TNT produced Kissinger and Nixon (1995) to capitalize on Oliver Stone's Nixon. Drawing on Walter Isaacson's biography of Henry Kissinger, it focuses on the National Security Adviser's efforts to end the Vietnam War. Intelligently written and well-acted, it's watchable despite its dubious dramatizations.By late 1972, the Vietnam War gradually winds down but peace talks in Paris remain stalemated. Henry Kissinger's (Ron Silver) efforts at drawing a workable peace are stymied. North Vietnam's Premier Le Duc Tho (George Takei) demands retention of North Vietnamese troops in the South. South Vietnamese President Thieu (Henry Chan) refuses these terms. Kissinger takes heat as well from President Nixon (Beau Bridges), who views the peace talks in terms of his reelection.
Henry Kissinger remains as controversial as Nixon himself: some consider him a brilliant diplomat, others a genocidal criminal. Kissinger and Nixon falls firmly in the former camp; by focusing specifically on the final months of the Paris peace talks, it elides four years of shady statecraft. (What were Nixon and Kissinger doing during the 1968 election?) Writer Lionel Chetwynd provides hints of Kissinger's arrogance and obsequiousness towards Nixon, but mostly lionizes him. Compared to the boorish Nixon (constantly using football metaphors) and intransigent Vietnamese it's easy to sympathize with Kissinger, shown as a brilliant diplomat in a thorny situation.
Acknowledging its bias, Kissinger and Nixon is still a competent drama. Director Daniel Pietries stresses the difficulty in achieving "peace with honor" with complex characterizations. Thieu's infuriated by fears that America will sell out South Vietnam; Tho won't relinquish his upper hand. Kissinger struggles to reconcile the positions, using bluff and guile to achieve an impossible compromise. And Petrie stresses the murderous cynicism of Nixon's Vietnam policy: he ends up bombing North Vietnam to ensure the South's compliance.
Ron Silver (Reversal of Fortune) plays Kissinger for his strengths: overweening intelligence, vanity, shrewdness. Beau Bridges (The Descendents) makes a competent Nixon despite unconvincing makeup; Matt Frewer plays a conflicted Alexander Haig. Henry Chan makes Thieu unexpectedly sympathetic: he's no American puppet but a statesman demanding an ally live up to its promises. Similarly, George Takei does well showng the cunning diplomat beneath Tho's hauteur.
Ultimately, Kissinger and Nixon is entertaining though questionable in its conclusions. Kissinger's triumph is decidedly hollow: North Vietnam overran the South two years afterwards. Arguing the peace accords were successful seems an exercise in bad faith - especially since Nixon and Kissinger, prior to 1972, played so much of a role in stringing things out.
