
It was a curious compact born of belligerence, but I found it oddly encouraging.
On the drive back from the Quiet Cannon to the Beverly Hilton, I was horrified to realize that I’d left my briefcase behind at San Clemente, containing at least one of our four basic briefing books.
I hastened to find Zelnick, only to discover that he’d already learned about the missing item from Ken Khachigian, a senior Nixon aide. “Ken just called to extend his thanks for your leaving the briefcase there,” he told me. “He says it saved them a firebombing.”
We continued talking to anybody and everybody who could help us understand Nixon better. A senior domestic policy adviser theorized to Bob Zelnick that there were really two Nixons: the one who was fascinated with great international issues and the mechanics of governing and the frighteningly insecure political thug. Each Nixon had surrounded himself with a predictable set of colleagues. In the end, the thugs had prevailed and been responsible for bringing down the Nixon presidency. But both Nixons existed. Like the hero in Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Nixon could well complain, “Alas, two souls beat within my breast.” Or, as Dr. Johnson said of one of his contemporaries, “He may do very well, as long as he can outrun his character: but the moment his character catches up with him, he’s all over.”
How many Nixons, I wondered, would we encounter in the coming month?