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A Classic Study of the Press/Politics Power Struggle
By Dr. Nancy Snow, Associate Professor of Public Diplomacy in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University
 “[The antiwar movement is] a wild orgasm of anarchists sweeping across the country like a prairie fire.” --Richard M. Nixon
1977 was an eventful year in American popular culture. I bought one of my first albums, The Bee Gees’ “Saturday Night Fever” movie soundtrack, and watched John Travolta bump and grind in that white tuxedo along with millions of other curious young teenage girls across America. Another classic album that every American household seemed to own was Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” album. I recall playing Ping-Pong with my brother in the basement of our family home in Greenville, South Carolina with “Rhiannon” floating out like cotton candy through the speakers. I was attending Bob Jones Academy, a fundamentalist Christian school on the campus of Bob Jones University. Bob Jones would not have been happy with my choice of albums.
The New York celebrity-drenched cocaine-stained discothèque, Studio 54, opened on April 26, 1977 where Disco queen Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” became a gold standard. It remains to this day one of the most sampled songs of all time.
Against that backdrop and not feeling the love that year was disgraced president, Richard Milhouse Nixon. Holed up in his seaside villa, La Casa Pacifica at San Clemente, Nixon was contacted by David Frost for a series of four televised interviews. The price tag was $600,000 in exchange for the exclusive, including one televised interview devoted exclusively to Watergate. On one side sat David Frost, who was hoping to add some gravitas to his reputation in television journalism by eliciting something like a confession or at least contrition connected to the Watergate scandal that drove Nixon from office three years earlier. On the other side sat a former commander-in-chief and CEO of America, Inc. who desired a rehabilitation of his place and standing in the world. Both men had much to gain and everything to lose from this showdown. Nixon calculated that Frost would be an easy mark.
Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon ,” scheduled for a Christmas release, takes a psychic close-up of the heavyweight politician Nixon and his likely lightweight challenger, the talk show host David Frost. It has been described as “the ultimate face-off in the court of public opinion,” a precursor to all the confessional talk show formats of today. Watch now .
NIXON: And I shall be your fiercest adversary. I shall come at you with everything I got. Because the limelight can only shine on one of us. And for the other, it’ll be the wilderness…with nothing, and no one for company but those voices ringing in our head.
FROST: Except that only one of us can win.
The film’s production notes reveal what such an interview did to the public’s collective consciousness on politics and journalism: “Their legendary confrontation would revolutionize the art of the confessional interview, change the face of politics and capture an admission from the former president that startled people all over the world…possibly even including Nixon himself. Nixon surprised everyone by selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and reclaim his status as a supreme statesman in the hearts and minds of Americans. Likewise, Frost’s team harbored doubts about his ability to hold his own against Nixon. As cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits ensued. Would Nixon evade questions of his role in one of the nation’s greatest disgraces? Or would Frost confound critics and bravely demand accountability from the most skilled politician of his generation? The encounter would reveal each man’s insecurities, ego and reserves of dignity—as both ultimately set aside posturing in a stunning display of unvarnished truth.”
Despite the popular sentiment that a British jet-setting playboy personality like Frost could not match the political wile of the American president, Frost managed to pull out a revealing confession of sorts from Nixon, namely that the president is above the law on issues of national security. As recorded by the New York Times, here is a memorable exchange during the Watergate interview segment:
FROST: Pulling some of our discussions together, as it were; speaking of the Presidency and in an interrogatory filed with the Church Committee, you stated, quote, “It's quite obvious that there are certain inherently government activities, which, if undertaken by the sovereign in protection of the interests of the nation's security are lawful, but which if undertaken by private persons, are not.” What, at root, did you have in mind there?
NIXON: Well, what I, at root I had in mind I think was perhaps much better stated by Lincoln during the War Between the States. Lincoln said, and I think I can remember the quote almost exactly, he said, “Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional, could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Nation.”
Now that's the kind of action I'm referring to. Of course in Lincoln's case it was the survival of the Union in wartime, it's the defense of the nation and, who knows, perhaps the survival of the nation.
FROST: But there was no comparison was there, between the situation you faced and the situation Lincoln faced, for instance?
NIXON: This nation was torn apart in an ideological way by the war in Vietnam, as much as the Civil War tore apart the nation when Lincoln was president. Now it's true that we didn't have the North and the South—
FROST: But when you said, as you said when we were talking about the Huston Plan, you know, “If the president orders it, that makes it legal,” as it were: Is the president in that sense—is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law?
NIXON: No, there isn't. There's nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect. I haven't read every word, every jot and every title, but I do know this: That it has been, however, argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we're all talking about.
The interviews, which first aired in May 1977, were stunning for the day, likely never to be repeated. Just ask yourself, who would be the David Frost to a George W. Bush or Barack Obama? Katie Couric? Charlie Gibson? The Nixon interview with David Frost drew the largest global TV audience for a news interview in recorded history. In the United States alone, 45 million people watched, an extraordinary number given the estimated population then of 220 million (compared to today’s 305 million). The interviews were conducted over 28 hours, with two full days devoted just to Watergate.
Nixon would never again confront the subject of Watergate so directly. The rules of the interview were strict: (1) No advance screening of questions and (2) No right to see, much less, revise the program before broadcast.
Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh president of the United States, died on April 22, 1994 at age 81, after successfully releasing ten bestselling books and redefining himself as an elder statesman in international affairs. Sir David Frost, now 69, is hosting Frost Over the World, a weekly television interview and news talk program syndicated on Al Jazeera English. Watch this revealing interview by David Frost with Benazir Bhutto , just a little over a month before her murder.
About Nancy Snow
Nancy Snow is an author/editor of five books, including the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (with Philip M. Taylor). She is currently writing Persuader-in-Chief: Global Opinion and Public Diplomacy in the Age of Obama (Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books), due out January 20, 2009. Snow is Associate Professor of Public Diplomacy in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University, New York, where she teaches in the dual degree Masters Program in Public Diplomacy sponsored by the Newhouse and Maxwell Schools. She is a contributing blogger for the Huffington Post. Reach her at www.nancysnow.com .
From the third Nixon-Frost interview, The New York Times, May 20, 1977, p. A16.
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