Watergate, page 74
That afternoon, Barry Goldwater, House minority leader John Rhodes, and Senate minority leader Hugh Scott went to the Oval Office to explain to the president that Nixon’s support on Capitol Hill was all but gone. At Haig’s urging, the House and Senate leaders stopped short of ever mentioning resignation, instead just emphasizing that the president could not count on more than a dozen votes to acquit in the Senate—perhaps even as few as four. “Mr. President, this isn’t pleasant, but you want to know the situation and it isn’t good,” Goldwater said.
The president’s mood shifted through the conversation, his initial calm facade giving way to something more approaching anger. “It’s grim,” said Scott, who kept an unlit pipe clenched in his teeth through the emotional conversation. Nixon later recalled that he winced “involuntarily” as the party leaders listed off the defectors, men Nixon had considered not just allies but friends. Upon leaving the White House, Goldwater told reporters, “Whatever decision he makes, it will be in the best interest of our country.”
The Nixon staff began to talk openly about Ford’s swearing-in, telling the vice president it would have to be small since it should be in the Oval Office. “The hell with what they want—it’s what do you want? You are going to be president,” Hartmann protested to Ford.
That evening, the Nixon family met in the White House solarium.
“Your father has decided to resign,” Pat told their daughters.
“We’re going back to California,” Nixon added.
Later that night, he summoned Henry Kissinger to the White House. (“It was the only time I ever saw HAK run,” Kissinger’s assistant later recalled.) When the secretary of state arrived, the president was alone in the Lincoln Sitting Room.III It was time for him to go, Nixon said. Through the night, he kept calling Ron Ziegler and Ray Price with edits to the proposed resignation speech. Tricia Nixon, writing in her diary, reported, “A day for tears. I could not control their flow. I did not even try.”
* * *
On Thursday morning, Nixon met with Gerald Ford and informed him that he would ascend to the presidency the next day. “I know you’ll do a good job,” he said, seeming finally to relax. “It was like a burden had been lifted from him,” Ford recalled later. Nixon rolled his chair away from the oversized desk, leaned back, kicked his feet up, and began to expound at length on what he thought his successor should know—observations on policy issues, strategies for geopolitics, and even tips for dealing with advisors like Kissinger. As incredible and historic as the transition would be, Ford found himself relieved. “For the previous nine months, I had been sitting on a time bomb,” he recalled later. The national crisis had now come to a final resolution.
As the two men spoke, warmly, almost as friends, the White House shut down the presidential autopen, marking the end of “Richard Nixon” as president in routine business; there would be no more looping Rs and slanted Ns headed out on letters, proclamations, birthday wishes, anniversary celebrations, executive orders, nominations, and other correspondence. “To hell with it—let Ford do it,” aide Stephen Bull had said, dismissively, when presented with the afternoon’s pile of paperwork for the president’s signature. In Alexandria, Virginia, police and Secret Service moved to block off the quiet residential street where the Fords lived. Nixon felt his power ebb. “A president’s power begins to slip away the moment it is known he is going to leave,” he recalled, thinking back to the three transitions he’d lived through in public life, Truman in ’52, Ike in ’60, and LBJ in ’68. He knew that “my role was already a symbolic one, and that Gerald Ford’s was now the constructive one.”
Ford moved quickly, tracking down Chief Justice Warren Burger on summer travel in the Netherlands and dispatching an air force jet to fetch him to Washington in time for the next day’s swearing-in. Then he began calling members of Congress to ask them to attend. “Are wives invited?” Tip O’Neill said. “I’ve already told Millie to pack her things and get down here.”
“Actually, wives were not invited,” Ford said, “but they are now!”
As the call wrapped up, the majority leader offered his former Capitol Hill colleague a wry observation: “Jerry, isn’t this a wonderful country? Here we can talk like this and we can be friends, and eighteen months from now I’ll be going around the country kicking your ass in!”
Nixon spent the remainder of his final day as president in his hideaway—sitting a final time in the brown chair in Room 175 of the Executive Office Building that had served as his getaway for so long—sorting through the legal questions surrounding his future, weighing and ultimately rejecting any final pardons while wondering whether he might face jail time himself. Haig, meanwhile, had met clandestinely with Jaworski at the chief of staff’s home. Jaworski was careful to not tip his hand, and he stayed well short of anything that appeared to be a deal, but Haig left the meeting with the impression that Jaworski would probably not prosecute the president after he left office.
A few minutes after noon, Ron Ziegler went into the press briefing room and announced the day’s milestones. “The President of the United States will meet various members of the bipartisan leadership of Congress here at the White House early this evening,” he said. “Tonight, at nine o’clock Eastern Daylight Time, the President of the United States will address the nation on radio and television from his Oval Office.” CBS’s Robert Pierpoint sheepishly inquired after: “When Ron said ‘the President of the United States,’ did he mean President Ford or President Nixon?” Ziegler, who had been struggling emotionally with the unraveling of the administration and whose voice had cracked as he’d started speaking in the press room moments earlier, laughed and clarified: Nixon.
I. Reflecting on the meeting, Kissinger would say, “It was cruel. And it was necessary. For Nixon’s own appointees to turn on him was not the best way to end a presidency. Yet he had left them no other choice.”
II. Haig, when he heard of the pending move to send a congressional delegation to the White House, was horrified; he didn’t believe that the legislative branch should be trying to dictate to the leader of the executive branch.
III. Kissinger’s memoir says this meeting took place in the Oval Office, but The Final Days says it was in the Sitting Room.
Chapter 55 “I Shall Resign”
For his final address as president, Richard Nixon picked out the same slate-blue suit he’d worn in Moscow in 1972; it was lightweight and would stay cool. After meeting with a solemn congressional delegation to tell them of his official decision, he settled into the desk in the Oval Office, under the hot television lights, and, one minute after 9 p.m., began his address. “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,” he told the television audience. “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.”
In a speech that mixed sadness and defiance, national duty and family, the thirty-seventh president of the United States explained that while he would have preferred to see through the impeachment process, he now believed it would be too difficult for the country given his weakness politically. “Therefore,” he announced, “I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.” He then spent the remainder (and majority) of the sixteen-minute speech recounting his administration’s five-and-a-half years of accomplishments, from the opening to China to the drawdown in Vietnam to peace in the Middle East. When the lights and camera turned off, he handed out the remaining engraved presidential souvenirs in his desk to the CBS crew who had filmed the address.
Gerald Ford watched the speech from his cozy living room in Alexandria, surrounded by his family. After, he spoke amid a drizzle to reporters on his front lawn: “This is one of the most difficult and very saddest periods, and one of the saddest incidents I’ve ever witnessed.”
At 12:20 a.m., Len Garment’s phone rang. He’d dined earlier that evening with Fred Buzhardt and former Nixon aide William Safire at D.C.’s tony Sans Souci, then watched the speech with them back at the White House. Now, to his surprise, Nixon himself was calling. “He was phoning old friends, making his disciplined rounds, saying good-bye, thanks for the help, sorry I let you down,” Garment recalled. And indeed, it came: “I’m sorry I let you down, Len,” Nixon said. All together, the president spent nearly two hours, until nearly 2 a.m., placing more than a dozen calls to supporters and friends. He slept little, continuing to work on his farewell speech, flipping through a nearby pile of presidential memoirs for inspiration.
The next morning, August 9, 1973, he deviated from his usual breakfast routine and asked for corned beef hash and poached eggs. Then, fortified, he signed the official resignation. David Gergen had drafted three different versions of the letter, each just one sentence long, before the speech-writers had settled on a final draft: “Dear Mr. Secretary: I hereby resign the office of President of the United States. Sincerely, Richard Nixon.”
It was an act that Nixon hoped would spare him from further punishment, but Leon Jaworski made a point to publicly state such clemency was not guaranteed. “There has been no agreement or understanding of any sort between the President or his representatives and the Special Prosecutor relating in any way to the President’s resignation,” he announced. Nixon tried to joke about the threat, saying, “Lenin and Gandhi did some of their best writing in jail.”
With his wife by his side, he said goodbye to the assembled staff of the residence and professional White House, then went to the East Room, which was filled with the cabinet and White House political staff. A military aide announced for the last time before his entrance, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States,” and the Marine Band launched into a final rendition of “Hail to the Chief.” People wept as the president thanked those who had served his administration and the nation at his side. It was a tortured, emotional speech, the president’s eyes clearly moist as he drank in a final three-minute standing ovation, his hands gripping a lectern adorned by the presidential seal that would be taken from him just moments later. He spoke of the wonder of public service and the American presidency—and, holding back sobs, his admiration for his mother and her struggle to raise his family. He joked about his need to pay his taxes, and he told his staff to be strong. “Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you—but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself,” he cautioned, observations that seemed to come five-and-a-half years too late in his presidency.
Washington, the nation, and the world beyond watched the dramatic events unfold on television. At the Post newsroom, Bob Woodward ate a sandwich, his eyes fixed on the television screen, as Bradlee walked through the newsroom telling reporters not to gloat. John Dean watched filled with painkillers, recovering from the four wisdom teeth he’d had removed as part of the medical work he was getting out of the way before reporting to prison. Jaworski himself noted the president’s apparent lack of remorse; the farewell remarks seemed better tailored to a president unexpectedly leaving office under far more favorable circumstances. “It was not the speech of a President who had violated his constitutional oath and duty by obstructing justice, by abusing the power of his office, by transforming the Oval Office into a mean den where perjury and low scheming became a way of life,” he recalled later.
On Capitol Hill, Tip O’Neill marveled at how straightforward such a monumental political event turned out to be—in the end, the first resignation of an American president, driven from office by scandal, crime, and corruption had occurred with the same pomp and circumstance as any other presidential transition. “The whole world was watching, and other nations couldn’t help but be impressed,” the majority leader proudly realized. “Our transition was orderly and by the book.”
At the White House, Gerald Ford bid the president goodbye from the South Portico. “Drop us a line if you get the chance. Let us know how you are doing,” he said, stiffly, as if he were saying goodbye to a child headed to summer camp. Then, after a long walk across the lawn, Richard Nixon boarded the steps of Army One, the helicopter that would fly him away from the White House. At the top, he paused, turned, and surveyed the crowded lawn before him, filled with supporters who had sacrificed so much to help him. He flashed a triumphant, defiant victory sign, and departed, the helicopter rotors speeding up and the engine straining as it lifted off and away. At 11:35 a.m., with Air Force One winging toward the Pacific, already somewhere over the Midwest, came Al Haig’s final act as Nixon’s chief of staff: delivering Richard Milhous Nixon’s resignation letter to Henry Kissinger, as decreed by law. Aboard Air Force One, Nixon ordered a martini.
Below him, the nation moved on. Looking down from the White House balcony, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger puffed on his pipe, standing with a White House chef and an NSC aide named David Michael Ransom. “I’m going to prepare lunch for the president,” the chef said by way of a goodbye. The comment’s sheer normalcy struck Ransom; one president had left, but the presidency moved onward. By lunchtime, there would be a new commander in chief.
The Fords, hand in hand, walked back into the White House, where they entered the East Room, now remade for his swearing-in as the nation’s thirty-eighth president. Warren Burger, fresh from Europe, administered the oath of office, as Betty held the Bible, open to Proverbs 3:5–6, his favorite prayer: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; / and lean not unto thine own understanding. / In all thy ways acknowledge him, / and he shall direct thy paths.”
After listening by radio to Ford’s swearing-in, Ralph Albertazzie, the pilot of the iconic blue-and-white Boeing 707 carrying Richard Nixon to San Clemente, keyed his own radio: “Kansas City, this is Air Force One. Will you change our call sign to SAM 27000?” There was no president aboard any longer; the flight was now, according to the military, a simple Special Air Mission. Nixon finished the flight a private citizen, sitting alone in the padded swivel chair of his onboard office; his wife, similarly alone, sat in her own private cabin next door.
* * *
In a room packed with Nixon’s cabinet, members of Congress, and representatives from the diplomatic corps, Ford addressed the nation at 12:05 p.m. “I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts,” he said. “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many.”
In an eight-minute speech, one he carefully explained was neither an inaugural address nor a fireside chat nor a stump speech but instead “a little straight talk among friends,” Ford promised the nation and its elected and appointed leaders assembled before him his integrity and candor, asked for cooperation and help from Congress, and pledged to the world beyond “an uninterrupted and sincere search for peace,” saying, “America will remain strong and united, but its strength will remain dedicated to the safety and sanity of the entire family of man, as well as to our own precious freedom.”
Then, obliquely, he addressed the incredible story that had delivered him—and the nation—to this moment. “I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad,” Ford said. “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
When Ford finished, the Marine Band played “America the Beautiful.”
Epilogue Nixon’s Curse
At 7 a.m. on August 10, the new president appeared on his Alexandria doorstep in baby-blue pajamas, picked up the morning paper, and went inside for orange juice and an English muffin before beginning his first day as the leader of the free world. Though he had promised the American people closure from one of its darkest chapters, Watergate would not quite yet fade into history.
TIME’s resignation special, filled with three times its normal number of pages, sold 527,000 copies on the newsstand—the most of any newsweekly ever, even more than the issue announcing the end of World War II—and the nation would remain fascinated by the story for a half century.
Weeks after Nixon left office, the House Judiciary Committee published its final report, 528 pages of detailed allegations documenting what it concluded were thirty-six instances of obstruction of justice. With the impeachment question moot now that the former president was out of office, the world waited anxiously to see if Jaworski would pursue a case. “Do you think people want to pick the carcass?” Nixon asked a confidant one day that summer, a question that was actually quite common (and complicated) among reasonable citizens. Had the political price of being forced from office served sufficient justice? The head of the American Bar Association lectured, “No man is above the law,” but many—especially Republicans—were eager to move past the scandal. The idea of a former president spending years on trial and appeals, perhaps even heading to prison, seemed like an unnecessary national distraction.
