MORE DARK SECRETS IN NIXON'S 'ARROGANCE'.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

He's been dead for six years, but we still have Richard Nixon to kick around. And no matter how bad we thought he was when he was alive, new evidence keeps cropping up to suggest he was even worse.

First came the release of a smattering of some of the metric tons of Watergate tapes, collected exhaustively - and sometimes exhaustingly - in Stanley Kutler's ``Abuse of Power.'' The book basically underscored what we already knew - the guy was paranoid and venal - and introduced a little anti-Semitism for bad measure.

Now comes ``The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon,'' Anthony Summers' book redrafted into The History Channel's ``Time Machine'' documentary ``Nixon: The Arrogance of Power,'' which opens several new shocking cans of worms. The new Nixon-bashing entries even provide an answer to that vexing question - with Nixon's re-election a lock, why did he need to send goons to break into Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate?

This may be a slag job, but it's a meticulously researched slag job (a thousand interviews were conducted for Summers' book), and tonight's special has many of Nixon's closest allies (Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, John Sears (who was recently ID'd - incorrectly, he claims - as Deep Throat in yet another new Nixon book), along with Jack Dreyfuss, Nixon's drug supplier, all speaking ill of the dead. So one would have to reach pretty far to question its credibility (which the Nixon Library has done).

Some of the revelations are simply troubling: As vice president, Nixon secretly consulted with a therapist, who later wrote a New York Times op-ed piece recommending national leaders undergo psychiatric scrutiny before being handed the reins to the country). He later abused pills and alcohol in the Oval Office: Smashed one night, he ordered Kissinger, apropos of nothing, to bomb Damascus; Kissinger ignored him and nothing was said of it the next morning. Others are chilling: Evidence strongly suggests he was physically abusive to his wife, Pat.

And one discovery is mind-boggling: In order to ensure his ascendancy to the presidency, Nixon actually interfered with Vietnam peace negotiations, then reneged on promises made to the Vietnamese when his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, got wise to his chicanery.

The upshot, of course, was devastating: Americans languished in Vietnam for another four years; an additional 20,000 more young men were killed and 111,000 wounded. The icy disdain with which the filmmakers note his ironic epitaph - ``The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker'' - is as brutal as a presidential biography can get.

But the filmmakers go a step further, suggesting that Nixon feared that the information Johnson had on him was in the files of the Brookings Institute - which he ordered broken into - and, ultimately, DNC's Watergate offices. His downfall is portrayed in a painfully protracted fashion; Defense Secretary Schlesinger actually feared Nixon might use the military to maintain his grip on power.

``Arrogance of Power'' suggests that Ronald Reagan's October Surprise - delaying the release of American hostages in Iran - and Contragate were simple indiscretions, and that Bill Clinton's scandal was the equivalent of fibbing after a schoolboy prank. The filmmakers unearthed some great archival footage, played in slow-motion, of Nixon approaching and then towering over a camera, a maniacal sneer pasted on his face. In this context, it's truly enough to give you nightmares.

The facts

--The show: ``Nixon: The Arrogance of Power.''

--What: ``Time Machine'' documentary about the former president's most venal tricks.

--Where: The History Channel

--When: 9 tonight; also Sept. 16.

--Our rating: Three stars