RN

by Richard Nixon

  The evening news reports that night were even worse than on Monday. Goldwater was now being quoted as having said privately, “You can only be lied to so often, and it’s time to take a stand that we want out.” Del Latta, who had been one of my strongest supporters on the House Judiciary Committee, said that when he heard the June 23 tape, he felt he had been run over by a truck.

  I sat in the Lincoln Sitting Room thinking about the resignation speech until 2 A.M. When I walked into my bedroom, I found a note from Julie on my pillow. She must have slipped over from her apartment and put it there.

  If anything could have changed my mind at this point, this would have done it. But my mind was made up past changing. Not because I was tired and fatigued, and certainly not because I had given up, but because I felt, deep down in my heart and mind, that I had made the decision that was best for the country. I took Julie’s note and put it into my briefcase to make sure that it did not get lost in the massive move that was about to take place.

  When I got to the Oval Office at ten o’clock on Wednesday morning, August 7, the countdown toward resignation was already proceeding smoothly. That morning Haig had told Jerry Ford to be ready to assume the presidency on very short notice. The first draft of the resignation speech was waiting on my desk. Ray Price had attached a short memo to it saying that the resignation, although sad, was necessary. He said that he hoped I would leave the White House as proud of my accomplishments there as he was proud to have been associated with me and to be my friend. He ended simply, “God bless you; and He will.”

  I took the speech and started over to the EOB office. As I walked through the West Wing I heard phones ringing in every office. The switchboard was deluged with calls from people who had stood by me through it all. Many had written to me and my family. Some had collected signatures on petitions. Some had sent in money, hoping to contribute to my defense. They were calling to say that I must fight on. That decision, I had to repeat to myself again, was made. Now I did not want to know about these calls.

  Staff members seemed to summon up an extra heartiness for their “Good morning, Mr. President!” as I passed by. I went out the West Basement door into the closed street that separates the White House from the Executive Office Building. The crowds waiting outside the iron fence surrounding the White House surged forward when I came into view. Ed Cox had called it a death watch, but I believed that there was more than simple curiosity involved, I felt that these people were drawn by the sense that history was about to happen, and they wanted to be nearby. I could sense the tension of the Secret Service agents, and I moved as quickly as possible up the broad stone stairs and into the office.

  I placed a call to Bob Haldeman in California; I felt that I owed it to him to listen to his eleventh-hour plea. A few minutes later he was on the line. The familiar voice sounded energetic and unself-conscious. I told him that I had decided to resign. I said that as much as I was torn by the conflicting principles involved, I thought the country would be better off this way. He urged me to take more time and think it through again, but if I had made up my mind, he would like me to consider issuing a blanket pardon for all the Watergate defendants.

  He said the country would be better off if Watergate did not drag on for more months and years with endless subpoenas and lawsuits. With the kind of detachment he used to have when he discussed revenue-sharing, he added that amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers would deflect criticism of the Watergate pardons.

  As he talked, my mind wandered back to the campaign days and the White House days, when his proud and brusque way of dealing with people had aroused fear in some and inspired loyalty in many others. I could not help but feel and share the despair that he must be feeling. I had hoped that after the 1974 election I would be in a position to grant pardons, but I had never foreseen all that would happen. I did not give him an answer.

  I called Ziegler for an account of the morning news. He said that Charles Sandman, hitherto one of my strongest defenders on the Judiciary Committee, had said that the June 23 tape was insurmountable and reckoned that I could command fewer than twelve votes in the whole House. He had said that he thought the Senate must vote to convict.

  I had promised Julie that I would see Bruce Herschensohn, one of the most ardent loyalists on the staff. He was emotional as he argued against what he suspected was a course already in motion. His voice shook with conviction when he said that seventy-five years from now, when some young person was confronted with a difficult and seemingly hopeless duty, he should be able to look back and say, “President Nixon didn’t give up and neither will I.” He argued that the example of a President who faced his attackers and went down defending himself would better serve the American people than any immediate relief that the ending of Watergate would bring them.

  I thanked Herschensohn for his frankness and said that he was probably right. The decision was not an easy one, but in a case like this perhaps there were no easy decisions, or even any good decisions, but only decisions that had to be made.

  Tricia called and asked if she and Ed could come see me. She described our meeting in her diary:

  We lent our support to whatever Daddy decided to do. Because nothing had been announced publicly, we still wanted to caution him to be sure resignation was the only step to take. We were afraid that in a moment of weakness or discouragement he might make the wrong decision to bring an end to the unbearable harassment. But resignation would not be the end. He would be hounded habitually after leaving office—by trials, lawsuits, etc. We were afraid he would wake up the morning after leaving office feeling he had made a terrible mistake by resigning. Daddy has fought alone many times, almost alone many others. But there comes a point when fighting alone must come to mean fighting against yourself.

  A little later Ed and David came in together and argued the case for waiting, even if only for a few days. I told them that I felt that executive authority would be so damaged by a vote of impeachment in the House and a long trial in the Senate that it would be almost impossible to govern.

  Ed countered that the most important role for the President was in foreign affairs, and that even crippled by impeachment, I would be a lot stronger and more credible than Ford. He added that from a personal standpoint, my resignation would not accomplish anything. He had worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York, and he knew several people on the Special Prosecutor’s staff. He said, “I know these people. They are smart and ruthless; they hate you. They will harass you and hound you in civil and criminal actions across this country for the rest of your life if you resign.”

  After Ed made his point about impeachment not ending my personal troubles, I said to him that this was just like a Greek tragedy: you could not end it in the middle of the second act, or the crowd would throw chairs at the stage. In other words, the tragedy had to be seen through until the end as fate would have it.

  David agreed that if I had the personal will to see it through, I should do so. He responded forcefully when I mentioned the argument that I should resign for the good of the party. “You don’t owe the party a damn thing,” he said. “That was the way Grandad felt, and so should you. Do what you think is best for yourself, and what you think is best for the country.” Before they left, they assured me that the family was ready for whatever happened, and would be behind me in whatever I decided to do.

  It was after four o’clock. In less than an hour Goldwater, Scott, and Rhodes would arrive. I picked up the draft of the resignation speech again and wrote notes on the bottom of the first page:

  Insert: I have met with leaders of House and Senate, including my strongest supporters in both parties. They have unanimously advised me that because of Watergate matter, I do not and will not have support in Congress for difficult decisions affecting peace abroad and our fight against inflation at home, so essential to lives of every family in America.

  Before I realized it, it was five o’clock. I called Steve Bull, who had greeted Goldwater and his col
leagues in the West Lobby. “Take the boys into the office,” I said, “and make them comfortable until I get over.”

  They were all seated when I arrived: Barry Goldwater, the former standard-bearer and now the silver-haired patriarch of the party; Hugh Scott, the Senate Republican Leader, and John Rhodes, the House Republican Leader. Over the years I had shared many successes and many failures with these men. Now they were here to inform me of the bleakness of the situation, and to narrow my choices. I pushed back my chair, put my feet up on the desk, and asked them how things looked.

  Scott said that they had asked Goldwater to be their spokesman. In a measured voice Goldwater began, “Mr. President, this isn’t pleasant, but you want to know the situation, and it isn’t good.”

  I asked how many would vote for me in the Senate. “Half a dozen?” I ventured.

  Goldwater’s answer was maybe sixteen or perhaps eighteen.

  Puffing on his unlighted pipe, Scott guessed fifteen. “It’s pretty grim,” he said, as one by one he ran through a list of old supporters, many of whom were now against me. Involuntarily I winced at the names of men I had worked to help elect, men who were my friends.

  Goldwater said that I might beat Article I and Article III on the House floor, but that even he was leaning toward voting for Article II.

  I glanced up at the Presidential Seal set into the ceiling and said, “I don’t have many alternatives, do I.”

  As I looked at their faces, Goldwater and Scott said nothing. Rhodes had not noticed that I had been making a statement rather than asking a question, and he earnestly replied that he did not want to tell the reporters waiting outside that he had discussed any specific alternatives with me.

  “Never mind,” I said, “there’ll be no tears from me. I haven’t cried since Eisenhower died. My family has been fine, and I’m going to be all right. I just want to thank you for coming up to tell me.”

  Scott looked so solemn as they were walking out that I said, “Now that old Harry Truman is gone, I won’t have anybody to pal around with.” He mustered a bit of a smile.

  After the meeting I called Rose and asked her to tell the family that a final check of my dwindling support in Congress had confirmed that I had to resign. I asked her to tell them that Goldwater, Stennis, Scott, and Rhodes were all going to be voting for impeachment. My decision was irrevocable, and I asked her to suggest that we not talk about it anymore when I went over for dinner.

  I went back to the Oval Office and asked Kissinger if he could come in. He was contained, quiet, somber. I told him that I had decided to resign the next night. We talked briefly about notifying foreign governments and about sending special messages to the leaders of China, the Soviet Union, and the Middle Eastern countries. Every nation would need reassurance that my departure from the scene would not mean a change in America’s foreign policy. They would have little knowledge of Jerry Ford, so I wanted to let them know how strongly he had supported my foreign policy while he was in the House of Representatives and as Vice President, and how they could count on him to continue that policy as President.

  For a minute I tried to imagine the different reactions to these cables. What would Chou think in his office in Peking? And how would Chairman Mao take the news, sitting there in the cluttered book-lined study where we had talked just two years ago?

  In Moscow it would be the middle of the night when the word arrived. I did not envy the night duty officer who would have to decide whether to wake Brezhnev or wait and give him the news when he got up. Brezhnev had placed so much emphasis on the importance of our personal relationship as the foundation of détente that I suspected his first instinct would be to assess what my resignation would do to his own situation and plan his reaction accordingly.

  In Cairo and in Tel Aviv. in Damascus and Amman, the news also would arrive while the cities still slept. Eight weeks ago I had been hailed as a triumphal peacemaker and accorded unprecedented acclaim by their peoples. Now I was resigning the presidency because of a political scandal. How fragile would the peace that we had worked so hard to attain turn out to be?

  My mind snapped back to the grim reality of the moment. “Henry,” I said, “you know that you must stay here and carry on for Jerry the things that you and I have begun. The whole world will need reassurance that my leaving won’t change our policies. You can give them that reassurance, and Jerry will need your help. Just as there is no question but that I must go, there really is no question but that you must stay.”

  After Kissinger left, I walked alone to the Residence. I had been afraid that this would be the most painful meeting of all. But I had underestimated the character and strength of my family. My wife and daughters remained an indomitable trio. Each one respected the opportunities public life had given her; and when the blows came, each reacted with dignity, courage, and spirit.

  Everyone was gathered in the Solarium. Pat was sitting up straight on the edge of the couch. She held her head at the slightly higher angle that is her only visible sign of tension, even to those who know her. As I walked in, she came over and threw her arms around me and kissed me. She said, “We’re all very proud of you, Daddy.” Tricia was on the couch, with Ed sitting on the arm next to her. Julie sat in one of the bright yellow armchairs, tears standing in her eyes. David stood beside the chair with his hand on her shoulder. Rose, who is as close to us as family, sat on a large ottoman next to my yellow easy chair. I said, “No man who ever lived had a more wonderful family than I have.”

  I had arranged for Ollie Atkins to take some pictures. Someday, I said, we would be able to talk about this night, and then we would want to remember everything about it. I asked Pat to come down to the Rose Garden for a final photograph, but that was simply expecting too much. Tricia said, “I’ll come with you, Daddy.”

  As we entered the Rose Garden, she took my arm just as she had done three years before when she was married there. Like me, and like my mother, Tricia seldom displays her inner emotions so that people can see them. She smiled at me and looked as young and, if possible, more beautiful than on the day of her wedding.

  Finally Ollie said, “I think that’s enough, Mr. President.” I turned and saw tears in his eyes. I said, “Ollie, keep your chin up!”

  We went upstairs, and I asked that the dogs be brought in for the last pictures. No one felt much like posing, so Tricia suggested that we just form a line and link arms as we had done in one of our favorite family photographs taken in front of the Christmas tree in the Blue Room in 1971.

  Before Ollie could move into position, Julie broke into tears. I knew that the only way we would get through this night would be to pretend a bravado we did not really feel, so I said that I would have to take over the designing of the photo. I elaborately positioned everyone, and, mercifully, Ollie was quick. After he had snapped some pictures, he turned his head away, but we could all see the tears streaming down his cheeks.

  It was too much for Julie. She threw her arms around me sobbing, “I love you, Daddy,” she said, and Ollie, through his own tears, captured that moment as well.

  I still do not like to look at the pictures from that night. All I can see in them is the tension in the smiles, and the eyes brimming with tears.

  No one had much appetite for our last dinner in the White House, so we just asked that trays be brought up to the Solarium. The important thing was that we were together. Because we were there together and so close to each other, it is one of the priceless moments that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. We tried to talk animatedly, even to laugh at the dogs and their comical begging for food. But mostly we ate in silence.

  When we had finished, I went to the Lincoln Sitting Room to continue work on the resignation speech. I could even feel a kind of calm starting to settle in now that the family had been told.

  Ziegler came over to discuss the arrangements for the speech. As we talked about the tremendous swings of fortune we had known over the past two years and about how tragic it was t
hat everything should end so suddenly and so sadly, he recalled a famous quotation from Teddy Roosevelt I had used often in my campaign speeches. It was the one in which TR had described the “man in the arena,”

  whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

  I decided that I would use this quotation in my resignation speech.

  At nine o’clock I picked up the phone to see if Kissinger was still in the office and if he could come over. We talked for an hour about our present relationships with the Chinese and the Soviets, and about our problems in the Middle East, in Europe, and in other parts of the world. We reminisced about the decisions of the past five and a half years. For some reason the agony and the loss of what was about to happen became most acute for me during that conversation. I found myself more emotional than I had been at any time since the decision had been set in motion.

  At one point Kissinger blurted out, “If they harass you after you leave office, I am going to resign as Secretary of State, and I am going to tell the world why!”

  I told him that the worst thing that could happen to America and to all our initiatives to build a more peaceful world would be for him to resign after I had resigned. There was simply no one else on the horizon who could even shine his shoes, let alone fit into them.

  I reminded him how, three years earlier, we had drunk a toast after we received the invitation to go to Peking. I walked down the dark hall to the family kitchen and brought back the same bottle of brandy. Once again we tipped our glasses and solemnly toasted each other. But after a sip we put our glasses down and left them unfinished on the table.