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bjbj Naftali: What did you think of the pardon? Brien: I thought it was an injustice. I thought
it was wrong. To this day, I m just; it s one of those head butts. I didn t think we
let the process carry itself out, and I thought that it was I just thought that it was wrong.
Naftali: Did you ever have a conversation with Congressman Rodino about this pardon?
Brien: Mm-hm, he understood it, but he didn t think it was right. But he was, he understood
it, he understood President Ford s motivation. Most of us put this past let s get this country
healed. But again, you go back, what I ve said often, in this conversation, he was very
much of a process person. He thought you let the system carry forward, but he wasn t strong.
He didn t have a, in other words, I had a much more visceral reaction than he did. I
can remember this conversation we had, he just said, I understand. But again, we knew
very well and had a good relationship with President Ford. He said, I understand how
we have to move on. But he being institutionalism process person, he thought that was not the
right decision. Naftali: By the way, since we re talking about what Vice President Ford,
later President Ford, before that Congressman Ford, do you remember the politicking around
the selection of the Vice President, by the President, by President Nixon, and the fact
that John Connally was his first choice? Brien: Mm-hm. Naftali: What do you recall? Brien:
I just remember it s all in the air, and then a lot of the conversation was, which we had
sort to filter out, a lot of the conversation when he picked President Ford, because who
would want him as President. That was a very common sort of thought at the time. It was
irrelevant to us, but I remember Rodino, he liked Gerald Ford. He thought he was a fine,
decent man. He knew him for years. That was sort of the common wisdom of the time. That
it was a political move on the part and that would prevent the, our process of moving forward,
because we have never forward with the idea that Jerry Ford could be President. So it
didn t affect the Chairman at all. Naftali: Did the Chairman like the final report of
his committee, on the impeachment committee? Brien: Mm-hm, he thought it was, I think again,
I think he was greatly relieved that this was over, but he felt he fulfilled his obligation.
I think he felt honored by the whole process. I think that he was honored to do it, but
he thought he did, he thought he gave his best. Naftali: Do you think that his relationship
with Tip O Neal and the Speaker of the House, Carl Albert, and others, did it change as
a result of this process? Did they have more respect for him afterwards? Brien: Oh, yeah.
He had a very wonderful rest of his career. He was honored, he loved it, he [inaudible].
He was a Congressman from New Jersey, the loved the attention, he d go to speaking and
yeah, he was deeply, there was an aura about him, that he carried for the rest of his career.
Again, retrospectively, all the members then, honored him. I remember I went to his funeral,
and there was Paul Sarbanes, Charlie Rangel, people from, who had long gone in their own,
had all their own distinguished careers, etc., and came back to pay him honor. Yeah, he was,
he liked that. Naftali: Can you give us a word picture of his, because, of course she
died young, relatively young, what was Barbara Jordan like? Brien: She was, I have no more
to add than anybody. She was just wonderful. You liked to be with her. In other words,
she would come into a room she filled the room. You think, wow, there s some privilege,
she just filled the room. She had the voice and all that was wonderful, but she was she
had a lot of energy. She was big and so you liked to be with her, because she was funny.
She was again, she was just a freshman, so there that sort of distances, but again, the
Chairman liked, who wouldn t like to be around Barbara Jordan. She was just fun, and she
was smart, and he thought this, she thought, he thought, wow, what a wonderful career she
had ahead of her. He always said that. My goodness, he said, This, this member is going
to go far. Naftali: Did the Chairman do anything at the end of the process, special, or to
thank the staff? Brien: Yeah, he thanked the staff. I don remember the, he thanked I think
he went down, because remember, he spent it sort of all went back to normal in the sense
that all of a sudden all 125 people went away, whatever that number was and there it was.
Naftali: Did he go to the Congressional Hotel to see them, to see their offices sometimes?
Brien: Yeah, he went over, and he went over a number of times. He went over often, during
the process, but again, there was a lot of bitterness, you ve read the books, and the
stories, of people who were very unhappy on the left with the process. Jack Brooks and
others were still Jerry Zeifman; others were I guess for years carried on, that they were
unhappy with the way that this was conducted. Naftali: What they wanted five articles being
passed? Brien: I don t know, you d have to go back and they just they were unhappy. They
just didn t feel he, he John Doar, were, what their choices and they didn t carry the process,
as they would have. I don t know what that means. In other words, if you go back and
look at it historically, I m thinking, what other momentous event in our history has been
sort of accepted by the American public. That s how the process was to work. But then listen
it was a very, traumatic, undertaking so you re not going to get unanimous opinion on this.
Naftali: Do you think the process worked? Brien: I think the process worked, brilliantly.
Naftali: You leave government, and then you go into the movie business. You had something
to do Gallipoli? Brien: Yes, I produced Gallipoli. I wanted to leave, it doesn t matter what
I did. I remember, when you re young, you have wonderful mentors. I had Peter Rodino.
I had another wonderful mentor named John Gardner, who was the founder of Common Cause,
and I met him through this process and he was just a wise human being. And when this
process ended I said, What do I do with my life? I said, I stayed in and he s the one
that says, Go reinvent yourself. He said, Constantly reinvent yourself. He s just this
wonderful man. I decided I wanted to do something that was completely, not, this was it, I said,
I love, have great respect for government, I respect, I just don t want to do it again.
It was such a traumatic undertaking, and I said so I spent a year at John, again John
Gardner was very wise and he guided me through this year and I talked to all kinds of people.
I remember I went to IBM, up in New York, and they all wore black and shoes, they all
fit into today actually. And it s interesting, I had interviews with people and they d say,
Well, what have you done? You d go to a business, and, What have you done? m thinking, wow,
I just did something, but it didn count. It did matter. I didn have an accountant degree,
or a law degree but then, I got attracted to the movie business. Barry Diller was a
pretty big, because they don t care who you are. It s sort of, you could, they didn care
where you came from. That s what I love about the business, is just, it s true. You could
work in the mailroom one year, and be president of the company. I just love the idea that
there were no rules in the movie business. So I thought what a wonderful way to sort
of drain myself of this world. Take a challenge I knew nothing about and go out. I spent a
number of wonderful years with there was Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg.
It was all a bunch of great people at the time at Paramount. We had a great time. Charlie
Bluhdorn owned it, he was wonderful to deal with and then I went on. I left there, and
I said that s enough of that. Louis Malle was a great, became great friends, Louis Malle.
I remember I was editing one of his scripts once, and again, it s like being in an impeachment,
I didn t know nothing, so I m editing one, so he looks up at me and he goes, Francis,
you don t know ***, he says, and we became great friends. He said, because I had no idea,
and I still don t. I was sitting there editing Louis Malle s, script. But anyway, I loved
it, and I left I said, This is wonderful, and headed out to Australia, because there
was a lot of young, interesting, dynamic, filmmakers coming out of Australia, and I
thought it would be fun. Then we came across the story that eventually became Gallipoli.
I had to get money. I had to get financing. I got money from who was, he s still alive,
a guy named Bob Stigwood, who was manager of the Bee Gees, and others. He produced Saturday
Night Fever, Grease, and all those. And then the other half he told me, now go find the
rest of the money. Back out in Australia, I met this little newspaperman, who owned
a bunch of newspapers, and he thought movies were frivolous, and totally frivolous, because
he was a newspaperman. I knew something that he knew, but we never talked about it, but
he gave me half the money, because his father was the most instrumental person on telling
the world about this tragedy of Gallipoli. Of course, it was Rupert Murdoch. So that
was an extraordinary experience. Then I went on to do other things. Naftali: You knew that
about Rupert Murdoch s father before you met Rupert Murdoch. Brien: We never talked about
it. In fact, when we started to go find money, because doing our research, Peter and I, when
we were doing research, we said, This is how the story s got to be told. Because Murdoch
was a reporter, and he snuck out with all the dispatches to London, and the Times in
London repeated. So we knew that, so when I went to pitch the story, I told him it was
Gallipoli, he never said a word, and I never said a word, because why would he I mean he
had such a big empire, why would he waste his time on just a little, frivolous film,
that was just peanuts to him. Of course, what it was, I tapped into an honor, with him.
Naftali: Peter Weir was the one who brought Mel Gibson. Brien: Yes, he found Mel Gibson.
He was a Mel Gibson who s had an interesting career. He was an American; born upstate New
York, went to Australia when he was ten, and had been in a few minor films and we saw him
on stage actually; he was in a play, and you actually could not understand. His Australian
accent was so thick, that we sort of had to give him American lessons, when we did the
film. He was, but you could tell then, extraordinary potential. But Peter found, yeah Peter, was
also an extraordinary director. He was a wonderful person to deal with. So that was another sort
of one-off experience that was a fabulous experience for me. Naftali: Did you do Breaker
Morant? Brien: No, that was done Bruce Beresford directed that, and it was done almost at the
same time. It was done before Gallipoli, actually. By a director called Bruce Beresford. Naftali:
You want to mention another film you did. Brien: No, that s it. Naftali: This has been
wonderful. Brien: Thank you. Naftali: Have I forgot, have I missed? Brien: Naftali: Have
we missed a story, from the impeachment story, that you would implement. Brien: No, I m in
so much God damn trouble now with this story, with this TV ***, oh man. Thank God, Peter
s dead. Naftali: Thank you very much for you time Francis, this has been wonderful. Thank
you. Brien: Thank you everybody. I Appreciate it. [Content_Types].xml Iw}, $yi} _rels/.rels
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