On the evening of August 7th, 1974, Richard Nixon, President of the United States, summoned his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to meet him. The two men spent the next three hours alone in the Lincoln Room, the smallest room in the White House.
The following day Nixon became the only US president in history to resign, his legacy forever besmirched by the scandal of Watergate.
This much is fact. Exactly what was said during that head-to-head has never been fully revealed, but has been the subject of much conjecture since.
Enter American playwright Russell Lees, who sets about filling in the historical gaps in a playful two-handed political satire which opens tonight at Dublin's Tivoli Theatre.
Nixon's Nixon comes with a disclaimer: the events depicted in the dialogue are in no way intended to represent the actual actions or opinions of either Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger. What the audience gets are 90 minutes of fast-paced dialogue as Nixon and Kissinger guzzle brandy, while scheming, manoeuvring and fantasising and second-guessing their destinies.
Kissinger wants Nixon to resign and persuade Gerald Ford to keep him on as secretary of state, while Nixon wants Kissinger to help him scheme up a way of staying on.
The atmosphere shifts between farce and tragedy as the men get progressively more drunk and engage in role-plays of world leaders such as the vodka-swilling Leonid Brezhnev and Chairman Mao. The play's director, Mr Charles Towers, calls it "complete fantasy" rather than historical drama.
"The historical references are true, but what happens in the room during the play is completely made up by the playwright," he says. "It's a satire rather than a tense political drama or thriller by any stretch of the imagination. It's pretty outrageous; they really go over the top at times."
Speaking in Dublin last week, Mr Towers (46) described the play as a "meditation on politics and power and loss of power and what happens when someone has to lose power".
Comparisons with US President Bill Clinton's recent brush with impeachment are obvious, but the US director says he prefers to let audiences draw their own conclusions from the play, which was written before Lewinsky-gate.
Towers's production took a Fringe First award at this year's Edinburgh Festival and discussions are ongoing for a potential run in London's West End next year.
During the Nixon years, Towers himself was one of the "peaceniks" who are scathingly referred to in the play.
A student involved in demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and civil rights protests, he says he hated Nixon. "I wanted him out. The day he resigned was one of the happiest days of my life politically," he says.
On the day of the resignation, Towers was performing a matinee in a Shakespearean theatre company in Vermont.
"We were glued to the TV in the Green Room that afternoon and a few of us missed our cues as a result of it."
Twenty-five years later Nixon and Kissinger have become in the play "dramatic characters, larger than life and beyond their own flesh and blood", he says.
"They have become timeless and it will still be a universal play in 25 years time. It will be relevant for a very long time to come, having nothing to do with the two historical figures, and all to do with the interplay between the two types."
While Keith Jochim as Nixon emerges a broken but all-too human figure, Tim Donoghue's portrayal of Kissinger as composed and stubborn elicits little sympathy.
Towers says he doesn't know whether Kissinger has seen the play, a different production of which ran in New York. "I don't know if he snuck in to see it, but I doubt it. I don't think he could take it; it's not a flattering portrait."
Nixon's Nixon opens at the Tivoli Theatre, Francis Street, Dublin, tonight