Nixon Addresses the Nation: Resignation Announced

Richard Nixon sat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office on the evening of August 8, 1974, looked into a television camera, and became the first American president to announce his resignation. The address, carried live on every network, came after two years of the Watergate scandal had eroded his support to the point where impeachment and removal were virtually certain. Nixon did not admit guilt. He told the nation he was stepping down because he had lost his "political base in the Congress" and that continuing to fight would "absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress." The chain of events that brought Nixon to this moment began with a bungled burglary. On June 17, 1972, five men connected to Nixon's reelection campaign were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. The initial crime was minor; the cover-up was catastrophic. Nixon and his aides attempted to obstruct the FBI investigation, pay hush money to the burglars, and destroy evidence. The White House recordings that Nixon himself had ordered, once revealed, provided irrefutable proof of presidential obstruction of justice. The "smoking gun" tape, released just days before the resignation, captured Nixon instructing his chief of staff to have the CIA block the FBI's Watergate investigation, just six days after the break-in. The tape destroyed what remained of Nixon's Republican support in Congress. Senator Barry Goldwater told Nixon he could count on no more than fifteen Senate votes against conviction — far short of the thirty-four needed to survive an impeachment trial. Nixon's resignation took effect at noon on August 9, and Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th president. Ford's subsequent pardon of Nixon, issued on September 8, spared the nation a criminal trial of a former president but cost Ford the 1976 election. The Watergate scandal permanently altered the relationship between the American presidency and the press, Congress, and the public.