Quotes

In 1968, Steve was speaking at a town meeting in Connecticut against the Vietnam war, along with other SDS members and some Black Panthers. Someone in the audience asked, "Hey weren't you Gilbert on "Leave it to Beaver"? As Steve recalled, "All heads onstage turned to stare at me. One Panther from Newark lowered his shades to get a better look. I felt like an impostor - an alleged college radical exposed as a child sitcom actor."

"What questions are you going to ask?" Henry Kissinger demanded. Before I could answer he told me any mention of his being a "war criminal" was off-limits.

"If you are going to ask whether I feel guilty about Vietnam, the interview is over. I'll walk out."

Now I was nervous that Kissinger would bolt. I played my best card. I told him I had just interviewed Robert McNamara in Washington. That got his attention. He stopped badgering me, and then he did an extraordinary thing. He began to cry.

But no, not real tears. Before my eyes, Henry Kissinger was acting.

"Boohoo, boohoo," Kissinger said, pretending to cry and rub his eyes. "He's still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty." He spoke in a mocking, singsong voice and patted his heart for emphasis.

It was an astonishing moment. I longed for a camera. It may have been bad acting, but it was riveting.

The thing that surprised me and I think will surprise-and maybe even shock-some viewers of my film is that Richard Nixon was actually threatening both the Russians and the North Vietnamese with the use of nuclear weapons.