During Watergate, I was a major wallower. One of my major regrets in life is that, the weekend of the Saturday Night Massacre when the story exploded, I was away at a comic book convention and therefore out of touch with reality. But I read all the books, watched all the documentaries and even once had lunch with Chuck Colson. (This was after he'd been "born again," long after the days when, he said, he'd run over his grandmother to get Richard Nixon re-elected.)
Unlike those who sought the appearance of fairness by saying, "I think Nixon was a good president who did bad things," I decided he was a bad president who did bad things with, of course, a few notable exceptions. But he was never not interesting…so I watched with relish, a few years after his resignation, when David Frost conducted a series of televised interviews. Frost was a good, take-no-crap interviewer…though even he had trouble getting anything of substance out of the ex-president. Initially, Frost was shrewd enough to insist on over-taping — recording three or four times as much conversation as they'd need, so he could edit out all the stonewalling and red herrings.
Once the sessions began, he found he'd underestimated: Nixon could rattle on about dozens of extraneous topics, running out the clock without addressing the essence of Frost's questions. After a day or three of this, Frost had to go in and renegotiate the taping schedule. He demanded more hours of interviewing time. Nixon refused. Frost and his staff sat down and figured out the topics that Nixon most wanted to discuss and have included in his "television memoirs" and said, in effect, "Well, then we'll have to skip those areas." Outmaneuvered, Nixon gave in and granted the extra hours…and the final interviews were truly riveting.
David Frost, who is now Sir David Frost, has recently done a re-edit of the interviews to yield ten hours. Much of the material was not included in the original broadcasts but it's in the shows which will begin airing next week (June 17) on The Discovery Civilization Channel. The first two hours air repeatedly that day and the next, to be followed by more a few weeks later. I intend to TiVo them all.
In the meantime, technicians are working away on #342 of the famed Nixon tapes, attempting to use new technology to recover the audio from the legendary 18-and-a-half minute gap. The tape in question was made June 20, 1972, just three days after the Watergate break-in — the first time Nixon discussed the matter with his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman. Nixon denied he'd erased that section of the tape — a denial that no one ever believed. I'm skeptical that they can "unerase" the conversation but, if they can, it will be fascinating in one way if it's incriminating and fascinating in another way if it's not. Even years after his death, Nixon can still fascinate.