1974
Richard Nixon announces that he will resign. ^top^
He announces that he will resign
the office of the President at noon the next day, 09 August.
He had been engulfed by a major political scandal that began
with the bungled burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic
Party's campaign headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex
in Washington, D.C., on 17 June 1972. Senate investigations
eventually revealed that the President had been personally involved
in the subsequent cover-up of the break-in; additional investigation
uncovered a related group of illegal activities that included
political espionage and falsification of official documents,
all sanctioned by the White House. On 29 July and 30 July
1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles
of impeachment, charging that Nixon had misused his powers to
violate the constitutional rights of US citizens, obstructed
justice, and defied Judiciary Committee subpoenas. To avoid
almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced that he would resign
from office.
In an evening televised address,
President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become
the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment
proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the
Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from
the public and Congress to leave the White House. "By taking
this action," he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office,
"I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of
healing which is so desperately needed in America." Just before
noon the next day, Nixon officially ended his term as the 37th
president of the United States. Before departing with his family
in a helicopter from the White House lawn, he smiled farewell
and enigmatically raised his arms in a victory or peace salute.
The helicopter door was then closed, and the Nixon family began
their journey home to San Clemente, California. Minutes later,
Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th president
of the United States in the East Room of the White House. After
taking the oath of office, President Ford spoke to the nation
in a television address, declaring, "My fellow Americans, our
long national nightmare is over." He later pardoned Nixon for
any crimes he may have committed while in office, explaining
that he wanted to end the national divisions created by the
Watergate scandal.
On 17 June 1972, five men,
including a salaried security coordinator for President Nixon's
reelection committee, were arrested for breaking into and illegally
wiretapping the Democratic National Committee headquarters in
the Washington DC, Watergate complex. Soon after, two other
former White House aides were implicated in the break-in, but
the Nixon administration denied any involvement. Later that
year, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington
Post discovered a higher-echelon conspiracy surrounding the
incident, and a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude
erupted. In May 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential
Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina,
began televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate
affair. One week later, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox
was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor.
During the Senate hearings, former
White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate
break-in had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell
with the knowledge of White House advisers John Ehrlichman and
H.R. Haldeman, and that President Nixon had been aware of the
cover-up. Meanwhile, Watergate prosecutor Cox and his staff
began to uncover widespread evidence of political espionage
by the Nixon reelection committee, illegal wiretapping of thousands
of citizens by the administration, and contributions to the
Republican Party in return for political favors. In July, the
existence of what were to be called the Watergate tapes — official
recordings of White House conversations between Nixon and his
staff — was revealed during the Senate hearings.
Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and
after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to send summaries
of the recordings. Cox rejected the summaries, and Nixon fired
him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled
indictments against several high-ranking administration officials,
including Mitchell and Dean, who were duly convicted. Public
confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of
July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles
of impeachment against President Nixon: obstruction of justice,
abuse of presidential powers, and hindrance of the impeachment
process. On 30 July, under coercion from the Supreme Court,
Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes. On 05 August, transcripts
of the recordings were released, including a segment in which
the president was heard instructing Haldeman to order the FBI
to halt the Watergate investigation. Three days later, Nixon
announced his resignation.
The Watergate affair had far-ranging
impact, both at home and abroad. In the United States, the scandal
shook the faith of the American people in the presidency, but,
in the final analysis, the nation survived the constitutional
crisis, thus reinforcing the system of checks and balances and
proving that no one is above the law, not even the president.
In Vietnam, Nixon's resignation removed one of Saigon's staunchest
supporters. Nixon had always promised that he would come to
the aid of South Vietnam if Hanoi violated the terms of the
Paris Peace Accords. With Nixon gone, there was no one left
to make good on those promises. When the North Vietnamese began
their final offensive in 1975, the promised US support was
not provided and the South Vietnamese were defeated in less
than 55 days..
President Nixon's resignation speech:
Good evening.
This is the 37th time I have spoken
to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made
that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done
so to discuss with you some matter than I believe affected the
national interest.
In all the decisions I have made
in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for
the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate,
I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible
effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.
In the
past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no
longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to
justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a
base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional
process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would
be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process
and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.
But with
the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional
purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the
process to be prolonged.
I would have preferred to carry
through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have
involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the
interest of the Nation must always come before any personal
considerations.
From the discussions I have had
with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that
because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support
of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the
very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office
in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
I have never been a quitter. To
leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every
instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest
of America first. America needs a full-time President and a
full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems
we face at home and abroad.
To continue to fight through the
months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally
absorb the time and attention of both the President and the
Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the
great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation
at home.
Therefore, I shall resign the
Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will
be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
As I recall the high hopes for
America with which we began this second term, I feel a great
sadness that I will not be here in this office working on your
behalf to achieve those hopes in the next 2 1/2 years. But in
turning over direction of the Government to Vice President Ford,
I know, as I told the Nation when I nominated him for that office
10 months ago, that the leadership of America will be in good
hands.
In passing this office to the
Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the
weight of responsibility that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow
and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation
he will need from all Americans.
As he assumes that responsibility,
he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we
look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing
the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions
of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared
ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a
great and as a free people.
By taking this action, I hope
that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing
which is so desperately needed in America.
I regret deeply any injuries that
may have been done in the course of the events that led to this
decision. I would say only that if some of my judgments were
wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed
at the time to be the best interest of the Nation.
To those who have stood with me
during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends,
to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they
believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your
support.
And to those who have not felt
able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness
toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the
final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country,
however our judgments might differ.
So, let us all now join together
in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President
succeed for the benefit of all Americans.
I shall leave this office with
regret at not completing my term, but with gratitude for the
privilege of serving as your President for the past five and
a half years. These years have been a momentous time in the
history of our Nation and the world. They have been a time of
achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that
represent the shared efforts of the Administration, the Congress,
and the people.
But the challenges ahead are equally
great, and they, too, will require the support and the efforts
of the Congress and the people working in cooperation with the
new Administration.
We have ended America's longest
war, but in the work of securing a lasting peace in the world,
the goals ahead are even more far-reaching and more difficult.
We must complete a structure of peace so that it will be said
of this generation, our generation of Americans, by the people
of all nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented
future wars.
We have unlocked the doors that
for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and
the People's Republic of China.
We must now ensure that the one
quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic
of China will be and remain not our enemies but our friends.
In the Middle East, 100 million
people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us
their enemy for nearly 20 years, now look on us as their friends.
We must continue to build on that friendship so that peace can
settle at last over the Middle East and so that the cradle of
civilization will not become its grave.
Together with the Soviet Union
we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process
of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just
limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible
weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that
the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world
and the people.
We have opened the new relation
with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand
that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the
world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.
Around the world, in Asia, in
Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, there are millions
of people who live in terrible poverty, even starvation. We
must keep as our goal turning away from production for war and
expanding production for peace so that people everywhere on
this earth can at last look forward in their children's time,
if not in our own time, to having the necessities for a decent
life.
Here in America, we are fortunate
that most of our people have not only the blessings of liberty
but also the means to live full and good and, by the world's
standards, even abundant lives. We must press on, however, toward
a goal of not only more and better jobs but of full opportunity
for every American and of what we are striving so hard right
now to achieve, prosperity without inflation.
For more than a quarter of a century
in public life I have shared in the turbulent history of this
era. I have fought for what I believed in. I have tried to the
best of my ability to discharge those duties and meet those
responsibilities that were entrusted to me.
Sometimes I have succeeded and
sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from
what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena,
"whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives
valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because
there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does
actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who
at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly."
I pledge to you tonight that as
long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue
in that spirit. I shall continue to work for the great causes
to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a Congressman,
a Senator, a Vice President, and President, the cause of peace
not just for America but among all nations, prosperity, justice,
and opportunity for all of our people.
There is one cause above all to
which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted
for as long as I live.
When I first took the oath of
office as President 5 1/2 years ago, I made this sacred commitment,
to "consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I
can summon to the cause of peace among nations."
I have done my very best in all
the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these
efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today,
not only for the people of America but for the people of all
nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than
before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
This, more than anything, is what
I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more
than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our
country, as I leave the Presidency.
To have served in this office
is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and
every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May
God's grace be with you in all the days ahead. |
|
On
an August 08: 
<
Wrapped in the Union Jack, famous train robber Ronald Biggs
takes part in an advertisment campaign for female lingerie in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in this 25 January 2001 photo. After
several days of rumors, Biggs' lawyer Wellington Mousinho announced
on Friday 04 May 2001 that his client wanted to return to Britain.
A plane chartered by a British tabloid to fly convicted train
robber Biggs back home after decades in self-imposed exile landed
Saturday 05 May 2001 in Rio de Janeiro. Biggs was sentenced
to 30 years in prison for a 1963 train robbery of 2.6 million
pounds, worth $7.3 million at the time, but escaped in 1965
after 15 months behind bars.
1938
First prisoners sent to Mauthausen death camp. 
