'No One Knows How It Feels'

Richard Nixon's final bout with British Interviewer David Frost last week concluded, as had the first of the four telecasts, with a discussion of what the ex-President described as the "shattering experience" of his resignation. In coming full circle, the series--which had been sold separately to 162 U.S. television stations--lost half of its viewers, according to rating surveys in New York City and Los Angeles. Only about 21% of the TV audience watched the fourth interview, v. 42% for the first; 23% for the second; 17% the third. Among the topics in Nixon-Frost IV:

CHILE. Nixon defended his efforts to undermine Chile's elected Marxist President Salvador Allende. Said he: "There wasn't any question about his turning all the screws he possibly could in the direction of making Chile a Marxist state ... There wasn't any question that Chile was being used by some of Castro's agents as a base to export terrorism to Argentina, to Bolivia, to Brazil." When Frost responded that "Allende looks like a saint" compared with his U.S.-supported successor General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, Nixon pointed at Frost and replied, "The right-wing dictatorship, if it is not exporting its revolution, if it is not interfering with its neighbors ... is of no security concern to us. It is of a human rights concern. A left-wing dictatorship, on the other hand--we find that they do engage in trying to export their subversion to other countries."

SPIRO AGNEW. Nixon revealed that he had been unwilling to rely solely on the recommendations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson after an investigation was begun of kickbacks paid by Maryland contractors to his Vice President. Nixon asked that Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen, a Democrat, make his own investigation of the case. "There was no secret Richardson and Agnew didn't like each other. There was no secret that Richardson had ambitions to be Vice President or President in 1976, and earlier if possible." After Petersen concurred that the charges would lead to a recommendation of a prison sentence, Nixon said, "[Agnewj thought--and I'm inclined to believe he was right under the tremendous pressures that were developing there in the media and the rest--[that there] would be a kangaroo court where he'd have no chance and serve a prison term, that he ought to take the steps that would lead to a settlement of the matter without a prison term."

Was Agnew innocent? Nixon paused for several seconds, then answered, "In my view, it didn't really make any difference. There wasn't any question after hearing Petersen and his version that he was frankly going to get it... I'm not going to sit here and judge Spiro Agnew ... I do not think for one minute that Spiro Agnew, for example, consciously felt he was, ah, violating the law, and basically that he was being bribed to do something which was wrong ... I think that he felt he was just part of a system that had been going on for years, and that it was accepted in the state that people who did business with the state would help the Governor out with expenses ... I also believe there has been a double standard. Because [Agnew] was conservative, because he was one who took on the press, he got a lot rougher treatment than would have been the case had he been one of the liberals' favorite pinup boys."

THE PRESS. Nixon refused to utter the names of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters whose articles helped to keep the Watergate investigations from withering. But he showed great anger at their book on his resignation, The Final Days. Speaking of his wife Pat, he said, "Mrs. Nixon read it [pause], and her stroke came three days later. I didn't want her to read it because I knew the kind of trash it was and the kind of trash they are, but nevertheless, this doesn't indicate that that caused the stroke, because the doctors don't know what caused the stroke. But it sure didn't help." After arguing that present U.S. libel laws are "a license for the media to lie," Nixon added, "Let's just not have all this sanctimonious business about the poor repressed press ... I don't want 'em repressed, but believe me, when they take me on, or when they take any public figure on ... I think the public figure ought to come back and crack 'em right in the puss."

HALDEMAN AND EHRLICHMAN. "How much pressure was there on you," Frost wanted to know, "to grant people like [White House Chief of Staff H.R.] Haldeman and [Presidential Assistant John] Ehrlichman pardons before you left?" Nixon disclosed that he had told Haldeman, "If they got a bad rap, that I could exercise my pardon power. I don't recall the conversation specifically, but i certainly intended to do it in the event that the situation worked out that way. Of course, I had no idea then that I would be leaving office ... before they were convicted of anything." Nixon added that two days before he resigned, Ehrlichman and Haldeman had separately urged that "I pardon everybody involved in Watergate, of course including themselves, before I left office, and at the same time, couple that with a general amnesty for the Viet Nam draft dodgers, as well as those who had been deserters." Nixon said he declined because he thought such a pardon would inflame the situation. Nixon denied having had any discussion about his own pardon with Gerald Ford, his successor, prior to his resignation.

NIXON'S PUNISHMENT. Frost's last question brought forth one of Nixon's longest answers, spoken very quietly. Asked Frost: "Did you feel that resignation was worse than death?"

"In some ways," said Nixon. "I didn't feel... 'Well, resignation is so terrible that I better go out and fall on a sword' ... I never think in those terms --suicidal terms, death wish and all that. That's all just bunk. But, on the other hand, I feel myself that life without purpose ... that life in which an individual has to ... is forced to go against his intuitions about what he thinks he ought to do, that life then becomes almost unbearable. And so resignation meant life without purpose ...

"I know a lot of people, and I can understand it, say 'Gee whiz, it just isn't fair, you know, for an individual to, ah, get off with a pardon simply because he happens to have been President, and when another individual goes to trial, and maybe had to serve a prison sentence for it.' I can understand how they feel. I can only say that ... no one can know how it feels to resign the presidency of the United States. Is that punishment enough? Oh, probably not. But, whether it is or isn't, we have to live with not only the past, but for the future. I don't know what the future brings, but whatever it brings, I'll still be fighting."

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