Secret Honor Page #5

Synopsis: In this speculative one-man drama, we see former President Richard Milhous Nixon alone in his study, dictating his thoughts into a tape recorder. His only company are a four-screen closed-circuit TV setup, the portraits on the walls, a bottle of Chivas Regal - and a loaded pistol. At times addressing an imaginary judge in a court of public opinion, at other times speaking to an aide named Roberto, and sometimes just talking to himself, the former chief executive reflects, in a series of meandering monologues, on his humble Quaker upbringing, his school days, his family and a political career that reached all the way to the White House. Nixon rails at his treatment by the likes of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the "goddam Kennedys," J. Edgar Hoover, Henry Kissinger, Jews, liberals, the media, "East Coast shits," among others, as he leads up to the "true" reasons for the Watergate scandal that resulted in his resignation - an act he regards as one of "secret honor."
Director(s): Robert Altman
Production: Cinecom International Films
  1 win.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Rotten Tomatoes:
77%
NOT RATED
Year:
1984
90 min
1,134 Views


[Wheezing Laughter]

My God, my God, my God, my God...

how I used to love being president!

[Continues Laughing]

I used to enjoy that so much.

I cannot tell you

how much I enjoyed it.

I used to love to sit

in the Lincoln study...

with the fireplace going...

and the air conditioning on.

I used to love to

sit in there and think about...

Lincoln and, uh, Washington.

[Chuckling]

What a liar he was, huh?

That f***in' Washington!

[Chuckles]

I had -The Rose Garden

was so fragrant.

Oh! The yacht.

Sequoia.

I used to love to sit topside

on the fantail of the Sequoia.

Down the Potomac,

back to the navy yard...

sipping drinks with a friend...

and talking geopolitics.

[Chuckling]

Oh, yes, and the, uh-the jiga -jiga -

th-th-the n*gger-

t-t-t-t-the colored waiters

bringing up steaks from the galley.

[Laughing]

You know what I really used to enjoy?

I used to get a kick

out of calling in coaching plays...

to the Redskin coaching staff

on the white phone...

and going over the bombing targets

in Cambodia with Henry on the red phone...

at the same time!

That's fun!

[Laughing]

Oh, we were just rolling along

up there, you know.

Everything was just going along so-

But you know what happened?

The goddamn press and the liberals, they had -

[TVMonitors:
Static]

Sh*t! F***!

[Clock Chiming 11:00]

[Whispering]

Roberto, when CBS calls...

don't you tell them that I -

Okay.

You just remember

what I told you. Okay?

The press and the liberals,

they're yellow!

Oh, yes, they hated me...

because they were scared too -

shitless!

Because I was their mess boy!

And you know something, Roberto?

You are mine!

And you watch out, seor...

because your turn is coming.

All you new guys -

you Cubans, you immigrants -

you'd better watch out

for the liberals. Oh, yeah.

The colored found that out when it was

too late, that it was the North, not the South -

They'll come after you the way they came

after me, and that is what made me: Their fear!

And remember this, Roberto -

I knew who I was: Nobody.

All they knew was

that they didn't want to be me.

So you use 'em-the press and the liberals.

You let 'em use you.

You get in bed with 'em.

You f*** 'em! Cuba libre!

[Wheezing Chuckle]

[Switches Clicking]

I still have...

the nightmare.

But it is the American nightmare.

Sh*t. That's Uncle Sam.

Uncle Sam, he's the American nightm -

He's become nothing but a pitiful giant,

an old man being eaten alive...

by an army of"Ellsbergers" and, uh...

Ralph Naders and Jane Fondas,

all led by Hiss.

Alger Hiss!

[Hissing]

And all the Red rats of the Roosevelt - I mean,

the Rosenberg spy gang and the campus crowd -

They're allJews, you know,

every godd -

Look, Lansky and Ratner,

they're supposed to be big anticommu -

I mean, even Chotiner-

even Murray, he's a goddamn kike!

Well, the Committee of 100 would not

touch any of them with a ten-foot pole.

But when it comes time

to hide the bodies in the closet...

oh, yeah, then they pick up the phone

and they call Chotiner.

Then he contracts Miami and theJews.

Well, I beat 'em, theJews -

almost.

See -

[Sighs]

It was the, um, Committee of 100...

and the China plan people that I, uh -

l-I couldn't handle.

So that is the reason, Your Honor,

that we had to invent Deep Throat...

and use Watergate to, uh...

get out with a pardon...

so that, uh -

Because of the, uh -

Oh, God.

Sh*t!

Sh*t! Goddamn it!

Where is my mother's Bible?

Oh, yeah.

By that Kissinger sh*t!

[Scoffs]

'American Foreign Policy.

Henry 'A**hole' Kissinger."

[Blows Raspberry, Chuckles]

Kissinger, Kissinger, Kissinger!

Look, I don't owe any of them

a goddamn cent, much less an apology!

Especially him!

You I owe...

Mother.

Only you.

[Chuckling]

Oh. My, my, my, my, my, my.

[Chuckles]

He's got the same -

Just like I've got -

I like that. That's cute.

I like that.

[Stifled Sob]

Oh, no!

"Dear Master...

"The two boys that you left with me...

"are very bad to me.

"Their dog Jim...

"is very old...

"and he will never talk

or play with me.

"One Saturday

the boys went hunting.

"While going through the woods,

one of the boys tripped...

"and fell on me.

"I lost my temper...

"and I bit him.

"He kicked me in the side.

"I started to run.

"When I got home...

"I was very sore.

"I wish you would come home

right now...

"Mother.

"Your good dog...

Richard."

"Now I lay me...

down to sleep."

Arthur used to say

that little prayer for Mother.

"If I could die before I -"

What the hell are you looking at?

F***ing Kissinger!

You Judas son of a b*tch!

You wrote that I was praying for guidance

after the Watergate...

on the rug that the shah gave me.

Wait until Deep Throat tells

the American people the truth about Dr. Sh*t-ass!

Yes! How Dr. Sh*t-ass

took a fortune from the shah...

and how you and the other guy...

fixed the shah up in New York

with a bunch of nice young boys!

That's right, Henry. Deep Throat is going

to strike again, and you are going to get yours.

I made you, and I can break you...

you slimy, two-faced...

brown-nosed, ass-licking...

kraut son of a b*tch!

[Blows Raspberry, Laughing]

Mother? I - Mother, please.

Have mercy on me.

Sh*t! Stop it! Stop this crap,

for Christ's sake! Stop it!

Think of something good.

Like what? What, what, what, what, what?

Yes, um - Oh, yes!

Um, uh -

Playing "king of the pool" with Bebe

down at Key Biscayne at 2:00 a. M...

just splashing around -

Sh*t! What else?

What else, what else?

O-Oh, yes. Uh, having, uh, dinner

at Pompano Beach at the Cork and Screw.

Hobo steaks, ice creams and -

Pistachio, that was -

Aw, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t!

[Inhales]

They gave you the Nobel Peace Prize...

and me they called

the Mad Bomber!

Look, I had to do it.

I promised to get us out with honor.

I could not go soft.

Did you know that I was in Russia...

during the heaviest part

of the bombing in Cambodia?

You know, the Russians, they suffered too

in the war. They lost 25 million -

And I knelt beside

the monuments in Moscow...

and I read the diaries of the children -

the dead children.

Me. Not him, me!

And how they died.

They gave that whoremaster

the Nobel Prize...

and me they called freak...

madman, juke, callicak-

[Stammers]

Look, they even said...

that I stole the goddamn silverware

out of the White House, for Christ's sake!

The mad bomber theory

was Henry's idea in the first place...

to scare the North Vietnamese!

And that fat f***...

is walking around telling everybody

that I'm nuts?

[Scoffs] And all the time

he thinks that he is, uh, Napoleon?

Or Metternich, for Chri -

[Muttering]

Son of a b*tch! I -

And then those kids

tearing up Washington after Cambodia?

F*** 'em!

Those kids will not judge me.

I couldn't sleep.

I came down to the Lincoln Monument

to talk to the kids. I was so ashamed.

All I could think of to talk about

was about football -

F*** 'em!

Those kids will not evaluate my life!

Because I am a Quaker,

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Donald Freed

For the Canadian singer, see Don Freed.Donald Freed (born 1932) is an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and actor. He is associated with writing programs at the University of Southern California, and was Artist in Residence at the Workshop Theatre, University of Leeds, United Kingdom (Fall 2006 – Spring 2008), and Playwright in Residence at York Theatre Royal (Fall 2007 – Spring 2008), participating in a six-week Master Class in York in October and November 2007 ("Freed in Residence in York"). He has also been Playwright in Residence at Denison University, Ohio and taught at Loyola Marymount University. His latest play, Patient #1 (draft posted on Another America), "set in 2009 at an elite psychiatric clinic in South Florida, imagines a heavily sedated President George W. Bush, after he has left the Oval Office" (Johnson). It was published in 2007 and is being staged at York Theatre Royal in early 2008 ("Donald Freed", Another America). more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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