Word: frosts
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Frost begins gently, asking Nixon to characterize his role in Watergate. Assured but wary, Nixon defers. He says he would rather answer Frost's specific questions. They follow rapidly, as Frost turns chilly. What did Nixon really say to his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, during the notorious 18�-minute gap on an Oval Office tape recording made on the morning of June 20, 1972? That was only three days after the Watergate burglary, and the vacationing Nixon had just returned to Washington...
...Frost looks at his clipboard. Why, then, did Nixon tell another high aide, Charles Colson, that very afternoon that "we're just going to leave this where it is?with the Cubans"? That was a reference to the four Cuban-Americans already charged with the burglary. And why did Nixon also admit to Colson, "At times I just stonewall it" on Watergate...
Nixon shows no surprise that Frost had access to this previously undisclosed Colson tape. It was subpoenaed by Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski for use against Nixon's top aides in their criminal trial, but was not put into evidence. The implication of the tape is that Nixon?on his first day at work after the burglary?was already directing a cover-up effort. Now, for the first time in the days of interviewing, Nixon's speech begins to falter...
...frail legal distinction that he was not intent on covering up any criminal acts by his men, which would be a crime in itself, but merely working to avoid what he contends would have been unjustified political criticism of the White House and his re-election committee. Understandably, Frost does not buy that...
...Frost pounces. "But surely, in all you've just said, you have proved exactly that that was the case, that there was a cover-up of criminal activity because you've already said, and the record shows you knew, that Hunt and Liddy [E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who had served on Nixon's secret White House plumbers' team] were involved ... you knew that, in fact, criminals would be protected...