On Tuesday St. Clair returned from a long weekend in Cape Cod, where he had gone to get some rest. Even before the California trip Haig told me that St. Clair had become tired and touchy and that we would have to be careful if we wanted to keep him on the staff. St. Clair listened to the June 23 tape and discussed it with Buzhardt. His breezy optimism disappeared. He not only agreed with Buzhardt that this was the smoking gun, but he said that it so contradicted the arguments he had made before the House Judiciary Committee that he would become party to an obstruction of justice unless it was made public.
As we weighed the damage of the June 23 tape, the House Judiciary Committee passed two more articles of impeachment. Article II, passed on July 29, charged that I had committed an impeachable offense by abusing the powers of the presidency. It contained a number of different charges ranging from an alleged attempt to use the IRS for political purposes to the 1969 national security wiretaps. Article III, passed on July 30, charged that I had committed an impeachable offense by defying the committee’s subpoenas for tapes and documents. After voting down two more articles of impeachment—one dealing with the Cambodian bombing and the other with my personal finances—the House Judiciary Committee recessed. The next step would be the vote on each of the three articles of impeachment by the House of Representatives. The opening debate was scheduled for August 19.
On the night of July 30 I could not get to sleep. After tossing and turning for a few hours, I finally put on the light and took a pad of notepaper from the bed table. I wrote the time and date at the top—3:50 A.M., July 31—and I began to outline the choices left to me. There were really only three: I could resign right away; I could stay on until the House had voted on the articles of impeachment and then resign if impeached; or I could fight all the way through the Senate.
For almost three hours I listed the pros and cons: what would be the best for me, for my family, for my friends and supporters? What would be the best for the country?
There were strong arguments against resigning. First and foremost, I was not and never had been a quitter. The idea that I would be running away from the job and ending my career as a weak man was repugnant to me. Resignation would be taken by many, and interpreted by the press, as a blanket admission of guilt. Resignation would set a dangerous precedent of short-circuiting the constitutional machinery that provides for impeachment. I also had to consider that my family and many of my supporters would want me to fight and would be hurt and disillusioned if I gave up before the battle was over.
The arguments in favor of resignation were equally compelling. I knew that after two years of being distracted and divided by Watergate, the nation badly needed a unity of spirit and purpose to face the tough domestic and international problems that would not wait through the six months of a Senate trial. Besides, I would be crippled politically as soon as the House voted to impeach, and I did not know whether I could subject the country to the ordeal of a weakened presidency during such troubled and important times. From a practical point of view, I also had to face the fact that if I decided to stay and fight, the outcome of the fight was all but settled: I would be defeated and dishonored, the first President in history to be impeached and convicted on criminal charges.
Another positive effect of resignation, one I knew to be uppermost in the minds of many Republicans, was that it would free the party from having to defend me. The 1974 elections would not become a referendum on Nixon and Watergate, and their campaigns and their congressional seats would not be held hostage to my political fortunes.
It was almost morning by the time I finished making these notes. My natural instincts welled up and I turned the paper over and wrote on the back: “End career as a fighter.”
That was what my instincts and my intuition told me was the right thing to do. As bad as Watergate was, it would be far worse to set the precedent of a presidential resignation—even if the alternative was the removal of a President because of a political scandal. “End career as a fighter”—the way it had begun. That was the way I really wanted it.
With Buzhardt and St. Clair now on the side of resignation, Haig’s position became pivotal. I would need Haig to rally whatever loyal staff was left and to keep the White House running if I chose not to resign but to face a Senate trial.
On Wednesday, July 31, Haig read the transcripts of the June 23 conversations for the first time.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked when he had finished.
“Mr. President,” he said, “I am afraid that I have to agree with Fred and Jim St. Clair. I just don’t see how we can survive this one. I know what was really happening there, and I know how you feel about it, but I think that we have to face the facts, and the facts are that the staff won’t hold and that public opinion won’t hold either, once this tape gets out.”
That afternoon Ron Ziegler listened to the tape. I could tell that he too now felt the situation was all but hopeless.
THE DECISION TO RESIGN
On Thursday, August 1, I told Haig that I had decided to resign. If the June 23 tape was not explainable, I could not very well expect the staff to try to explain and defend it.
I said that I planned to take the family to Camp David over the weekend to prepare them and then to resign in a televised speech on Monday night. I would stay in Washington for about two weeks putting things in order, and then fly to San Clemente.
Haig said that we could work out the arrangements however I wanted, but he suggested that I resign even sooner, perhaps the next night, Friday, August 2. Since the June 23 tape was in the group to be handed over to Judge Sirica that morning, Haig thought that I should have resigned and been gone from the scene before the tape surfaced publicly. By that time, he said, so much attention would be focused on the new President that the damaging impact of the tape might be muted.
I decided to think about it, and I asked Haig if in the meantime he would take some notes and then have Ray Price begin work on a resignation speech. I told him that I would acknowledge that I had made mistakes; but I did not want Price to write a groveling mea culpa. I wanted him to say that I no longer had the political support in Congress or in the country that I believed I needed to govern effectively.
I also asked Haig to see Jerry Ford and tell him that I was thinking of resigning, without indicating when. I said Haig should ask him to be prepared to take over sometime within the next few days. I told him to impress on Ford the need for absolute secrecy. This was a decision I had to make for and by myself—right up to the end. I told him that I would be put in a humiliating position if it got to the point that the Republican National Chairman or a group of senators or congressmen, or a delegation of Cabinet members, began requesting or demanding that I resign. I knew that if that happened, my lifetime instincts of refusing to cave to political pressure might prevail.
I went over to the EOB office early in the afternoon. Now that the decision to resign had been made, I felt that if I could focus strongly enough on carrying it out in all its details, it would be easier to get through the painful decisions and duties of the next few days. I took off my suit coat and put on my favorite old blue sports jacket.
I asked Ron Ziegler to come over. As soon as he came in, I could see that Haig had already talked to him. I confirmed that I was going to resign.
There was a long moment of silence. Ziegler was by instinct a fighter, like me. He said only, “Mr. President, I know you want me to support your decision, so I will.”
I told him that I knew Jerry Ford was not experienced in foreign affairs. “But he’s a good and decent man, and the country needs that now,” I said.
When I told Ziegler about Haig’s advice to move quickly and resign the following night, he argued strongly that such a move would be precipitate. He said that there should be at least enough time to prepare properly. I realized that he was right, if for no other reason than that I owed it to my friends and supporters to give them a chance to react to the June 23 tape and get off the hook whil
e I was still in office, rather than leave them behind holding the bag. The least they deserved was the chance to reverse their position if they wanted. So I tentatively decided to wait until Monday night to resign.
After Ziegler had left, I read some of Timmons’s congressional reports and listened to the last group of tapes that had to be turned over to Sirica the following week. Around six o’clock I heard that Bebe Rebozo had just arrived from Miami. I asked Haig if he could arrange a dinner on the Sequoia, and an hour later we were sailing up the Potomac under a sultry evening sky.
“You’re not going to like this,” I said to Rebozo, “but I have decided that I should resign.” I will always remember the stricken expression on Rebozo’s face when I said this.
“You can’t do it,” he said. “It’s the wrong thing to do. You have got to continue to fight. You just don’t know how many people are still for you.”
I told him about the June 23 tape and said that once it was released there would certainly be a trial in the Senate, with the likelihood of conviction. He urged that I get Russell Long and other leading senators in to listen to it and not just take the evaluation of a small group of staff.
I said that even if I had a chance in the Senate, the country simply could not afford six months with its President on trial.
As we sailed back toward Washington, I asked Rebozo to help by backing me up with the family. He said he would do everything he could as long as I would promise not to make the decision irrevocable until we made one last try to mount a defense. I agreed. I was touched by his spirit and by his fierce loyalty. But I knew how helpless and hopeless it was.
When we returned to the White House, I went to the Lincoln Sitting Room. It had been a long hard day.
The afternoon of August 2 Haig asked Chuck Wiggins to come in and read the June 23 transcript and give us his preliminary evaluation of its impact.
Haig reported to me that Wiggins said impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate were now no longer in doubt. He said that when these tapes became known, we would lose all but two or three Republicans on the Judiciary Committee—possibly including himself. He said that unless I planned to withhold the tape from the Court by pleading the Fifth Amendment, I should get ready to resign right away. Like St. Clair, he felt that unless he reported the existence of the tape, he would himself become party to an obstruction of justice. Haig assured him that we would make it public.
That night I began the painful task of telling my family about the June 23 tape and preparing them for the impact it would have on my attempts to remain in office. Tricia’s diary recorded the family side of that day:
Julie called, very down this morning. She informed me that Daddy had had a talk with her that was serious but she hesitated to elaborate over the phone. Immediately I said I was coming right down. She said it was not really necessary. I replied that it was. She agreed.
I pushed the Secret Service button and informed them I would be leaving on the next shuttle for Washington.
Our curious little band departed within ten minutes. While boarding the jet at La Guardia Airport, catcalls, boos, and obscene words were hurled at me by a group of Eastern employees who were lounging around their vehicles. I was caught between two agents, one on the step above me, one on the step below. I attempted to bypass the agent on the step below so that I could verbally take head-on the cowardly group. But the agent was not inclined to cooperate and anyway I thought it more important to make this flight than to protest the treatment.
At the White House, I took the elevator to the second floor, then scurried to the secret stairway at the East Hall and climbed to the third floor. I walked into Julie’s room and found her on the telephone. Seeing me, she disengaged herself and I calmly asked her what Daddy had said to her yesterday. “He thinks he must resign.” “Why?” “Because he has virtually no support left.” “Julie, I can’t believe this isn’t a nightmare. It cannot be happening.”
Julie and I talked some more and I learned that Mama had not been told of Daddy’s tentative decision. Mama was in her sitting room at her desk. It is strange how you try to spare those you love from worry. Strange because worry is contagious and is difficult to conceal other than with words. So in the end it is kinder to reveal what the person you are trying to spare already feels. But I was still trying to protect Mama and spare her from grief. Daddy, of course, is always protective of everyone but himself. Mama and I talked briefly and made plans to walk with the dogs later that afternoon.
From her room I entered my own down the hall. I placed a call through the operators to Edward at his office. This is something I refrain from doing, so when he answered he knew the motive had to be serious. Without going into any details, I said it would be “delightful” if he could come down to Washington that evening for dinner. Delightful was a codeword we used to connote trouble. We did not have a codeword for disaster.
After the call I met Bebe in the hall. He looked sick and I asked him how Daddy was. Bebe had just been in the Lincoln Sitting Room with Daddy and he surprisingly (for Bebe is closed-mouthed) told me that Daddy had told him about resigning. Bebe suggested that I should go to Daddy and pretend I knew nothing so that Daddy could tell me himself. This I did.
Daddy was seated in his brown armchair with his feet up on the ottoman. He was fussing with a pipe. He greeted me, “Well, honey, when did you arrive?” And then he began a clear description of the June 23 tape and an analysis of his position. I only interrupted when he began to speak of resigning for the good of the country. I told him for the good of the country he must stay in office.
Then as I was leaving I went over to where he was, put my arms around him, kissed his forehead, and without warning I burst into tears and said brokenly, “You are the most decent person I know.”
Emotions for me are usually completely controllable externally. But when Daddy said, “I hope I have not let you down,” the tragedy of his ghastly position shattered me.
Mama, Julie, Bebe, David, and I had just been called into the Lincoln Sitting Room by Daddy. Daddy had been talking to us for about twenty minutes when Ed arrived and joined our little band. Just prior to Ed’s arrival Daddy picked up the receiver of the nearby phone and asked to speak to Al Haig. Once connected he asked Haig to send over the transcripts of the June 23 tape he had just been describing to us. His tone throughout was almost dispassionate but not quite. In about ten minutes Manolo brought us the papers bearing the bothersome words. Ed arrived and the four of us (Julie, David, Ed, and me) removed ourselves from the room to carefully peruse the transcripts. Julie and David read their copy together. Ed and I read our copy. Ed and I agreed the words could be taken one of two ways depending upon who was judging them.
We returned to the Lincoln Sitting Room with its interior deceptively gay-looking from the soft light cast by the fire burning in the fireplace. Each of us in turn expressed his or her opinion. Ed, Julie, and I coming out strongly for not resigning. David was less sure. But all of us were in concert of feeling that we wanted Daddy to do what he felt he should. He spoke of doing the right thing for the country, of how he thought a weak President in the position of being impeached would be a disaster to the country. What would the Soviets not dare to attempt in such a situation? Look what they had already attempted in the last Mideast dispute.
Daddy did not appear overly anguished but rather properly anguished at the events. He was very much in control of his feelings.
Finally there was nothing left to say, and we left Daddy alone in his chair staring into the fire. Undoubtedly more telephone calls would be made and received long after we were gone. We left feeling he still might not resign. In the time we were in that room with Daddy, years had been lived, re-lived.
The future held, he said, either resignation or removal from office by the Senate.
Upstairs Mama, Ed, and I went to the third floor to say good night to Julie and David. We all broke down together, and put our arms around each other in circular, huddl
e-style fashion. Saying nothing.
I sat alone in the Lincoln Sitting Room that night for several hours, trying to decide the best course of action.
My family’s courage moved me deeply. They had been through so much already, and still they wanted to see the struggle through to the end. Pat, who had let the others do most of the talking in our meeting, told me that now, as always before, she was for fighting to the finish.
I decided that instead of resigning on Monday night, I would release the June 23 tape and see the reaction to it. If it was as bad as I expected, then we could resume the countdown toward resignation. If by some miracle the reaction was not so bad and there was any chance that I could actually govern during a six-month trial in the Senate, then we could examine that forlorn option one more time. In a subconscious way I knew that resignation was inevitable. But more than once over the next days I would yield to my desire to fight, and I would bridle as the inexorable end drew near.
I called Haig and told him that Ray Price should stop working on the resignation speech for Monday night and instead begin work on a statement to accompany the release of the June 23 tape.
On Saturday afternoon I decided that we should get out of Washington and go to Camp David. Even up there in the mountains it was hot and humid, so as soon as we could change our clothes we all went for a swim. Then we dressed and sat on the terrace, looking out across the wide valleys. On evenings like this it was easy to see why Franklin Roosevelt had named this place Shangri-la, and I think that each of us had a sense of the mystery and the beauty as well as the history and the tragedy that lay behind our weekend together in this setting.
At every opportunity the young people urged me to fight on. After a swim on Saturday afternoon I was in the sauna when Eddie came in. After sitting for a few minutes in silence, he turned to me in a very controlled but emotional way and said, “You have got to fight ’em, fight ’em, fight ’em.”
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