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I Gave Them a Sword
"I brought myself down. I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I’d have done the same thing." - Richard M. Nixon In 1975, former U.S. President Richard Nixon – who had been driven from office the previous year by the Watergate scandal – made a business deal with British celebrity talk show host David Frost. Nixon agreed to be filmed by Frost for a series of “tell-us-what-happened” TV interviews. It would be the first time the American public would see and hear Nixon in a series of no-holds-barred TV interviews since resigning from office. This book tells the astounding story of how it all happened - what went on before and after the historic interviews took place.
314 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published August 12, 1978
23 people want to read
About the author
David Frost
102 books10 followersSir David Paradine Frost, OBE is a British journalist, comedian, writer and media personality, best known for his serious interviews with various political figures, the most notable being Richard Nixon. Since 2006, he has been hosting the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English. He was portrayed by actor Michael Sheen opposite Frank Langella's Richard Nixon in the 2006 Peter Morgan stage play Frost/Nixon, and in Ron Howard's subsequent 2008 film adaptation.
Whilst living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible Class of the Sunday School at his father's church by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist Local Preacher, which he did not complete. At Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in English, he edited a student newspaper, Varsity, and a literary magazine, Granta. He was also secretary of the famous Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird.
After leaving university, he became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion and worked for Anglia Television. Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host a pioneering satirical programme called That Was The Week That Was, alias TW3. This caught the wave of the satire boom in 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. A 30-minute American version of TW3 featuring Frost ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965.
Frost fronted a number of programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. More notable was The Frost Report (1966-1967), which launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. He signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Sir Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra was generally regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
In 1963 a tribute to the recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy on That Was the Week That Was had seen Frost's fame spread to the United States. His 1970 TV special Frost on America featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the United States.In 1977, he met US President Richard Nixon in a series of interviews for American television.
During the 1990s, he presented the panel game Through the Keyhole, which featured a long running partnership with Loyd Grossman. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. The programme originally began in this format on TV-am in September 1983 as Frost on Sunday until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992.
As of November 2006, he works for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over the World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme has regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Benazir Bhutto and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.
Frost was instrumental in starting up two important ITV franchises: London Weekend Television in July 1968 and as one of the Famous Five who launched TV-AM in February 1983.
Frost is the only person to have interviewed eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2010 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and
Whilst living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible Class of the Sunday School at his father's church by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist Local Preacher, which he did not complete. At Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in English, he edited a student newspaper, Varsity, and a literary magazine, Granta. He was also secretary of the famous Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird.
After leaving university, he became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion and worked for Anglia Television. Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host a pioneering satirical programme called That Was The Week That Was, alias TW3. This caught the wave of the satire boom in 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. A 30-minute American version of TW3 featuring Frost ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965.
Frost fronted a number of programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. More notable was The Frost Report (1966-1967), which launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. He signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Sir Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra was generally regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
In 1963 a tribute to the recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy on That Was the Week That Was had seen Frost's fame spread to the United States. His 1970 TV special Frost on America featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the United States.In 1977, he met US President Richard Nixon in a series of interviews for American television.
During the 1990s, he presented the panel game Through the Keyhole, which featured a long running partnership with Loyd Grossman. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. The programme originally began in this format on TV-am in September 1983 as Frost on Sunday until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992.
As of November 2006, he works for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over the World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme has regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Benazir Bhutto and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.
Frost was instrumental in starting up two important ITV franchises: London Weekend Television in July 1968 and as one of the Famous Five who launched TV-AM in February 1983.
Frost is the only person to have interviewed eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2010 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2024
Hardback edition.
David Frost had an interview show. Frost's team and
former Pres. Richard Nixon's team agreed on conditions
for Frost's Nixon television interview. Frost spent nearly
1/3 of this book recounting the conditions. Frost insisted
on he and his team being the only editors of the footage.
Nixon insisted on starting the interviews after the 1976
POTUS election concluded, etc. They recorded a total of
24 hours of interviews. Then edited them.
The interview segments were foreign policy IE Vietnam,
China, Russia. And domestic policy IE crime, the 'Silent
Majority.' And Watergate. Republican operatives were
arrested for breaking into Democratic HQ in Watergate
building in June 1972.
Some on Frost's team: researchers etc. thought he went
too easy on Nixon during some interviews. I am unclear
if Ted Koppel of ABC News (now w/ PBS and a CBS con-
sultant) ever interviewed Nixon, post-Presidency? Koppel
had/ has a knack for boxing in an interviewee to get him/
her to tell the truth. Koppel also had more gravitas than
Frost.
David Frost had an interview show. Frost's team and
former Pres. Richard Nixon's team agreed on conditions
for Frost's Nixon television interview. Frost spent nearly
1/3 of this book recounting the conditions. Frost insisted
on he and his team being the only editors of the footage.
Nixon insisted on starting the interviews after the 1976
POTUS election concluded, etc. They recorded a total of
24 hours of interviews. Then edited them.
The interview segments were foreign policy IE Vietnam,
China, Russia. And domestic policy IE crime, the 'Silent
Majority.' And Watergate. Republican operatives were
arrested for breaking into Democratic HQ in Watergate
building in June 1972.
Some on Frost's team: researchers etc. thought he went
too easy on Nixon during some interviews. I am unclear
if Ted Koppel of ABC News (now w/ PBS and a CBS con-
sultant) ever interviewed Nixon, post-Presidency? Koppel
had/ has a knack for boxing in an interviewee to get him/
her to tell the truth. Koppel also had more gravitas than
Frost.
August 15, 2021
An interesting read for certain but rather one-sided. I remember those interviews back in 1977. Up until then I'd liked and admired Frost a LOT more than most of his fellow talk shows hosts. But his ego seemed even bigger than Nixon's and the book only served to reinforce that observation.
Frost was not merely interesting in interviewing Nixon but rather to near force him to say what Frost wanted to hear - like many people. He also did not seem to understand the man very well.
Nixon was the sort of had to talk things out of his system. He had a round about, analogous and, yes, often rambling way of doing so. But if you kept quiet, listened carefully and waited until he was done, you'd get a surprising amount of truth, facts and heartfelt admissions of his weaknesses and failures.
Nixon was "tricky," so you did have to be on your toes. But he was also an intelligent, interesting and flawed man whose demons at times over-whelmed him. But in the end, having read a lot about him, somehow Nixon remains hard to dislike, even as I dislike his many shady actions over the years.
Frost was not merely interesting in interviewing Nixon but rather to near force him to say what Frost wanted to hear - like many people. He also did not seem to understand the man very well.
Nixon was the sort of had to talk things out of his system. He had a round about, analogous and, yes, often rambling way of doing so. But if you kept quiet, listened carefully and waited until he was done, you'd get a surprising amount of truth, facts and heartfelt admissions of his weaknesses and failures.
Nixon was "tricky," so you did have to be on your toes. But he was also an intelligent, interesting and flawed man whose demons at times over-whelmed him. But in the end, having read a lot about him, somehow Nixon remains hard to dislike, even as I dislike his many shady actions over the years.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews