Watergate & JFK: Nixon Confronts the CIA

The backstory to the best scene in Oliver Stone's biopic of Richard Nixon

In 1995 as director Oliver Stone was filming Nixon, his biopic of America’s 37^th president, he received a registered letter from a lawyer representing former CIA director Richard Helms threatening to sue if Stone included the above scene in the movie.

The wily spymaster, who was retired but still influential in Washington, had obtained a copy of the screenplay (don’t ask how) and objected to the scene as written. His lawyer described the scene as “false and defamatory” by depicting Helms “as threatening the President with incriminating documents.”