FROST TODAY--ONLY THE NAMES HAVE CHANGED

In 1968, his lineup included Richard Nixon, Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Now, the names have changed, but David Frost’s interest in the American presidency has not.

Almost 20 years after he last tracked the campaign trail to the White House, the British television personality is returning to the American beat in “The Next President,” a planned series of 13 hourlong television interviews with the 1988 presidential candidates.

“Anybody who’s running for public office has a duty to let the public know something about them,” the 47-year-old interviewer and talk-show host said in an interview here.

Due for syndication by Orbis Communications to individual television stations, “The Next President” will follow the Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls in weekly airings to begin next November. It will end with the New Hampshire primary Feb. 16, 1988.

In the plushly carpeted comfort of his north London offices, Frost, cigar in hand, looked more like a politician himself than the investigative journalist who elicited an apology to the American people from former President Richard Nixon. His 1977 televised interviews focusing on the Watergate scandal gained worldwide attention.

But the Cambridge University graduate who found fame at age 23 with the series “That Was the Week That Was,” a satirical revue of current events, said he looked forward to renewed coverage of American politics after time spent on books and other TV work.

“At that time, Vietnam overshadowed all else, really,” said Frost, contrasting his 1968 encounters with the nine presidential aspirants with the ones to come.

“One of the questions relevant in ‘68--and it got a whole spectrum of replies--was, ‘Do you believe in my country, right or wrong?’ ” he said. “That question is no longer topical. Nobody would say yes anymore.

“The nuclear dialogue under way at the moment would have been inconceivable in 1968. The dialogue with China has also opened up in a way that would have been inconceivable,” he said.

Frost said he believed his being British helped him get and conduct interviews in America.

“I think independence is an important factor in a country as diverse as America, with so many loyalties,” said Frost. “I’m not part of the Eastern establishment or the rising Sun Belt.”

Frost first worked in the United States at age 24, when “That Was the Week That Was” began its two-year American airing.

“Over the years, I’ve had a long love affair with the States. I was touched and delighted by the generosity of the welcome you get,” he said.

During the 1960s, Frost was commuting twice weekly across the Atlantic to tape 750 programs, each 90 minutes long, over three years.

American television still occupies him. His latest production, “The Spitting Image Movie Awards For 1987,” a take-off of the Academy Awards as performed by the Spitting Image puppets, aired on NBC last week.

In Britain, he was a joint founder of the London Weekend Television production company in 1967 and a founder director of TV-AM, a commercial morning TV show, in 1983.

Frost, married for 17 months to Lynne Frederick, widow of actor Peter Sellers, was divorced in 1982 and was married in 1983 to Lady Carina Fitzalan Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk.

They have one son, Miles, who will be 3 in June. On the list of fulfilling moments in his life, Frost ranks becoming a father near the top.

“I’ve found it even more fulfilling and more fun than I anticipated,” he said.