The Secret History of Twin Peak - Mark Frost

July 24, 1974, 8:30 PM, PDT
ME: Hello?
PRIVATE JOURNAL OF LT. COL. MILFORD
PRESIDENT NIXON: Can you guarantee that this is a secure line on your end?
ME: (instantly recognizing his voice) Yes, sir, I can.
PRESIDENT NIXON: No names. God knows if any members of the Inquisition have
tapped me here––I have the room swept every day––but it’s a chance we’ll have to
take. And, believe me, this is one conversation I am most certainly not recording
on this end.
(I wait. I hear the sound of ice cubes rattling in a drink; from past experience he
sounds as if he’s been drinking heavily.)
PRESIDENT NIXON: You’ve heard the news, I suppose.
ME: The Supreme Court.
PRESIDENT NIXON: Shot down our argument of executive privilege. 8–0. I put
three of the bastards on that bench myself and this is the thanks I get. Only
Rehnquist recused himself. We gave Congress all the transcripts––more than 1,200
pages––but no, that’s not enough for them. Now they’ll get the tapes, just as
they’re preparing to vote the articles of impeachment.
ME: I’m sorry to hear that, sir.
PRESIDENT NIXON: Well, you can’t just stick your head in the sand about it. Got
myself on the wrong side of the wrong people––it’s a global conspiracy, Colonel;
go after their secrets, they play the game with live ammunition. And I’m about
out of bullets.
ME: How can I help?
PRESIDENT NIXON: Listen to me now, it’s even worse than we thought. Worse
than I ever imagined. They never told me a fraction of their plan––and it was
what they were planning all along, after Blue Book. You were dead-on, Colonel,
Blue Book was a misdirect from the start, nothing but a cheap feint to draw the
eye and tamp down public opinion. The real action started in ’53––I don’t even
know for sure if Ike knew about it, if he did he never told me––they called it
Gleem then. They renamed it Aquarius in ’66, one big fat fuck-you to the hippies, I
suppose, and it’s still going.