My Usual Charming Self | Bernie Reeves

Frost/Nixon/Reston

By Bernie Reeves

The Watergate break-in and the ensuing public spectacle, culminating in the unprecedented resignation of President Richard Nixon, rocked the planet and blew in a new age of cynicism and distrust that continues to permeate American politics. Clearly, the media declared, Nixon was the devil and Woodward and Bernstein of The Washington Post were the angels of truth.

Yet, there are nagging inconsistencies and incomplete explanations clouding the collective memory. How did expert former CIA black job operatives bungle the burglary so badly? Why did Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee call his publisher Katharine Graham at 3 a.m. to let her know about the break-in before it was connected to the White House? And why hasn’t reporter Carl Bernstein been identified in the press as a “red diaper baby,” the son of self-avowed communists who carry an irrational loathing for Nixon for prosecuting their martyred hero Alger Hiss? And what exactly did Nixon do wrong to be stained and pilloried and cast into history as the devil incarnate?

Yes, he attempted to “cover up” his knowledge of the burglars, which became intertwined with highly questionable fundraising practices and blunt appraisals of his political enemies. Of course the tape recordings retrieved from his office didn’t help his case, and the excised missing 18 minutes raised ethical questions. And he was hardly a people person, a requirement in the age of television. But what actually did he do wrong to be hounded to the ends of the earth and run out of office by the most august institutions in the land, including Congress, the Attorney General and the United States Supreme Court?

These questions linger in the film Frost/ Nixon, an excellent portrayal of the events surrounding the drama, directed by Ron Howard and adapted from the stage play by Peter Morgan. The movie is balanced, interesting and intriguing as Michael Sheen as David Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon negotiate and film a series of interviews shown worldwide in 1977. And right there in the thick of the drama is one character — played in the film by Sam Rockwell — who personifies why Watergate and the Nixon resignation could be more political theater than righteous justice: James Reston Jr, son of Jim “Scotty” Reston, former influential columnist and associate editor of The New York Times.

Reston the younger, who landed at UNC in the mid-’70s, offered his services as a writer and researcher to Frost’s Nixon interview project. The film captures Reston Jr.’s eagerness to use the taped sessions for the criminal trial he felt Nixon deserved — not so much for “covering up” during Watergate, but for the usual manifesto the Left trots out: The Vietnam War (though Nixon began America’s ignominious withdrawal); the bombing of North Vietnamese strongholds in Cambodia where supplies and personnel filtered into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh trial and down the Mekong River to Viet Cong insurgents; and Nixon’s failure to kowtow to radical groups and their agendas, dramatized during the trial of the Chicago 7.

As depicted in the film, Frost tolerated Reston Jr. but drew the line at turning the interviews into an inquisition, causing Reston Jr. to throw temper tantrums and call Frost the cruelest epithet he could muster — “a talk show host” and not a real journalist. Frost’s even hand prevailed, and the taping of the interviews tended to lean in Nixon’s favor. After all, he had fought and won the presidency and broke new ground in international diplomacy, most notably the thawing of relations with — as it was called then — Red China.

Before the interviews aired, a news release was sent out on the letterhead of the UNC News Bureau announcing a press conference by Reston Jr.. My curiosity was piqued and I attended, only to hear him lambast Frost for not being tough enough on Nixon. Reston Jr. was obviously covering his own behind as one of the writers to protect his reputation with his fellow radicals. I thought he was a jerk then, and the writers of the Frost/Nixon play and film obviously agree.

Frost did finally — in the last session with Nixon — elicit an apology of sorts, but the interviews did not clear up the nagging central question: What did Nixon do to receive punishment far out of proportion to his crimes? The answer lies in the role of Reston Jr. as the composite of the angst of the American Left and their obsession to bring down Nixon for his anti-communism and exposure of their hero Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy. By including the persona of Reston Jr., the film ranks as a hallmark of historical drama for its fairness and authentic tone. It is made clear Nixon went down for who he was, not particularly for what he did during Watergate.

But Reston Jr. popped back up in my editorial life in 1980, causing me to comment with angry astonishment in reaction to a book review he wrote in The New York Times defending the thesis that North Carolinians are more virulently racist than other Southerners because we are more “civil.” Wrote Reston Jr.: “Other southern states, which had in the 1960s far more vicious racial practices, have begun to pass North Carolina by.”

In other words, since the state provided colleges for blacks and generally invested in their welfare — and approached race issues in a temperate manner — we were somehow guiltier of racism than our neighbors in the South who ignored education for blacks and engaged in violent confrontations. Says Reston Jr.: “North Carolina’s civility is a clever ruse to frustrate significant change.”

This convoluted view was circulated by Reston Jr. and his colleagues at the same time the old federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) threatened an immoral and contemptuous lawsuit against the UNC system, charging that our effort to educate blacks created a “dual” system — and, conveniently, a target for HEW’s obsessive agenda. UNC officials finally realized that HEW was actually calling for the removal of existing schools and departments at UNC and NC State to predominately black campuses. They told the Washington bureaucrats to go ahead and sue and HEW backed off after 10 long years of threats.

Reston Jr. and his ilk that move to our state can’t reconcile their affection for North Carolina with its Old South roots. Since to justify their life here they feel compelled to attack their adopted home, I hope the door does hit them on their way out.

Notes from La-La Land
The chief executive of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce told The News & Observer the business community supports busing school kids in Wake County — although the practice has been ruled unconstitutional. Best I can tell, he believes that uniformly mediocre schools are attractive to firms contemplating locating here.
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Was a five-car inferno on Interstate 40 at the merge to Wade Avenue enough to convince DOT to fix the problem? Or will our leaders continue to waste time and money on rail transit while our roads deteriorate to Third World standards?