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Well, here we go again. With deep respect, Nowhere Man, you still don't seem to get the point. But there are lots of things I ought to answer: 1: No good historian would try to strip the emotional content or emotive elements from his or her understanding of the past. Part of the strength of good history is its ability to enable the reader (of a historical book or article) or viewer (of a historical documentary, docudrama, or film with historical content) to connect emotionally with the past and those who lived back then. That strength actually augments historical accuracy, rather than diluting or distorting it. 2: As for the question of who's responsible for the blur of historical knowledge concerning Nixon, of course Nixon is a principal culprit. BUT he's not the only one. And Oliver Stone has much to answer for. 3: As for the question of Nixon's deserving or not deserving sympathy, I think that's beside the point. Even so, I do not agree with you that Nixon is the sole culprit in "robb[ing] America of its innocence and its optimism." There are two large things wrong with your claim. First, Nixon was the culmination of a series of events, processes, and people who robbed America of its innocence and its optimism, including the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, and the Vietnam tragedy (which bracketed the MLK Jr. and RFK assassinations and Watergate). Second, are innocence and optimism necessarily good things if they serve to cloak unpleasant realities about our politics and society from our gaze? I'd rather be clear-sighted and perhaps even moderately cynical than innocent and optimistic. 4: Finally, Sorry, Nowhere Man. I have heard and seen Oliver Stone claim repeatedly that he is giving us a factual and accurate account of every historical event he purports to chronicle. Take a look at his annotated editions of his screenplays for JFK and NIXON, published by Hyperion (an arm of Disney [?!]). In these books, which you can find shelved in the HISTORY section of most bookstores, Stone insists that he is presenting history, indeed, the TRUTH of history which, as a film-maker, he is better able to capture than any and all academic historians. He also did a panel at the January 1997 American Historical Association convention with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and George McGovern in which he did the standard fandango -- I'm a historian who tells the truth except when I'm not, except that my use of dramatic licence actually enables me to capture and present the TRUTH even more effectively than if I had to chain myself to the facts and to research. Finally, in one of the sillier books about the JFK assassination, DEEP POLITICS AND THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK
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