Oliver Stone's Nixon: Politics on the Edge of Darkness

Abstract

In the introduction to his controversial book, The Ends of Power, former White House Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman describes Watergate as being an expression «of the dark side of President Nixon». Later in the book Haldeman cites former Special Counsel Charles Colson as a key man who «encouraged the dark impulses in Nixon's mind». Stephen Ambrose has written that Nixon «never abandoned his black impulses to lash out at the world...», while Henry Kissinger offered the view that «the thoughtful analytical side of Nixon was most in evidence during crises, while periods of calm seemed to unleash the darker passions of his nature». Christopher Wilkinson -talking directly about Oliver Stone's film-has focused on the movie's analogy of a «beast» that «also became a metaphor for the dark side of Nixon himself».