Former Key Advisers Clash Over `Nixon' Film -- Dean Praises Movie; Haig Calls It `Distortion'

WASHINGTON - Oliver Stone's new movie on Richard Nixon drew conflicting reviews yesterday from two top advisers to the former president, who resigned in 1974.

"I don't find it to be a three-hour lie," said John Dean, Nixon's White House counsel and consultant to the movie "Nixon." Dean added that he thought the film was well-documented.

But Alexander Haig, Nixon's chief of staff, said, "the historical portrayal of events is totally off the wall."

Both were interviewed on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley."

Dean was Nixon's chief accuser at the Senate Watergate hearings and spent four months in prison for his Watergate role. In the movie, as well as in real life, Nixon wanted him write an account of what took place in the White House and Dean refused, believing the president wanted to make him a scapegoat.

Haig became Nixon's closest confidant after he replaced H.R. Haldeman, whom the president forced to resign. It fell to Haig to tell Nixon that his situation was hopeless, that he had lost totally the support of Congress and would be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate of coverup and other charges.

Haig and other critics have complained that the movie unfairly depicts Nixon as involved in an assassination attempt on Cuban leader Fidel Castro and in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Dean said the movie simply raises questions, but Haig disagreed and said, "This is a terrible distortion."

Dean and Haig also clashed over whether people might come away from the movie believing everything they saw was true.

"When people looked at `Schindler's List,' when they look at `Apollo 13,' they don't seem to ask these questions," Dean said. "I think because Oliver Stone is such an effective political filmmaker that these questions all get asked."

But Haig said he worried that Stone "projects something to America's youth who will see a very good film and be inclined to take it as on face value."