Thirty years later, Nixon resignation still evokes memories of Watergate

AFP ^ | August 6, 2004

[Howlin]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Thirty years ago, Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which sparked a crisis in US government.

Nixon's resignation August 9, 1974, put an end to the affair that started with a burglary of the Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) offices in the Watergate office and apartment complex in Washington June 17, 1972. The burglars had intended to place listening devices in the office.

Nixon, a Republican elected in 1968 and re-elected in 1972, was facing impeachment proceedings after the scandal exploded in the press a few months after the burglary.

Nixon's fate was sealed on July 24, 1974 when the US Supreme Court ordered him to hand over clandestine recordings of his private Oval Office conversations, the long-sought "smoking gun" that proved he and his top advisors had full knowledge of both the Watergate burglary and the subsequent coverup.

Three days later, a House of Representatives committee approved three articles of impeachment and forwarded them to the full House. Nixon resigned. And his vice president, Gerald Ford, became the 38th president of the United States.

One month later, on September 8, Ford signed a presidential pardon absolving Nixon for any crimes committed, lifting the specter of prosecution and imprisonment.

The scandal went unmatched until 1999, when president Bill Clinton (news - web sites) survived impeachment when the US Senate refused to convict him after a series of scandals culminating in his lying under oath about a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern.

Nixon's status as the only US president to resign has dominated his legacy since his death in 1994 at 81.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

"Even harder to believe he was POTUS during Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia in 1968."

Well, you are just not cut out to be a leader if you find that hard.

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

See, Kerry is qualified to lead . . . Wonderland.

[KC_Conspirator]

AH Watergate and Vietnam. Those were the salad days for the liberals before morning came to America.

Ah yeas, the halcyon days of the left. Smoking dope, burning down college campuses, and loose girls with flowers in their hair with hepatitus.

[A Jovial Cad]

In my two years here at FR I believe that is the single silliest post I have *ever* seen, other than those from out and out liberal trolls. Ridiculous.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Mainstream media employees could hardly contain themselves. It was a frenzy, a mob swarming mindlessly attacking a man hated. A man who had been "caught" doing something that was routine in politics. Sometimes the TV network employees devoted the entire 30-minute evening "news" to Watergate stories, old and new; fact and rumor. The war? Other news? What war? What other news?

Not surprising is that one of the "plumbers," E. Howard Hunt, had been ordered by a Democrat president to bug Barry Goldwater's campaign in 1964. The same president ordered his good friend and former neighbor, J. Edgar Hoover, to bug Goldwater's campaign plane. SOP for both Parties.

Yet, not a word except in a few obscure places like

http://criterion.uchicago.edu/issues/iii2/hore.html

We all knew it at the time. We also watched the mainstream media employees fawn over Dick Tuck, the Democrat's dirty trickster, while condemning president Nixon, et al. in the vilest of terms.

[A Jovial Cad]

"absolutely nothing"? Wow...how old are you? Seems the liberals disagreed with you about Nixon being a "RINO"--they hated him with a passion.
Actually, as much as I admired and loved Ronald Reagan, he only completed the task Nixon started. By dividing the two powerhouses of the communist world against each other (China & Russia), he started the Soviet Union down the road to eventual bankruptcy. By the time Nixon left office there were more Russian troops stationed along the Manchurian/Chinese border than there were in Western Europe aligned against NATO. Nixon also saved Israel during the Yom Kippur war by making it clear (he put the country on a nuclear alert) that if the Soviet Union intervened there would be war. The concept of "federalism"--returning power and money to the states instead of centralizing it in Washington--started with the Nixon administration; as did the privatization of the Postal System. On and on and on I could go, but don't let me interrupt your "RINO" fantasies regarding Nixon...

[A Jovial Cad]

Exactly right. I remember how much the liberal media hated Nixon with a passion--which is one of the reasons I really liked him.

[Nick Danger]

Thirty years later, Nixon resignation still evokes memories of Watergate

So humans can remember things from that far back, eh? Who knew?

Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal

For extra credit, who was the second US President to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal?

[Howlin]

No one?

[No Surrender No Retreat]

Watergate a fairytale compared to the klitoon scandals. President Nixon was a good man and president. He resigned, unlike the coward in chief who should be in federal prison.

[GVnana]

It's hard to believe it's been 30 years

Arggh! I'm getting old!

[Howlin]

You could always say you were born that day.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Nixon's biggest problem, the way I understand it, was his own paranoia. He should have just been honest about Watergate from the beginning.

[GVnana]

You could always say you were born that day.

Yeah. And "only her hairdresser knows for sure!"

[foreverfree]

Even harder to believe he was POTUS during Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia in 1968.

Uh, POTUS-elect.

ff

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

"Thirty years later, Nixon resignation still evokes memories of Watergate"

DUH!!! He didn't resign because he wanted to move to Florida. Who do they hire to write those headlines?

[SamAdams76]

It is hard to believe 30 years have passed. I remember that day clear as a bell. I was a 12-year-old kid then and I remember going swimming that day at a nearby lake. Already the adults were buzzing about the "speech" later that night. My parents let me stay up to watch the speech that night, after all, it was still summer vacation. I remember feeling very sorry for Nixon that night and all that he had to go through. Never was too impressed with Ford. Wish Nixon had at least picked a better VP when Agnew resigned. Imagine if Nixon had picked Ronald Reagan instead!

Tonight on satellite radio, the 70s station was playing the top 30 hits from that week in 1974. Lot of good songs that brought back lots of memories from that summer.

I'm feeling sort of old tonight!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Thirty years ago two things happened on this date.
1 Nixon resigned.
2 STAR tabloid front page said "JEAN DIXON SAYS NIXON WILL NOT RESIGN"!

[lonestar]

Uh, POTUS-elect.

You know that. I know that.

It was the wound-licking young sailor, John F. Kerry, who said that then-Pres. Nixon knew Kerry was in Cambodia for Christmas in 1968, and that Nixon lied to the world.

In lying about where he was, Kerry forgot LBJ was still POTUS in 1968. It is easy to believe Kerry didn't know where he was, where he had been or where he was going only that he got three medals for being there.