May 19, 1977: PBS broadcasts the 3rd of a 4-episode installment of David Frost Interviews Richard Nixon. It includes a statement made by Nixon that was defined by those putting the series together as what they had been looking for: A confession of a crime, or a "self-conviction."
Nixon had given public speeches, but not any interviews, since he resigned the Presidency on August 9, 1974. At these speeches, often at college campuses, he would, inevitably, be asked about the scandal that led to his resignation, one step ahead of impeachment and removal: Watergate. He was tired of these unvetted accusations from the audience, and wanted to address them in a controlled environment.
So he turned to David Frost, who had interviewed him for Frost On America, a special that aired shortly before Christmas 1970. After playing youth soccer well enough to be offered a contract by East Midlands team Nottingham Forest, Frost graduated from the University of Cambridge, and was on television regularly from 1958. "The first time I stepped into a television studio", he once remembered, "it felt like home. It didn't scare me. Talking to the camera seemed the most natural thing in the world."
He became widely known in Britain by hosting the satirical show That Was The Week That Was. He hosted an American version, and became popular on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. TW3 was a precursor to the "Laugh-In Looks at the News" segment on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, the Weekend Update segment on Saturday Night Live, and shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
But by 1976, Frost was in a rut, and wasn't especially popular in either country anymore. And Nixon wanted a more controlled environment for expressing his views. These two very different men needed each other.
So they set up David Frost Interviews Richard Nixon, a set of 5 interviews, for broadcasts 90 minutes apiece. Nixon was paid $600,000, plus a 20 percent share of the profits, which had to be funded by Frost himself, after the "Big Three" U.S. television networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) turned down the program, describing it as "checkbook journalism." Frost's company negotiated its own deals to syndicate the interviews with local stations across the U.S. and internationally, creating what actor-director Ron Howard would later describe as "the first fourth network."
At first, the interviews were attempted at La Casa Pacifica, Nixon's post-Presidency home in San Clemente, California, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. But nearby navigational equipment from the U.S. Coast Guard interfered with the recording. Harold H. Smith, a Nixon supporter, offered the use of his house, 10 miles up the coast in Monarch Bay, and the interviews were done there.
Frost taped around 29 hours of interviews with Nixon over 4 weeks. When they aired, they were broken up into 4 episodes: "Watergate," broadcast on May 4, 1977; "Nixon and the World," on May 12; "War at Home and Abroad," on May 19; and "Nixon, the Man" on May 26. On September 10, an additional episode aired, with material that Frost wanted to include, but had to drop for time.
Most of what aired really wasn't worth the effort to watch. Saturday Night Live parodied this, when guest host Eric Idle, of Monty Python fame, interviewed Dan Aykroyd as Nixon. As Aykroyd's Nixon plodded on, Idle's body language, depicting how bored his version of Frost seemed, got funnier and funnier.
But in the May 4 episode, Nixon, who had previously avoided discussing his role in Watergate, expressed contrition saying, "I let the American people down, and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life." But the May 19 episode contained the key line, which the interviews' producer, Bob Zelnick of ABC News, said was what the American people demanded: A "trial" and a "conviction."
Frost asked Nixon whether the President of the United States -- anyone who held the office, at any given time -- could do something illegal in certain situations, such as against antiwar groups and others. He brought up the "Huston Plan," a 43-page report on what could be done against antiwar activists and other "radicals," written up by White House aide Tom Charles Huston, which Nixon approved on July 23, 1970, but rescinded 5 days later, realizing that it was not a good idea to allow unwarranted searches and seizures, in violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Frost: So, what, in a sense, you're saying, is that there are certain situations -- the Huston Plan, or that part, was one of them -- where the President can decide that it's "in the best interests of the nation," or something, and do something illegal.
Nixon: Well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.
Frost: By definition?
Nixon: Exactly. Exactly. If, if, for example, the President approves something, approves an action, because of the national security, or, in this case, because of a threat to the internal policing order of a significant magnitude, then, the President's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out to carry it out without violating the law. Otherwise, they're in an impossible position.
Nixon's reply was very methodical, and showed no emotion whatsoever. He took no visible offense to Frost's assessment. Nor did Frost express any shock, or anger, at the implications of Nixon's reply.
One of the implications became clear right after it aired. People saw that Nixon didn't care about the Constitution -- which, as all Presidents must do upon assuming the office, he had sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend" -- as long as he got what he thought was best for the country.
When Nixon said, on November 17, 1973, "People have gotta know whether or not their President is a crook!" he was right. When he followed this with, "Well, I am not a crook!" he was right about that, too. The term "crook" connotes petty crimes. The Watergate burglars were crooks. His 1st Vice President, Spiro Agnew, who had to resign the office over tax fraud, was a crook.
Richard Milhous Nixon was not a crook. He was an arch-criminal. And, however inadvertently, David Frost got him to confess to it.
The reaction of the viewing audience was nearly universal. Even staunch Republicans, who supported him until his resignation, maybe even supported him still, saw that he had gone too far, and had admitted to actions that had gone too far, even if he, himself, did not agree that they went too far.
(Let's face it, the word "staunch" goes so well with "Republicans." I've never heard anyone described as a "staunch Democrat.")
This was "Nixon's trial." The verdict: Guilty as charged. The sentence: Forever doomed to being considered one of the worst Presidents of all time, which, to that point, also included Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover.
The events surrounding the interviews were fictionalized for a play, Frost/Nixon, written by Peter Morgan. Nixon was played by Frank Langella, who had already played a few villains in his time, from Count Dracula to an ambitious White House Chief of Staff who replaced an incapacitated President with a physical double in the 1993 film Dave.
Frost was played by Welsh actor Michael Sheen, who had already played the man then Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair; and would go on to play a very different 1970s British icon, a man that Frost had interviewed: Football manager Brian Clough, in the film The Damned United.
The play premiered in 2006, and Langella and Sheen reprised their roles for a 2008 film, directed by the aforementioned Ron Howard. That film told a very fictionalized version of the events, and, while entertaining, should no more be taken as historical fact than the play-turned-film Amadeus should be accepted as the true story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
And the key exchange is very different. Frost was asking questions about the involvement of Nixon's chief aides, White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman and White House Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman, and the questions got under Nixon's skin. As Nixon, Langella seemed to be getting angrier, and trying in vain to hide it.
- Nixon: I have always maintained what they were doing, what we were all doing was not criminal. Look, when you're in office you gotta do a lot of things, sometimes, that are not always, in the strictest sense of the law, legal. But you do them, because they're in the greater interest of the nation.
- Frost: All right, wait. Wait, just so I understand correctly. Are you really saying that, in certain situations, the President can decide whether it's in the best interest of the nation, and then do something illegal?
- Nixon: I'm saying that when the President does it, that means it's NOT illegal!
- Frost, stunned, pauses, and finally: I'm sorry?
- Nixon: That's what I believe.
And then, Langella's Nixon realizes what he's said. Then came the admission that he had let the country down.
Nixon died in 1994. Frost, who was still alive at the time of the debuts of the play and the movie, interviewed every Prime Minister of Great Britain from Alec Douglas-Home to David Cameron, and every President of the United States from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush. He died in 2013.
UPDATE: On July 1, 2024, a date which will live in infamy, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution presumptively extends to all of a president's "official acts," with absolute immunity for official acts within an exclusive Presidential authority that Congress cannot regulate, such as the pardon, command of the military, execution of laws, or control of the executive branch.
The vote was 6-3. Voting for this position, which essentially makes the President of the United States a dictator who is above the law, were Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. All were appointed by Republican Presidents. All but Thomas were appointed by Republican Presidents who won the Electoral Vote, but not the popular vote, and had evidence of cheating against them. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett were appointed by Trump himself; at the very least, those 3 should have recused themselves.
Voting against this position were Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. All were appointed by Democratic Presidents. All were women. Sotomayor is Hispanic, Kagan is Jewish, and Jackson is black. Only they stood up for the rule of law in America.
Richard Nixon faced a vote of 8-0 against him, with 3 of the 4 Justices that he had appointed having the integrity to uphold the rule of law, and the 4th having the integrity to recuse himself. Donald Trump got a vote of 6-3 in his favor, with all 3 of the Justices that he had appointed saving him.
One wonders how many expletives would have to be deleted from Nixon's comments on that.
*
May 19, 1977 was a Thursday. Baseball player Brandon Inge was born.
Football was out of season. The NBA Playoffs were between the Conference Finals and the Finals. The Portland Trail Blazers would beat the Philadelphia 76ers in 6 games.
The NHL season had ended 5 days earlier, when the Montreal Canadiens completed a 4-game Stanley Cup Finals sweep of the Boston Bruins, thanks to an overtime goal by Jacques Lemaire. The World Hockey Association Finals were between Games 3 and 4. The Quebec Nordiques would beat the Winnipeg Jets in 7 games.
And these Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 9-1 at Yankee Stadium. Ed Figueroa pitched a complete game, outpitching Mike Flanagan. Thurman Munson went 3-for-5 with a home run and 4 RBIs. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3 with a walk.
For the Orioles, Al Bumbry had a single and a double, but the rest of the team combined had just 4 singles and no walks. Eddie Murray, who would be named American League Rookie of the Year, went 0-for-3. Brooks Robinson, in his final season as a player, did not appear in the game.
* The New York Mets beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-3 at Shea Stadium. John Milner and Lenny Randle hit home runs, in support of Jackson Todd.
* The San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos, 5-2 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Dave Winfield went 1-for-5.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-0 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Phil Niekro pitched a 3-hit shutout.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-5 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Rennie Stennett singled Ed Kirkpatrick home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Willie Stargell went 0-for-3 with 2 walks.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. George Brett did not play.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-3 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Robin Yount went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.
* The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2 at the Astrodome in Houston. Mike Schmidt went 2-for-5.
* The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Nolan Ryan went the distance for the win, striking out 12, but also walking 8. Rod Carew went 2-for-4.
* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Dave Pagan pitched the 1st shutout in M's history, allowing the A's only 6 hits.
* And the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Detroit Tigers, the Texas Rangers, the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled.
