14-05-2025
David Frost Vs… Richard Nixon — how an Aesop's fable undid Tricky Dicky
I think I could watch the young David Frost all day, one arm louchely flung over the back of his chair, long-lashed bloodhound eyes locked intently on his interviewee's face. Contemplative and measured, his style is an antidote to the shouty 'gotcha' interviewing that you often see today.
In Frost Vs… Richard Nixon, which kicked off the second part of Sky Documentaries' David Frost Vs… series (it started in February), we obviously saw the 'long game' strategy at its height. As we all know, over 28 hours in 1977 he cajoled, befriended, wrongfooted and finally brought to heel the defensive, circumlocutory and arrogant 'Tricky Dicky'.
Frost compared it to Aesop's fable The North Wind and the Sun in which no matter how hard the
