I didn't want to make this into a conspiracy movie, but there is a secret in Richard Nixon. Even his wife mentions that she can't get past a certain black hole in his soul. The secret was, in a sense, the McGuffin (Alfred Hitchcock's term for whatever sparks the action of a film's plot but eventually is revealed to be irrelevant).
You can make some assumptions, though. Nixon was, of course, very involved in Cuba as vice president, and at National Security Council meetings, used language that is very coincidental with the assassination attempt on Castro that was going on at the same time. He called for "highly dramatic" changes in our approach to Cuba five days after (CIA chief) Allen Dulles signed a warrant to assassinate Castro. The CIA claims that Nixon didn't know about it, but of course Nixon would have plausible deniability. That's the way the CIA works.
Q. You've made a lot of films about people who have power, visibility and fame, and then things happen to them because of that. It's as if underneath every Oliver Stone movie is the question of how people handle power and whether it destroys them.
Stone: Someone asked me the other day, "What are the similarities that you see between Jim Morrison and Richard Nixon?" It was a strange question. I said they're somewhat alike; both were shy and awkward privately, and yet great exhibitionists in their own way. Morrison ultimately staged that fiasco in Miami on the stage (where he exposed himself), and Nixon, tie and suit and all, was the greatest exhibitionist of all, letting his secret tapes get out and revealing his innermost self. It was an act of public humiliation on the grandest scale, and he needed it, I think, in a strange way. Some people need the sense of punishment, the sense of catharsis.
Nixon identified himself as a crisis-laden man. He'd reach levels of victory and then he'd plunge into defeat. He was vice president, then he lost to Kennedy, then he lost the California governorship. Then came a great comeback and then he blew it again - and the next comeback, after he lost the presidency. He was a man who needed the feeling of walking the precipice.
Q. One of the film's most fascinating elements is Pat Nixon, and Joan Allen's performance is wonderful. It's a Pat Nixon I didn't expect. She is clear-eyed; she sees him, she knows what she's dealing with, and she tells him the truth most of the time. Where did you get the information for this portrait, and how accurate do you feel it is?
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmoqakmr%2B3tcSwqminnJ7Dpr6MrKuoppVis6q6w6xkraCVYrW2ucCnoK2xXZ67brrIsaan