[258]

Nixon speaking with Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the White House, 1979
By early 1975, Nixon's health was improving. He maintained an office in a Coast Guard station 300 yards from his home, at first taking a golf cart and later walking the route each day; he mainly worked on his memoirs.[259] He had hoped to wait before writing his memoirs; the fact that his assets were being eaten away by expenses and lawyer fees compelled him to begin work quickly.[260] He was handicapped in this work by the end of his transition allowance in February, which compelled him to part with many of his staff, including Ziegler.[261] In August of that year, he met with British talk-show host and producer David Frost, who paid him $600,000 (equivalent to $3 million in 2021) for a series of sit-down interviews, filmed and aired in 1977.[262] They began on the topic of foreign policy, recounting the leaders he had known, but the most remembered section of the interviews was that on Watergate. Nixon admitted he had "let down the country" and that "I brought myself down. 