Customer Reviews

Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews

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What are the words that describe this man? Mysterious. Illusive. Battling demons beyond scope. Criminal? No, we're not talking about forty three here, but a predecessor from the same political party that managed nearly to destroy the Presidency by creating one of the greatest Constitutional crises in our current history. Richard M. Nixon, much vilified, rarely understood, now almost a caricature of himself; a president that won convincing victories, that almost no one knew.

Much has been written about him to attempt to penetrate the personality of this enigma, without much success. Along comes veteran reporter David Frost, offering to interview the president after his disgraceful resignation from office, giving him a chance to air his opinions on the scandal that brought him ruin. The aired interviews created a sensation, with the former president making rash statements that the president is above the law with any action, and showing some (albeit somewhat feigned remorse) for Watergate.

This book is a behind the scenes peek at the process that went on to get Nixon to speak; the rationale for the interviews, the negotiating and bargaining that went on to ensure Frost would have access to ask the hard questions, and Frost's own assessment of the Nixon presidency.

Having read it before seeing the movie is probably a good thing. Frost is an engaging writer, who doesn't dwell in small, irrelevant details, but paints broadly his impression of Nixon, with sometimes surprising conclusions. His accounting of the interviews was very insightful -- his decision to open the interview with the question, "Why didn't you burn the tapes?", to his consistent pressing of Watergate points, as if he were a prosecuting attorney. In fact, Frost and America viewed this interview as the now pardoned Nixon's trial, to see what the man would have said should he come under judicial review. That is purely fascinating.

Frost's closing assessment of the Nixon presidency offers points to argue, but it's a fresh assessment, separated from Watergate, which is usually all anyone remembers of Nixon anymore. Nixon wasn't a domestic president, but his record on civil rights and the environment was very forward thinking (Frost thinks Nixon would appease anyone to get support for his Vietnam strategy). In fact, Nixon seriously considered universal health care at one point (HMO's eventually won).

This book was a quick, insightful easy read. The end of the book contains over a hundred pages of transcripts from the interview. In fact, you can now purchase a DVD of some of the interview, out today -- Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews. Personally, Nixon fascinates me in a way that you can't help but looking at a car wreck. I was but four or five when the man resigned office, and I thought for awhile that Watergate was a scandal because someone left the sprinklers on at the White House and things got flooded. I don't think we are done with our inspection of the man, his presidency, and the scandal that nearly brought our country to its knees.

I recently saw the "Frost/Nixon" movie (more on that later), which caused me to seek out this book. This book is quite a curiosity in a way, in the sense that David Frost wrote this in 2007, after the "Frost/Nixon" play had become a hit on stage in London's West End and on Broadway, and that the play was being made into a high-profile movie.

"Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews" (384 pages) is really two books into one. The first half of the book is a memoir and reflection of Frost on how he was able to get the interviews with Nixon (money helped, a lot), how the interviews went, and the aftermath of the interviews. As Frost notes: "The week our first program aired, Newsweek, TV Guide and Time all featured the sessions on their covers. ... I never did ask Nixon if he had watched the show. My guess is that he did, although I'm quite sure he would've denied it". How true! The second half of the book contains a transcript of all of the interviews. I read the one covering Watergate from start to finish, and it simply remains an amazing thing to revisit now more than 30 years later.

In all, this book reads easily, and even though I already knew how things would play out, I was still interested in getting David Frost's further insights and personal comments on the entire thing. As to the movie, I was absolutely charmed and mesmerized from start to finish, and would greatly recommend this to anyone. I'm not even that much of a Ron Howard fan, but this time he did more than good. As an aside note, my college-attending daughter also went to see the movie and she told me that as a political science major, this really gave her new perspective on the events of that era.

I enjoyed this book and thought that this book was fair, especially with the new assessments of President Nixon's administration with many positive accomplishments. David Frost comes across as very fair and thorough. I would have given this book five stars but I did not enjoy co-writer Bob Zelnick's involvement. He seemed to consider the interviews as a personal opportunity to "get" the president, while Frost is a balanced journalist who had no personal bias. Also, I was surprised that the word "ah" is included in all of Nixon's transcripted comments. I've read many transcripts and quotes from all types of people in books over the years and I've never seen this done even though when you watch the live interview with the person who was quoted, they do say the word "ah" or make other noises/sounds. I thought that by printing "ah" in all of Nixon's quotes but only once printing it when Frost was speaking is odd. I think it was unnecessary and only serves to distract the reader from getting the message. If this was common practice in all books, I wouldn't find it odd, but I've never seen it done before in any other book on any other person. Other than that, this book is worth reading.

An excellent transcript and narrative of David Frost's interviews with President Richard Nixon. The author keeps an interesting flow while detailing all the behind the scenes activity of the production teams and Nixon's frame of mind during the process.

Interesting behind-the-scenes of an interesting bunch of interviews. Frost comes across as much more informed than I would have figured before he did the interviews. So I have heard, Nixon thought the same thing. The transcripts at the end of the book were fascinating. Amazingly I found Nixon's defense of the Chile stuff to be the most convincing (not a very high bar to get over). And his discussions of Watergate left him looking like a whiny defense lawyer instead of the chief law enforcer of the US. If I remember correctly, he recognized that too. Oh well. If you're a fan of the movie this is worth reading.

This book marks one of the rare cases where a book, play, and movie around the same story all work extremely well. Frost's work reads like a political thriller and shows how hard it is to understand Richard Nixon.

I am 14 years old but I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed learning about Nixon and what he did as president. truly he was an interesting individual. In some ways it seems he was perfect for the job but he just made to many mistakes and his lack of good charistics like honesty rendered his presidency overall an entire mess-up. Surely there was someone else more fitting for the job.

I also was completely taken with good will for frost and his team and held on through the rough rocks they went through to get their victory of putting nixon to justice.

This book is the actual transcript of the Frost interviews, unlike the deceptive film that Ron Howard directed. Nixon did not say what Howard says he said, in the context that Howard claims. It is outrageous that Nixon has been treated so unfairly in this respect. President Nixon was one of the great Presidents. Yes, he was wrong on Watergate. But his legacy should not be overshadowed by this one event.

These words uttered by Nixon during the Frost interview not only goes directly to the heart of Nixon's psyche but also to the book itself. As the title of the book implies this is a book based on the March 1977 televised interviews of Nixon by David Frost.

In many ways this is a remarkable book that puts not only Watergate into historical perspective but also that of the Presidency and legacy of President Nixon. Frost makes several attempts at being even-handed by repeatedly making statements like "very few Presidents of the past century came close to Nixon's skill in foreign affairs or his ability to emphasize with the ordinary people." However, the book continually gets bogged down with irrelevant minutia and a tendency of the author to revert to a mentality of "Team Frost vs. Team Nixon"... who really won? This is no more evident than when it was noted in the book where Zelnick (who at the time of the Frost/Nixon interviews was a member of "Team Frost" and who currently is co-author of the this book) had implored Frost from the monitoring booth to "move in, tear the SOB (Nixon) to pieces". Certainly, this is not objective journalism. The reader is left with the thought "is this an interview or a debate?" Unfortunately, the "I got him" theme undercuts what should have been a fascinating look into the historically important Frost/Nixon interviews.

Ironically, the strength of the book lies in how Nixon overcame the stigma of Watergate; how he rose to the level of a respected elder statesman who achieved "peace with honor in Vietnam", a meaningful arms control agreement with one menacing Superpower (USSR) and normalization of relations with another emerging Superpower (The People's Republic of China).

In the end this is a book about thinly veiled contradictions-- praising, but mostly damning Nixon. Like this review, the book is a bit too verbose. But one walks away from this book thinking " Nixon gave Frost and Zelnick the sword... and while they may have not have stuck it in him they certainly drew blood".

Frost never quite comes out and says it, but it is clear reading the book that Nixon ultimately won. Nixon didn't "win" in the interview with Frost, but Nixon's paranoid views and his belief in unlimited presidential authority have prevailed. Things that Nixon said in the interviews that were considered outrageous in 1977 are now the mainstream position of the Republican party. Definitely a must-read to find out how we got into the mess we are in. Thank you David Frost.