Okla-homey
8/8/2006, 06:01 AM
August 8, 1974, President Richard Milhouse Nixon becomes the only US president evar to resign
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/4430/xxnixonresignationspeechti6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Screenshot of RMN resigning on this night in 1974
32 years ago, 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 salute.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/9299/xxnixondepartscz7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
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."
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4315/xxh141bdb5.gif (http://imageshack.us)
Future President Gerald Ford during his playing days as a Michigan Wolverine
Ford 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.
The great irony of the mess was the fact that Nixon had won re-election in 1972 by a landslide vs. the feckless Senator Walter Mondale. Yet, despite everything that looked like a solid Nixon win in the months leading up to the election, the Nixon White House decided to conduct some late-night monkey business to make sure the Dems had no surprises up their sleeve.
On June 17, 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, D.C. Watergate Hotel 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.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4636/xxbernsteinwoodwardapbildec4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Carl Bernstein (L) and Bob Woodward (R)
In July of 1973, the existence of what were to be called the Nixon tapes--official recordings of White House conversations between Nixon and his staff--was revealed during the Senate hearings. No one knew before then that throughout his presidency, Nixon secretly taped every single word uttered in meetings in the Oval Office.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/7174/xx050604nixontapesvlvf7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The newly appointed Special Prosecutor and Justice Department employee Archibald Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to send summaries of the recordings.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/2969/xxcox200gb1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Archibald Cox. Harvard law professor and newly appointed Special Prosecutor
Cox rejected the summaries wanting the tapes themselves, and Nixon fired him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled indictments against several high-ranking administration officials, including George Mitchell and John 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: 1) obstruction of justice, 2) abuse of presidential powers, and 3) hindrance of the impeachment process.
On July 30, under coercion from the Supreme Court which had ruled that presidential privilege did NOT include stonewalling a criminal investigation, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes.
As an aside, your correspondent had a law perfessor at TU who as a young man worked at Justice who adamantly believes if Nixon had claimed "national security" instead of "presidential privilege" as grounds for refusing to give up the tapes he would have gotten away with it because SCOTUS won't go there, as evidence, I offer this from the opinion in US v. Nixon (1974).
". . . Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets,
we find it difficult to accept the . . . [absolute] confidentiality of presidential communications." — Chief Justice Warren Burger
On August 5, transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing White House staffer John Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Three days later, Nixon announced his resignation.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/1513/xxjfkhaldeman4qm8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
John Haldeman
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/5381/xxnixonresignationqu7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The postdated memo in which Nixon officially said "adios muthaf------"
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/5282/insane7zops4.jpg
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/4430/xxnixonresignationspeechti6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Screenshot of RMN resigning on this night in 1974
32 years ago, 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 salute.
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/9299/xxnixondepartscz7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
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."
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4315/xxh141bdb5.gif (http://imageshack.us)
Future President Gerald Ford during his playing days as a Michigan Wolverine
Ford 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.
The great irony of the mess was the fact that Nixon had won re-election in 1972 by a landslide vs. the feckless Senator Walter Mondale. Yet, despite everything that looked like a solid Nixon win in the months leading up to the election, the Nixon White House decided to conduct some late-night monkey business to make sure the Dems had no surprises up their sleeve.
On June 17, 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, D.C. Watergate Hotel 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.
http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4636/xxbernsteinwoodwardapbildec4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Carl Bernstein (L) and Bob Woodward (R)
In July of 1973, the existence of what were to be called the Nixon tapes--official recordings of White House conversations between Nixon and his staff--was revealed during the Senate hearings. No one knew before then that throughout his presidency, Nixon secretly taped every single word uttered in meetings in the Oval Office.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/7174/xx050604nixontapesvlvf7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The newly appointed Special Prosecutor and Justice Department employee Archibald Cox subpoenaed these tapes, and after three months of delay President Nixon agreed to send summaries of the recordings.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/2969/xxcox200gb1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Archibald Cox. Harvard law professor and newly appointed Special Prosecutor
Cox rejected the summaries wanting the tapes themselves, and Nixon fired him. His successor as special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, leveled indictments against several high-ranking administration officials, including George Mitchell and John 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: 1) obstruction of justice, 2) abuse of presidential powers, and 3) hindrance of the impeachment process.
On July 30, under coercion from the Supreme Court which had ruled that presidential privilege did NOT include stonewalling a criminal investigation, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes.
As an aside, your correspondent had a law perfessor at TU who as a young man worked at Justice who adamantly believes if Nixon had claimed "national security" instead of "presidential privilege" as grounds for refusing to give up the tapes he would have gotten away with it because SCOTUS won't go there, as evidence, I offer this from the opinion in US v. Nixon (1974).
". . . Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic, or sensitive national security secrets,
we find it difficult to accept the . . . [absolute] confidentiality of presidential communications." — Chief Justice Warren Burger
On August 5, transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing White House staffer John Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Three days later, Nixon announced his resignation.
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/1513/xxjfkhaldeman4qm8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
John Haldeman
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/5381/xxnixonresignationqu7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The postdated memo in which Nixon officially said "adios muthaf------"
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/5282/insane7zops4.jpg