Watching Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” movie. Nixon is musing about how when Robert Kennedy died, that was when he knew he’d be president. He says a few lines, something like “Kennedy’s death paved the way, didn’t it? Cleared a way for me, right through the wilderness.” He pauses, and then he says “Over the bodies.”
Then James Woods, playing Ehrlichman (I think), says “Two bodies.”
Then we cut to a shot of Nixon, holding his drink and staring out of the window. He pauses, and then says “Four.”
Okay, I get where two bodies come from: John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. But who are the other two?
King? King’s death might have had Nixon thinking that there was an exploitable wedge for the South. Even had Civil Rights not done it the riots following King’s assassination might have been considered to do so.
I haven’t seen this movie in something like ten years. However, if I remember correctly, a huge theme of the movie was how guilty Tricky Dick felt about the death of his brother from TB or something like that. There are constant weird black and white flashbacks to his brother, or brothers, as I remember. That’s at least one of the four bodies.
“Nixon tells H.R. Haldeman (James Woods) that he achieved high office over “four bodies” (he associates the dead Kennedys with his own lost brothers Arthur and Harold, the guilt for whose demise his mother regularly enforced).”
4 bodies are JFK,RFK,Oswald and some one else…if u remember, halderman and eirlichmann discussing that nixon went pale everytime he heard of the bay of pigs code. Nixon had no role to play in anything but it somehow came to his knowledge and he was terrified by it, by the fact that, track 2 was his idea and it came back as a boomerang to jfk.nixon knew there was a conspiracy, but he hated to be associated with it because of his personal relationship with jfk was sour at that time.
Also, IIRC it was implied that Nixon’s opportunity to attend law school (the first step of his political career) was somehow related to the older brother’s death. My guess is that this meant that the family received some sort of death benefit that allowed them to pay his tuition. However, in real life he received a full scholarship from Duke Law School.
Or maybe his older brother’s zombie ate the brains of some of the smarter applicants so Richard got accepted in their place. I didn’t notice how old this thread was when I made my first post.