GUY RAZ, host:
President's Richard Nixon's last breakfast at the White House in August 1974 was poached eggs with corned beef hash. Now, that's not mentioned in the new Ron Howard film about the president's series of legendary interviews with the British broadcaster David Frost. That film, "Frost/Nixon," is up for five awards at the Golden Globes next weekend. Now, if you've seen the movie, you'll no doubt have been charmed or maybe annoyed by one of the main characters, James Reston, Jr., played by actor Sam Rockwell. A year before Frost interviewed Nixon, he hired Reston as his researcher to help him prep for the big encounter. Well, the real James Reston, Jr., joins me now in the studio. Welcome.
Mr. JAMES RESTON, JR. (Author): Thank you.
RAZ: Jim Reston, I want to start with a clip from the Ron Howard film, "Frost/Nixon." And in this scene your character meets David Frost for the first time. He's played by actor Michael Sheen. Frost didn't have a reputation for doing hard-hitting interviews, and you were a little reluctant to work with him. Let's take a listen.
(Soundbite of movie "Frost/Nixon")
Mr. SAM ROCKWELL: (As James Reston, Jr.) Actually, before I sign on, I would like to hear what you were hoping to achieve with this interview.
Mr. MICHAEL SHEEN: (As David Frost) What I want to achieve?
Mr. ROCKWELL: (As James Reston, Jr.) Yeah.
Mr. SHEEN: (As David Frost) Jim, well, I have secured 12 taping days. That's close to 30 hours with the most compelling and controversial politician of our times. Isn't that enough?
Mr. ROCKWELL: (As James Reston, Jr.) Not for me.
RAZ: Jim Reston, Jr., what did you want these interviews to accomplish?
Mr. RESTON, JR.: Well, there's one thing that they had to accomplish and that is that the criminality of Richard Nixon had to be put on display and proven. The real question was whether this fellow, David Frost, could really pull that off, whether he would do the research that was needed for that historic responsibility to be met.
RAZ: Now in the film you're portrayed as almost a kind of a self-righteous, indignant, young man. You'd written some books about Richard Nixon, and it was almost as if you had a personal stake in seeing him, as you say, "put on trial." Is that how you felt at the time? Was it personal?
Mr. RESTON, JR.: Well, I think it was intellectual, mainly. You know, if - I'm interested that people say, or get the impression, of self-righteousness in all of this. Had there been no passion in this, had there been no deep commitment, had it been a straightforward journalistic neutral interview, then that trial, that interrogation could never have taken place.
Normally when you go into an interview - and I've done many of them myself - it's not like an interrogation. It doesn't have a goal at the end. It doesn't have a strategy to move all the way through to a set goal. And that's what I formulated for David Frost. We had to take Nixon chapter and verse through the entire Watergate scandal. Each of his defenses along the way, one after another after another, had to be knocked down.
RAZ: The movie re-enacts only certain moments of the interviews between Frost and Nixon, and there's this climactic moment when Nixon gets pretty close to apologizing to the American public. He says, "I let the American people down and I'm going to have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life." Thirty years later, it almost seems like of course he would say that. But at that time, that must have been unbelievable to hear Richard Nixon say those words. And you were there. You were watching it.
Mr. RESTON, JR.: You have to understand that apology is not in the American tradition. Politicians don't normally apologize, or they don't apologize with sincerity and authenticity. That's the historian's question that remains over this whole episode as to whether that apology was sincere or whether it was fake.
RAZ: Now this film, and the play, of course, that preceded it by Peter Morgan are based in part by your own personal account of what happened in preparing for the Frost/Nixon interviews. You've been somewhat critical of this film. What do you think is missing from it?
Mr. RESTON, JR.: I'm really not critical of the film as entertainment or as political entertainment. I think it works brilliantly. But there is beyond that, the question of when films are made about real events, about what is the relationship between art and history? And because, you know, I lived through the actual thing, of course I hold on to all kinds of dramatic moments that didn't make it into the final cut of the film.
RAZ: What are some things you feel were left out of the movie?
Mr. RESTON, JR.: Well, it's ridiculous to think that Richard Nixon, as awesome and daunting figure as he was, would have rolled over and acknowledged his criminality and then apologize for it in seven minutes.
RAZ: It didn't happen that way.
Mr. RESTON, JR.: It didn't happen that way. No, it happened over two days and over four-and-a-half hours of grueling interrogation.
RAZ: In the film it's almost difficult not to feel some sympathy for Richard Nixon. He is a sympathetic character in this film in some ways. But when you watch the original Frost/Nixon interviews, he comes across very differently. He comes across as a dark and angry and bitter person. Are you at all concerned about whether, you know, Nixon's legacy will be sort of turned on its head as a result of this movie?
Mr. RESTON, JR.: Well, this is a fascinating question to me because whether one walks out of the theater or away from that television set in 1977 with a sense of sympathy is really up to the viewer. I do not think that in the play or in the movie Nixon is a sympathetic character. I think in - Frank Langella has played it darkly. But it's sad. And there is a difference between feeling sad for a human being and feeling sympathetic as if, you know, somehow he got a bum rap. Often, I think when people are convicted of criminality, one feels a sort of sense of sadness, but it doesn't change the fact that they are the villains and the culprits.
RAZ: James Reston, Jr., is the author of many books, including "The Conviction of Richard Nixon." James Reston, Jr., thanks so much for coming in.
Mr. RESTON, JR.: Thank you.