Memoirs may bring $2m

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33635, 10 September 1974, Page 17

Memoirs may bring $2m

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyrights NEW YORK, September 9. A literary agent, Irving Lazar, said yesterday that the former President, Mr Richard Nixon had authorised him to negotiate the sale of his memoirs for what would probably be over $2 million in advance payments.

“He wants to be a part of things, to make a contribution in the quest for peace, to make his voice heard loud and clear,” Mr Lazar said in a telephone interview. “I think it will be heard loud and clear.” Mr Lazar said that he clinched the deal during a three-hour meeting with Mr Nixon at San Clemente, California, on Saturday, August 31.

“He was in great mental and emotional condition,” Mr Lazar said. “He doesn’t look beaten. He was in great form.”

Mr Lazar was enthusiastic about the pardon granted Mr Nixon by President Ford and especially that it gave the former Chief Executive all his civil rights. “I don’t think President Nixon is through,” Mr Lazar said. “He’s eligible to run for office and appear to vast audiences. I think he will appear to vast audiences. “I think he’s going to tell one of the great stories of all time. After all, he’s the only man in the world who really knows what happened about Watergate. “His book will be candid, honest and honourable about the events of Watergate. It will be a true, historical por-

trayal, especially of the great things he has done in the quest for peace.” Mr Lazar said that Mr Nixon would write at San Clemente, “but when he will go to work, I don’t know.” He said that the starting date for writing would depend on such things as whether Mr Nixon would have to appear as a witness at a

Watergate trial on September 29. Mr Lazar, who also represents such writers as Theodore White of “The Making of the President” series, Vladimir Kabokov, Francoise Sagan, and the historian, Arthur Schlesinger, jun., said that Mr Nixon’s income from the book would depend on sales.

He said that a sale In paperback of 10 million copies would not be extraordinary. "If it’s a big hit, that’s not a lot of copies. The public’s interest in nonfiction is much greater than in fiction. They want to know what’s going on.”

Mr Lazar also predicted a hardcover sale of at least 500,000 copies.