Nixon Page #8

NIXON:

(very tender)

Oh, yes, I did. I told you I was

gonna marry you, didn't I? On the

first date ... I said it because I

knew ... I knew you were the one ...

so solid and so strong ... and so

beautiful. You were the most

beautiful thing I'd ever seen ... I

don't want to lose you, Buddy, ever...

INTERCUT WITH:

Nixon seeking tenderness. He puts a hand on her arm. He

tries gently to pull her towards him, to kiss her.

PAT:

Dick, don't...

NIXON:

Buddy, look at me ... just look at me.

Do you really want me to quit?

She stares out the window. A long moment.

PAT:

We can be happy. We really can. We

love you, Dick. The girls and I...

NIXON:

If I stop ... there'll be no more talk

of divorce?

A long moment. She finally turns her eyes to him,

assenting.

NIXON (CONT'D)

I'll do it.

(waves his hand)

No more.

PAT:

Are you serious?

NIXON:

Yeah ... I'm out.

PAT:

Is that the truth?

NIXON:

I'll never run again. I promise.

SHARP CUT TO:

INT. HILTON HOTEL - HALLWAY - NIGHT

NIXON stalks down the hallway, fuming. HALDEMAN walks

alongside.

NIXON:

Where are they?

HALDEMAN:

(worried, points to a door)

Dick, you don't have to make a

statement. Herb covered it for you.

NIXON:

No!

He bursts through the door into:

INT. HILTON HOTEL - PRESS CONFERENCE - BALLROOM - NIGHT

A noisy CROWD of REPORTERS reacts, excitedly, to NIXON'S

fast entry. The smell of blood is in the air.

TIME CUT TO:

NIXON at the podium

NIXON:

... I believe Governor Brown has a

heart, even though he believes I do

not. I believe he is a good American,

even though he feels I am not. I am

proud of the fact that I defended my

opponent's patriotism; you gentlemen

didn't report it but I am proud I did

that. And I would appreciate it, for

once, gentlemen, if you would write

what I say.

(time dissolve)

... For sixteen years, ever since the

Hiss case, you've had a lot of fun --

a lot of fun. But recognize you have

a responsibility, if you're against a

candidate, to give him the shaft, but

if you do that, at least put one

lonely reporter on the campaign who

will report what the candidate says

now and then...

HALDEMAN glances at KLEIN.

NIXON (CONT'D)

... I think all-in-all I've given as

good as I've taken. But as I leave

you I want you to know -- just think

how much you're going to be missing:

you won't have Nixon to kick around

anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is

my last press conference...

A FEW REPORTERS shout questions. There is a loud

confusion, but Nixon has vanished.

KLEIN:

What the hell was that?

HALDEMAN:

(beat)

Suicide.

CUT TO:

NIXON HISTORICAL MONTAGE:

A grainy "NEWSREEL" treats NIXON as political history, now

over. The ANONYMOUS REPORTERS return -- YOUNG NIXON, in

his Navy uniform, is campaigning in California in the 1940s

against Voorhis and Douglas.

REPORTER 1 (V.O.)

We can now officially write the

political obituary of Richard Milhouse

Nixon ... He came into being as part

of the big post-war 1946 Republican

sweep of the elections. People were

weary of the New Deal and FDR's big

government ...

Images of FDR, TRUMAN, and ACHESON, early Cold War imagery

- the Soviets, Berlin.

REPORTER 1 (V.O.) (CONT'D)

... The United States had been a

strong ally of the Soviet Union, which

had lost more than twenty million

people in its fight against Nazism.

But Nixon, coming from the South

Pacific war, won his first term in the

House by freely associating his

liberal opponent, Jerry Voorhis, with

Communism.

Images of Voorhis, Hoover ... NIXON working a CROWD,

standing on the tailgate of his station-wagon, debating

Voorhis.

REPORTER 2 (V.O.)

For Nixon, politics was war. He

didn't have opponents, he had enemies.

He didn't run against people, he

ruined them ... He won his California

seat in the U.S. Senate in 1950 in a

vicious campaign against liberal

congresswoman and movie actress, Helen

Gahagan Douglas...

NEWSFILM of NIXON and CHOTINER at a rally with PAT. Images

of DOUGLAS follow. CAMPAIGN WORKERS handing out smear

literature.

NIXON ("NEWSFILM LOOK")

How can Helen Douglas, capable actress

that she is, take up so strange a role

as a foe of Communism? Why, she's

pink right down to her underwear ...

REPORTER 3 (V.O.)

... Nixon quickly became the

Republican's attack dog.

He tore into Truman for losing

Mainland China in 1949, and blamed the

war in Korea on a weak foreign policy

... His speeches, if more subtle than

those of his Republican ally, Joe

McCarthy, were just as aggressive ...

Nixon at another rally with Pat.

NIXON ("NEWSFILM LOOK")

... I promise to continue to expose

the people that have sold this country

down the river! Until we have driven

all the crooks and Communists and

those that have helped them out of

office!!

Images of Truman, the hydrogen bomb, the Rosenbergs, Klaus

Fuchs, Oppenheimer, the Chinese taking over in 1949 ...

Mao.

NIXON ("NEWSFILM LOOK") (CONT'D)

The direct result of Truman's decision

is that China has gone Communist. Mao

is a monster. Why?! Why, Mr.

Acheson?! Who in the State Department

is watching over American interests?!

Who has given the Russians the atomic

bomb?! ... Today the issue is slavery!

The Soviet Union is an example of the

slave state in its ultimate

development. Great Britain is halfway

down the same road; powerful interests

are striving to impose the British

socialist system upon the people of

the United States!

REPORTER 2 (V.O.)

... Nixon became one of the leading

lights of the notorious House Un

American Activities Committee,

questioning labor leaders, Spanish

Civil War veterans, Hollywood

celebrities ...

NIXON ("NEWSFILM LOOK")

(questioning witness)

Can you tell me today the names of any

pictures which Hollywood has made in

the last five years showing the evils

of totaliarian Communism?

NIXON surrounded by REPORTERS outside the HUAC hearing

room.

REPORTER 4 (V.O.)

... but it was the Alger Hiss case

that made Nixon a household name ...

IMAGES of Alger Hiss's career: clerking for Oliver Wendell

Holmes; with FDR at Yalta, with Churchill, with Stalin.

REPORTER 4 (V.O.) (CONT'D)

... One of the architects of the

United Nations, intimate with FDR and

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alger Hiss was

a darling of the liberals.

(then)

But Whittaker Chambers, a former

freelance journalist, said he was a

Communist.

WHITTAKER CHAMBERS testifying before the HUAC.

CHAMBERS (TV INTERVIEW)

... If the American people understood

the real character of Alger Hiss, they

would boil him in oil ...

REPORTER 4 (V.O.)

... Hiss claimed he was being set up

by Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover to

discredit the New Deal's policies.

The case came down to an Underwood

typewriter, and a roll of film hidden

in a pumpkin patch.

DOCUMENTARY IMAGE - A DETECTIVE-TYPE reaches into a

hollowed-out pumpkin and pulls out microfilm. In his

congressional office, NIXON examines the film with a

magnifying glass, playing to the cameras with a deadly

serious mien ... Shots of MRS. HISS, the Underwood

typewriter.

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