Frost\Nixon Page #10

Yes, for the Colson stuff?

Well, I've been doing a

little light reading this end,

and you remember that hunch

you had about the meeting

between Nixon and Colson?

Uh-huh. What are you thinking?

Hey. Hey.

Good morning.

And?

Excuse me, sir.

It's 8:
30. Bob, have you seen David?

No. No Frost, no Reston.

Morning. Good morning.

Come on, let's go.

What's that about?

First time he's late.

Mr. President!

Morning.

Mr. President.

Mr. Frost.

Thirty seconds to tape roll!

Thirty seconds. Settling. Settle.

Well, if today's session is anything like

our phone call, it should be explosive.

What phone call?

The phone call to my hotel room.

David, starting on camera

three in four, three, two and...

Now, looking back on

your final year in office,

do you feel you ever obstructed justice

or were part of a conspiracy

to cover up or obstruct justice?

No.

And I'm interested that you used

the term "obstruction of justice."

Now, you perhaps have

not read the statute

with regard to the

obstruction of justice.

As it happens, I have.

You have, you say? Well, then, you'll

know it doesn't just require an act.

It requires a specific corrupt motive.

And in this case, I didn't

have a corrupt motive.

What I was doing was in the

interests of political containment.

Be that as it may,

the direct consequences

of your actions would have been

that two of the convicted burglars

would have escaped criminal prosecution.

Now, how can that not be a

cover-up or obstruction of justice?

Well, I think the

record shows, Mr. Frost,

that far from obstructing justice,

I was actively facilitating it.

When Pat Gray of the FBI

telephoned me, this was July 6,

I said, "Pat, you go right

ahead with your investigation."

That's hardly what you'd

call obstructing justice.

Well, that may be, but for

two weeks prior to July 6,

we now know that you were desperately

trying to contain or

block the investigation.

No, no. Hang on a

minute there. I wasn't...

No, no. Obstruction of justice

is obstruction of justice,

whether it's for a

minute or five minutes,

and it's no defense to

say that your plan failed.

I mean, if I try to rob a bank

and fail, that's no defense.

I still tried to rob the bank.

Will you just wait one

minute there, Mr. Frost?

There is no evidence of

any kind that I was...

Well, the reason there is no evidence

is because 18 and a half minutes

of the conversation with Bob

Haldeman from this June period

have mysteriously been erased.

That was an unfortunate oversight.

And Bob Haldeman is a rigorous

and a conscientious note taker.

His notes are there for all to see.

Well, we found something

rather better than his notes,

a conversation with Charles Colson,

which I don't think

has ever been published.

Okay, here we go.

It hasn't been published, you say?

No, but one of my researchers

found it in Washington

where it's available to anyone

who consults the records.

Well, I just wondered,

you know, if we'd seen it.

More than seen it, Mr. President.

You spoke the actual words.

Now, you've always claimed you first

learned of the break-in on June 23.

Yeah.

But this transcript of a

tape made three days earlier

clearly shows that to be a falsehood.

Now, in it you say to Colson,

"This whole investigation rests

"unless one of the seven begins to talk.

"That's the problem."

Well, what do we mean when we say

"one of the seven beginning to talk"?

Then moving on to a conversation

you had with John Dean

on March 21, the following year.

In one transcript alone,

there in black and white,

I picked out, and these are your words,

one, "You could get $1 million,

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 we have to

handle the Hunt situation?"

Four, "Get the million bucks.

"It would seem to me

that would be worthwhile."

Five, "Don't you agree that you'd

better get the Hunt thing going?"

Six, "First you've got the Hunt problem.

"That ought to be handled."

Seven, "The money can be provided.

"Ehrlichman could provide

the way to deliver it."

Eight, "We've no choice with Hunt

"but the $120,000 or

whatever it is, right?"

Nine, "Christ, turn

over any cash we've got."

And I could go on. Now, it seems to me

that someone running a cover-up

couldn't have expressed it more

clearly than that, could they?

Look, let me just stop

you now right there,

because you're doing something here

which I am not doing, and I will not do

throughout these entire broadcasts.

You're quoting me out of context,

out of order. And I might add,

I have participated

in all these interviews

without a single note in front of me.

Well, it is your life, Mr. President.

Now, you've always maintained

that you knew nothing about

any of this until March 21.

But in February, your personal

lawyer came to Washington

to start the raising of $219,000

of hush money to be

paid to the burglars.

Now, do you seriously

expect us to believe

that you had no knowledge of that?

None. I believed the money

was for humanitarian purposes.

To help disadvantaged

people with their defenses.

Well, it was being delivered on the

tops of phone booths with aliases,

and at airports by

people with gloves on.

That's not normally the way

lawyers' fees are delivered, is it?

Look, I have made statements

to this effect before.

All that was Haldeman

and Ehrlichman's business.

I knew nothing. Okay, fine. Fine!

You made a conclusion there.

I stated my view, now let's move on.

Let's get on to the rest of it.

No, hold on. No, hold on.

No, I don't want to talk...

If Haldeman and Ehrlichman were

the ones really responsible,

when you subsequently

found out about it,

why didn't you call the

police and have them arrested?

Isn't that just a

cover-up of another kind?

Yeah, maybe I should have

done that. Maybe I should have.

Just called the feds into my office

and said, "Hey, there's the two men.

"Haul them down to the dock,

"fingerprint them and then

throw them in the can."

I'm not made that way.

These men, Haldeman, Ehrlichman,

I knew their families.

I knew them since they were just kids.

Yeah, but you know, politically,

the pressure on me to let them

go, that became overwhelming!

So I did it. I cut off one arm,

then I cut off the other,

and I'm not a good butcher!

And 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

interests of the nation!

Right. Wait, just so

I understand correctly,

are you really saying

that in certain situations,

the President can decide whether it's

in the best interests of the nation

and then do something illegal?

I'm saying that when the President

does it, that means it's not illegal.

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