Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews by: David Frost - Essay Example

The book also includes historical perspective and transcripts of the edited interviews. The book was published when there was a huge renewed interest in Frost’s amazing accomplishment after the huge success of the West End and Broadway play, "Frost/Nixon”. David Frosts book is an account of his 1977 interviews with Richard Nixon. It has useful details of the events that took place both before and after the journalistic coup he was able to carry out. It is about how Frost doggedly pursued Nixon to get him to agree to the interviews and the unprecedented reaction from all over the world to the broadcasts.

He gives an insight into the tough process he had to undertake to raise the funds to pay the outlandish fees demanded by Nixon for the interviews. This practice of paying money was scorned by the major U.S. networks. They refused to distribute the program and eventually the event was aired in syndication. The book is divided into two parts. The first half of the book consists of a memoir and a description of how Frost was able to get the interviews with Nixon. Here he tells how money had to be given, how the interviews went, and what happened after the interviews.

In his pursuit Frost comes across people like Lazar, Ron Ziegler and certain potential sponsors. His account of interaction with them and his negotiations with Nixon are quite hilarious even though the discussions that he carried out were marked by tension. The second half contains a transcript of all the interviews. In the interviews Frost questions Nixon on everything from Vietnam to China and from abuse of power to The Final Days. However the most tense and gripping interview were on Watergate and in fact two whole days were devoted to this.

It is details such as this that makes the book interesting. When he first arrived at the idea of interviewing Richard Nixon and make him confront his past