Dick Cavett on his Extraordinary Career

You in fact had the first television interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and of course it was at the time when the Beatles had broken up and you were asking John what made the Beatles breakup.

Here it is.

'How long was it fun?

Well everything's fun off and on you know.

So I suppose it could have gone on being flun off and on or it could have gone worse.

I don't know.

It's just, when you grow up, you know, we don't want to be the Crazy Gang, which they might know over here which is British or the Marx Brothers which is sort of being dragged onstage playing She Loves You when we've got, you know, asthma and tuberculosis when we're 50, and you know here they are again yesterday.

So, a long time ago I said this I didn't want to be singing She Loves You and I'm 30. I said that when I was about twenty five or something which in a roundabout way meant that I wouldn't be doing whatever I was doing then you know, 30 when I was 30 last October and that's about when my life changed really.'. John was so approachable, so available, so when you met him it was that feeling of I've known him a long time, though you had not and they had fun on this show.

This was a very very difficult time because he was choosing Yoko over the Beatles.

Yes yes it was.

I maybe did one of the few good things, really good things I've ever done which was went down as he had asked me if I would and protested the fact that there our great unindicted coconspirator of that time, the Yorba Linda wunder Richard Milhous Nixon wanted John out of the country and then unfortunately he later got himself out of the White House.

I thought they'd have to cut his hands off at the wrist to get him out of the White House.

But you know it is interesting we forget that John was put on a blacklist right.

I mean Nixon sicked the FBI on him.

And I helped him. It was a good feeling.

Anything I could do for John and against Nixon I would jump at.

And what did you do for him?

Well I just went down and talked about how he should not be thrown out and there was his lawyer was there in the audience.

And now if you go to Youtube, well not while we're on, and put the Cavett Nixon you can see him in the Oval Office and it's still the words here up here, it begins with what is Cavett anyway, he says to his lickspittle H.R.

Haldeman and the last line is Cavett, there must be something we can do to screw him.

Absolutely right.

I mean you took the words out of my mouth on the White House tapes.

I never heard you talk like that.

I mean look you were one of the first to really delve into to covering Watergate what right. I mean you spoke a lot on your show about Watergate.

You debated all sorts of things.

You didn't shy away from those actual topics.

I did not know because it was so damn