Happy Nixon Resignation Day, everybody! It’s been forty years. I was just too young to enjoy the original, but the anniversary is fun to observe.
Sock it to me.
Are you old enough to remember?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
YES!
Outside of family matters, THAT was the happiest day of my 14 year-old life – since I detested Nixon with the heat of a trillion-billion-million suns!
And then, Reagan and W came along…
It was a wonderful day. It was also a time when people didn’t discuss politics with co-workers and neighbors, and therefore, it was a day when everyone was out of the closet. Those that were happy but refrained from gloating or even talking about it had the opportunity to observe the shock and disgust among those that had voted for Nixon and up until that day believed he was innocent. After a while, my calm demeanor was noticeable enough that I had to say something — opted for “Didn’t vote for him because I knew better.” Gained some respect from them that day that lasted many years after we no longer worked in the same office.
I was sixteen, not a creature of politics, but sensient enough to know that Nixon had to go, and good riddance. Even my grandmother, a devoted GOP supporter, was disgusted with him.
Yes! I was 17, and my folks were Nixon lovers. Every time he came on the tv I knew he was lying his ass off. It was a long slog if you felt the darkness of the man. Tricky Dick really was a piece of work, and the depths of his depravity have only been revealed as time has passed. What a joyous day when he resigned.
I was just old enough to know that Watergate was a big effing deal, and that Nixon was a corrupt bastard. My parents were thrilled to see him go (not that they were all that keen on Ford).
I was 22. I was working over the summer in a small factory in the Chicago suburbs. My brother and I (17 and 22) worked alone in the evening. We produced buttons and stickers. On that night, we were working, but I was able to watch Nixon resign on TV. A huge moment. Besides his scummy sleaziness, he also was running the draft, and I did not have to go – no action on my part, just luck.
Congress didn’t reauthorize the draft that expired June 1973 — over a year before Nixon resigned.
It was a thing of beauty.
A school friend and I share a birthday, but we couldn’t celebrate on the actual day, so we had picked a day out of a hat months in advance and prepared all the birthday trimmings … a good time was had by all.
I was born in 1976, so no–but when I quit my old job last year for a new one, it was Nixon Resignation Day as well. So me and Dick are tied together for a good reason at least.
I think I’ll celebrate by re-reading Hunter Thompson’s Watergate coverage.
I was 28 and driving on I-85 between SC and Atlanta listening to the radio when it was announced. It seemed to me then like a huge cloud was lifted from American politics. Little did I know how the Nixon gang would come back to get revenge on America. Nor that that was the high point of Democratic liberalism.
I was 25 years old, living in my first apartment, had been transfixed by the Watergate hearings (especially blown away by Barbara Jordan), and stunned, then ecstatic when Nixon threw in the towel. Never was it sweeter to have that “Don’t blame me; I’m from Massachusetts” bumper sticker on my little blue beater.
This country so misses the wisdom of “the Voice of God”. Would that some member of Congress step up like she did in that era.
I learned from a young age that Barbara Jordan thundered with the true voice of god.
Yes. It was a great day! I had read the paper everyday reading the articles by Woodward and Bernstein for two or three years. I had watched the hearings. However, in 2001, I came to find out that there were people in office then who made Nixon look like a choir boy. So very sad for America.
I was six and blissfully unaware of politics until the Iranian hostage crisis.
I was born in the presidency of st. Ronnie but my parents felt like many here. As someone whose first awareness of politics was Gulf I followed by the 90s I look at the GOP now and look back with some empathy at Nixon. He was indeed a crook, but at least he sometimes used government to do non ruinous things sometimes. His failings seemed to be personality based.
No empathy. Traitorous interference with the Paris Peace Talks in 1968, significant escalation of the Vietnam War into Cambodia in 1970, and the 1973 Chilean coup. And those are just three of his dastardly acts off the top of my head.
I was 25 and a Naval Officer who had an “Impeach Nixon” bumper sticker on my car. I absolutely wanted him out, and was relieved that he resigned rather than putting the Country through an impeachment. But it was a sad day too: another blow against the integrity of our federal government, in a very big way. It should never have happened.
Still, I came away from the resignation feeling at least that, “the system worked,” which was a popular truism of the time. Unfortunately, that shows just how far we’ve fallen since then. Bush and Cheney’s crimes were infinitely worse than Nixon’s and they’ve gotten off Scot-free. That’s a much greater tragedy for our government system and society than Watergate ever was.
I was seven years old. Totally oblivious to the issues.
I do remember having an oval tin trash can with portraits of the presidents printed on it. Nixon was the last president on it, with an open-ended term of office. In retrospect, that presidential memorabilia was a strange thing.
I was seven and remember watching his speech on television. I thought he was going to cry and said something along the lines of “Aww, he’s going to cry.”
My father roared at me, “Don’t feel sorry for him! He’s a crook and should be going to jail.”
Of course I remember…I won a hundred dollar bet from my father. I told him ‘He’s done’, and he said “Put money on it Mr. Know it all’
And so I finally got one over on the old prick.
.
I was just shy of turning 9, and my summer TV watching had been rudely interrupted by the Ervin Committee hearings. But I also was old enough to recognize what a liar and crook he was. When my mom came outside to interrupt my play with the news, I danced a little. It was such an incredible relief to the country to get him out of office.
I was 14. We’d watched the Senate hearings in the summer of 1973 and the House Judiciary Committee hearings, including the impeachment vote. I remember the vote as exciting, but solemn.
I have only a vague recollection of the speech, and it’s probably conflated with some of his other speeches. What I remember very clearly is what my mother said the next day – the day he actually left office – which was that it was the best birthday present she’d ever gotten.
I was living in Berkeley at the time, and on Telegraph Avenue we were dancing in the street. Everybody was happy.
Our local newspaper had a front page picture of the president, and it was in color. I was very, very excited about this, and wanted to find out whether Silly Putty would be able to pick up the ink. I pointed out the anomaly to my dad, and he explained that it was a big day because President Nixon had blah blah adult talking noise whatever.
Living history, man.
We were on our way back to Michigan from a trip to Colorado and Wyoming and spent the night in Chamberlain, S.D. After Nixon’s announcement that he would resign, Dan Rather came on to discuss the situation for CBS. I remember the look on his face quite well. He seemed shocked as though he couldn’t believe it actually happened and seemed to be saying, Holy C–p did we actually just bring a U.S. President down?? The more I read about the scandal the more of a sleeze “Tricky Dick” appears to have been. Ford, our first appointed President, takes his place as a reward for his “good work” on the Warren Commission I guess, and promptly pardons Nixon. It’s been basically a downhill slide since.
Rather went soft on Tricky, following his resignation speech the night before, calling it his “finest hour.”
According to Dan Schorr later, apparently word came from on high at Black Rock to go soft on the Trickster. But Roger Mudd apparently didnt get the word — or decided to ignore it. Either way, it was possibly Mudd’s finest hour — certainly not Rather’s or Nixon’s.
What a fascinating old news clip. Roger Mudd doing what the best of national reporters of the time did — providing context and content and posing important unanswered questions. Dan Rather foreshadowing what political reporters would become — how did the President look and sound, did his words rise to the occasion, and telling us that it’s enough to satisfy the American people who now want to move forward and not look back.
Those were the days of good times for me. My friends and I were beginning an effort organize a public employee union local in south Florida and were ultimately successful. Naturally Nixon was our enemy for many reasons and we were grateful to see him go in shame. Hunter Thompson captured the atmosphere of those days so well.
I think we were still popping open champagne bottles a month later over the wonderful news about the resignation and in anticipation of Nixon writing his memoirs from inside a federal prison — then word came about the Pardon and the merriment stopped suddenly dead in its tracks.
I still suspect a prior deal struck between the Nixon and Ford camps, and, no, I do not believe the pardon was good for the country, but the CW back then was that allowing the legal process to go forward would have been “too much” for the country to endure. Nonsense.
Eleven straight years of two lying, corrupt presidents, both of them cowards and unworthy of the high office they both attained under suspicious circumstances.
I think I’ll wear my Republican parents’ old “Nixon’s the One!” lapel button today …
Wasn’t CW then, only a beltway consensus. And even over two years after the pardon, with a significant amount of ink spilled and broadcast time spent repeating that the pardon was for the best, a majority were still not buying it and Ford lost to the relatively weak and inexperienced Carter.
Thank god Ford pardoned him. Honestly. The shit would have NEVER stopped. It destroyed Ford. He paid the price. But it was the right thing to do.
It was during college. I was taking a year off, living and working in Boston. I remember the resignation speech happening in the evening. As Nixon said the words “I will therefore resign”, we went out on the fire escape and screamed in a chorus echoed by hundreds of others doing the same all over the neighborhood. It felt like years of anti-war protesting in my native Washington DC and quieter Watergate agitating had come to fruition. A good but all-too brief moment.
I was -6 at the time.
My own personal opinion is that he should have been Impeached, and I wish he had stood trial and been removed.
Instead, what we have is a Presidency now where explicitly breaking the law might lead to a very stern talking-down from Congress, and then a Presidential pardon from someone the President picked to be VP.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon, in my mind, is the official date of the US Presidency becoming 100% above the law. In other words, a Pyrrhic victory at best.
I’m sure at the time it was wonderful though. Best I could imagine would have been Bush II resigning and then Cheney being immediately impeached and shipped over to the Hague to stand for war crimes.