To promote the "Watergate" documentary series, the Discovery Channel recently brought together a rather odd couple to speak to television critics - Richard Nixon's former lawyer, John Dean, and former Nixon "enemy" Daniel Schorr.
"This moment for me is almost surreal, being reunited with John Dean," said Schorr, the former CBS newsman.He recalled June 1973, when he was assigned to cover the Senate Watergate hearings.
"In the course of it, John Dean was asked whether it was true that the White House maintained something called an Enemies List. And he said yes and then submitted the list in evidence but did not read them during the hearing."
When the hearings broke for lunch, Schorr and his competitors rushed to get a copy of that list to read on the air.
"Someone brought them to me," he said. "We went live on camera. . . . went down the list and went past (Rep.) Ron Dellums at No. 16. No. 17 - and I had not seen this before - No. 17: `Daniel Schorr, a real media enemy.' And I looked up and gulped and went down. . . .
"And being reunited with John Dean all these years later brings back to me that electrifying moment in my life."
As for Dean, he said he knows what it's like to be a Nixon enemy. After all, he broke ranks with the president and testified against him in the congressional hearings.
"I'm sure that there are a lot of people who are Nixon supporters and Nixon apologists who will never forgive me," he said. "I would not be surprised if I today don't rank No. 1 on the all-time Nixon enemies list."
ANOTHER STRANGE REUNION: Although Dean said he never had contact with Nixon after the former president resigned, Schorr recounted his relatively recent enounter with the man.
"He had me invited to a dinner," Schorr said. "In fact, I was at a dinner with him three weeks before he died. . . . He invited me to join the Richard Nixon Foreign Policy Institute, which he planned to establish in Washington. I was really quite bemused by that."
His face-to-face encounter with Nixon was even more unusual. In the course of the Watergate hearings, it was learned that not only was Schorr on the enemies list but that Nixon had ordered the FBI to investigate the CBS reporter.
"And when that leaked out, they decided to announce that they were considering me for a White House job," Schorr said. "Which ended up as an item in the Bill of Impeachment against Nixon - abuse of power."
Despite all of that, Schorr said he wasn't sure Nixon would remember him at that relatively recent dinner.
"I went up and said, `Mr. Nixon, I'm not sure you remember. . . .'
"And he said, `Oh, Dan Schorr, of course I remember you. Damn near hired you once."
AMAZING COVERAGE: Both Dean and Schorr admitted great surprise at the overwhelmingly favorable media coverage of Nixon at the time of his death.
"I was amazed, frankly," said Dean. "It was obvious it marked the passing of an era. It was trying to cover a very extensive public career that had ended on a very sour note, and trying to do it (with) a certain justice and objectivity.
"But you cannot look at Richard Nixon without Watergate. It just does not tell you who the man is."
Schorr said that the former president himself did not expect the sendoff he got.
"He, himself, I must say, would have been very surprised at the out-pouring of sympathy and support he got," Schorr said. "He, himself, did not dare to ask for a state funeral in Washington, and therefore asked to be buried at home. He never could have foreseen this unusual favorable reaction he got."
But Schorr said he believes that reaction was largely due to the presidency itself.
"There is in the country a sense that however much we love, hate, revile and support people, in the end when you're talking about the 37th president of the United States, coming together on television over his funeral is great national public ritual," he said.
But was Dean surprised to see Democratic President Clinton as the chief eulogizer at Nixon's funeral?
"Flabbergasted," he said.