Washington: Behind Closed Doors

The Company, a 1976 roman à clef by John Ehrlichman—one of Richard Nixon's chief henchmen—was the basis for this six-part 1977 ABC miniseries, which tells the story of a power-hungry senator's rise to the nation's highest office and the abuse of power that threatens to bring him down. Played with malevolent relish by Jason Robards, Nixon stand-in Richard Monckton assembles a White House team that engages in all sorts of illegality. Cliff Robertson costars as Bill Martin, the CIA director who tries to keep his job while protecting his own reputation, as well as that of the JFK-inspired former president who originally appointed him. Martin ultimately outmaneuvers Monckton to ensure the suppression of a top-secret report about political assassinations, and a Watergate-style burglary foreshadows the chief executive's undoing (although the narrative stops short of chronicling the actual unraveling of the corrupt presidency). Told from Ehrlichman's perspective, both the book and the miniseries are certainly self-serving—not only implicating earlier dirty-hand administrations, but also omitting any character modeled after the author. Still, it's fun to watch the combination of fact-based and fictional double-dealing, and to identify the underlying historical figures played by the first-rate cast (including Robert Vaughn as H.R. Haldeman, Andy Griffith as Lyndon B. Johnson, and John Houseman as John Mitchell). The only real drawback here is a labored subplot about the characters' personal lives, which bogs things down considerably. DVD extras include a booklet with background information and bios. Enjoyable political hokum, this is recommended, overall. (F. Swietek)