I can’t locate the retrospective Nixon interview now although I have probably 10-12 books just about Nixon (Pat Buchanan’s two are the best) there was the usual interview question about why he stopped fighting.
Nixon said “When I heard the Democrats had made the decision to go after me criminally I decided I should resign rather than have the presidency tarnished like that.”
“Not tarnishing the presidency”.
That was part of it, but I think not tarnishing America was foremost. Nixon tried to suppress “The Pentagon Papers”. A damning old report on how Johnson was running the war.
The gap in the tapes came right after Nixon’s comments along the lines of “And it will bring up the whole Cuban thing.” Some of the plumbers were Cubans that had been involved in the Bay of Pigs, and I wonder if they or there group had also been involved with the CIA and the asassination of JFK?
Later on I read where Haldeman thought the same thing. Boy - talk about tarnishing America. That may have come out in a trial.
Interesting that Trump was recently reported to have said something like “If you saw what I saw about the JFK thing, you wouldn’t want it released either.”
It’s the same thing he said about not fighting the 1960 Election.