In TOS, Kirk does not hate the Klingons. I remember this episode when he and the Klingon captain must refrain from feeding hate to stop the alien of the week.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Depends on when - early on in TOS: “Errand of Mercy” he’s pretty eager to turn it into a hot war with Kor and like the latter is indignant when the Organians deny them the opportunity to do so.
My thinking is that Kirk saw action of some sort during the war and lost a lot of friends, leading to a general antipathy against the enemy as is natural, but his duty as a Starfleet officer and captain to keep the peace tempered his anger and kept it in check, which is why he was willing to work within the rules when dealing with the Klingons in “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Friday’s Child” and “Day of the Dove”.
It was only after David’s death that he reverted to his “never trust Klingons” stance but even then his own sense of duty as a officer more or less kept him civil and professional in TUC, allowing him to see the sincere peacemaker in Gorkon and realize the extent of his own prejudices.
Is Kirk more inclined to believe Maxwell because he distrusts the Klingons?
Rather unlikely. Kirk (at least in TOS) is very much by the book, and would not be one to put his prejudices over what the law dictates, and Captain Maxwell would be breaking the law. Irrespective of his feelings, there is a due process that has not been done. Captain Maxwell's suspicions mean nothing, besides the possibility of an investigation.
He certainly can't go off and shoot at Klingon ships he suspects of carrying illegal weapons, not without some form of prior authorisation.
Being TOS, it's possible that Kirk would have known Captain Maxwell in his academy days, and after an unsuccessful attempt at talking him down, it's down to his engineers to find the prefix code to disable the Phoenix, whilst also straining the Enterprise to stay within transmission range, and maybe taking some fire from the Phoenix.
It might culminate in the Enterprise protecting the Klingon ship from weapons fire before they are able to disable the other vessel, hinting at the future possibility of peace, with it being left ambiguous whether they had weapons or not.