Two days before the release of Oliver Stone's film "Nixon," the former president's family angrily criticized it as a maliciously designed "character assassination."

The statement was released Monday night by the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, Calif., on behalf of Nixon's daughters, Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, and their husbands.Though the family hasn't seen the movie, the objections were based on a reading of a published screenplay.

Family members accused Stone of waiting until Nixon and his wife, Pat, were dead to make his film "expressly to prevent their asserting their rights under the law."

The statement went on to say Stone concocted imaginary scenes depicting Nixon's life "that are calculated solely and maliciously to defame and degrade President and Mrs. Nixon's memories in the mind of the American public."

The statement said the script also stated that "Nixon was responsible for United States government plans to assassinate Fidel Castro and . . . that he believed the apparatus he is alleged to have created for that purpose was ultimately turned against John F. Kennedy."

The implication that Nixon was somehow involved in Kennedy's assassination, the family said, was so "reprehensible that it should render wholly illegitimate any text or narrative in which it is contained."

Stone denied any malicious intent.

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