This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the presidency.
Throughout the speech I looked down at the pages of the text, but I did not really read it. That speech was truly in my heart. At the end, I said: “To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God’s grace be with you in all the days ahead.”
The red light blinked off. One by one the blinding television lights were switched off. I looked up and saw the technicians respectfully standing along the wall, pretending that they were not waiting for me to leave so that they could dismantle their equipment. I thanked them and left the Oval Office.
Kissinger was waiting for me in the corridor. He said, “Mr. President, after most of your major speeches in this office we have walked together back to your house. I would be honored to walk with you again tonight.”
As we walked past the dark Rose Garden, Kissinger’s voice was low and sad. He said that he thought that historically this would rank as one of the great speeches and that history would judge me one of the great Presidents. I turned to him and said, “That depends, Henry, on who writes the history.” At the door of the Residence I thanked him and we parted.
I quickly headed for the elevator that would take me to the Family Quarters. The long hall was dark and the police and Secret Service had mercifully been removed or were keeping out of sight. When the doors opened on the second floor, the family was all waiting there to meet me. I walked over to them. Pat put her arms around me. Tricia. Julie. Ed. David. Slowly, instinctively, we embraced in a tender huddle, drawn together by love and faith.
We sat talking for a few minutes about the day and the speech. Suddenly I began to shake violently, and Tricia reached over to hold me. “Daddy!” she exclaimed, “the perspiration is coming clear through your coat!” I told them not to worry. I had perspired heavily during the speech, and I must have caught a chill walking over from the office. In a minute it had passed.
We talked about the initial reactions to the speech, most of which were favorable. Many of the television commentators and newspaper columnists spoke of it as a speech that was aimed at bringing the country together. But this turned out to be the briefest honeymoon of my entire political life; within a few hours came the second thoughts, negative and critical.
Finally I said that we should try to get some sleep because we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow. As we walked out into the hall, we could hear the sound of a crowd chanting outside. A tragicomic scene followed, described in Tricia’s diary:
On Pennsylvania Avenue voices of a crowd chanting were heard. Mama misinterpreted and thought the group was one of supporters when actually it consisted of the same people who throughout Daddy’s presidency had hounded his every effort. Now they were singing “Jail to the Chief.”
Mama tried to propel Daddy towards the window so that he could see the crowd. Ed and I tried desperately to talk loudly so as to drown them out. We hoped Daddy would not hear their sick message. Even so, I am not sure this last injustice did not escape him.
In fact, I had been able to hear the crowds earlier, before the speech. I did not actually know which side they were on. I assumed they were against me, but I did not really care about the shouters, and they did not bother me.
I asked Manolo to bring some bacon and eggs to me in the Lincoln Sitting Room, and I placed phone calls to friends and supporters and staff members until around 1:30. To each I expressed my appreciation for his support, and I told each that I hoped I had not let him down.
There was a knock at the door and Manolo came in to see if there was anything I wanted before he went to bed. I asked him to turn out all the lights in the Residence. Just as last night had been a time for light, tonight was a time for darkness. A few minutes later I stepped out into the darkened corridor. I was not afraid of knocking into anything in the dark. This house had been my home for almost six years, and I knew every inch of it.
I woke with a start. With the blackout curtains closed I didn’t know what time it was. I looked at my watch. It said four o’clock. I had been asleep for only two hours, but I was wide awake.
I put on my robe and decided to make myself something to eat.
To my surprise I found Johnny Johnson, one of the White House waiters, in the kitchen. I said, “Johnny, what are you doing here so early?”
“It isn’t early, Mr. President,” he replied. “It’s almost six o’clock!”
I looked at my watch again. It had stopped at four.
I told him that instead of having my usual orange juice, wheat germ, and glass of milk, this morning I would like something a little more substantial. I ordered my favorite breakfast of corned beef hash and poached eggs and asked him to bring it down to the Lincoln Sitting Room.
After finishing breakfast I took a yellow pad from my briefcase and began to think of something to say to the administration officials, Cabinet members, and White House staff, who would be coming to the East Room at 9:30 to say goodbye. After what I had been through during the last twenty-four hours, it was difficult to think of anything new to tell them.
There was a knock on the door, and Haig came in. Almost hesitantly, he said, “This is something that will have to be done, Mr. President, and I thought you would rather do it now.”
He took a sheet of paper and put it on my desk. I read the single sentence and signed it:
I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States.
It would be delivered in a few hours, at 11:35 A.M. on the 2,027th day of my presidency.
After Haig left, I remembered something I had read in a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, and I asked one of the Residence staff to go over to the EOB office and bring me the books from the edge of my desk. I was sure that the TR book was among them. He came back with Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War, Allen Drury’s The Throne of Saturn, and TR by Noel Busch. I quickly found what I was looking for and put a marker in the place.
When I called Haig to say a final goodbye, he was in the middle of a staff meeting dealing with the problem of making a smooth transition between administrations. Five minutes later, however, he was standing at the door of the Lincoln Sitting Room.
“The hell with the staff meeting,” he said. “I would rather spend these last few minutes with you.” I said that words could not express my gratitude for everything he had done for me over the years, and I wished him the very best.
Soon it was time to join the family. David and Julie were waiting in the hall. They were not coming with us but would stay to supervise the shipping of our things to San Clemente. Tricia and Ed came out of their room and stood together, waiting for Pat.
She was wearing a pale pink and white dress, and she tried to smile when she saw us waiting. She was wearing dark glasses to hide the signs of two sleepless nights of preparations and the tears that Julie said had finally come that morning. I knew how much courage she had needed to carry her through the days and night of preparations for this abrupt departure. Now she would not receive any of the praise she deserved. There would be no round of farewell parties by congressional wives, no testimonials, no tributes. She had been a dignified, compassionate First Lady. She had given so much to the nation and so much to the world. Now she would have to share my exile. She deserved so much more.
Manolo came over and said that the residence staff had lined up to say goodbye. I gave a little talk to them, saying that I had been in the great palaces of Europe and Asia and had visited with hundreds of princes and prime ministers in houses of great antiquity and splendor. “But this,” I said, “is the best house because this house has a great heart, and that heart comes from those who serve in it.”
I said that we had not failed to notice the countless ways and times they had made every guest, whether a king or a retarded child, feel welcome in the
President’s house. Now they must take the same special care of President Ford and Mrs. Ford. “You’re the greatest!” I said, as I shook hands with each of them.
It was time to go downstairs. I asked Ed if he would carry the TR book for me. I had decided to read the passage directly from it, and since there was no time to have it copied on the speech typewriter, for the first time I would have to wear my glasses in public.
Just after 9:30 we went to the elevator. As we rode down, Steve Bull described the arrangement of the East Room and told each member of the family where they were supposed to stand behind me on the platform during my speech. He mentioned that there would be three television cameras. At that news, Pat and Tricia became very upset. It was too much, they said, that after all the agony television had caused us, its prying eye should be allowed to intrude on this last and most intimate moment of all. “That’s the way it has to be,” I said. “We owe it to our supporters. We owe it to the people.”
We stood for a moment steeling ourselves for the ordeal beyond the doors. Pat decided not to wear her dark glasses, and Eddie said that it was proper because this was not a moment to be ashamed of tears. I nodded to Bull, and the doors were opened.
Tricia described our entrance in her diary:
I took three consciously deep breaths to clear the light-headedness that had struck me. One—two—three. I said aloud, “Take three deep breaths.” Mama and Julie did so.
As the doors of the hall swung open to the Grand Hall, its beauty was flooded with the startling intensity of the television lights. The warmth they generated surrounded us like a cocoon both pleasant and unpleasant, both comforting and stifling.
The Hall seemed overcrowded with humanity. There seemed to be an electricity in the air produced by the surrounding humanity—an electricity powerful enough to propel our little band forward.
Suddenly I was grabbed from behind. One of the maids (Viola, the laundress, I think) was out of control and sobbing hysterically. I was almost immune from her deep sorrow as I was beyond mere grief itself. I put my arm around her and whispered, “Take care of the new President and his family.” Then I extricated myself, conscious of wanting to catch up to the rest of the family who were several steps ahead of me now.
There was a resonance of applause resounding through the House through all who really cared. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States of America and Mrs. Nixon. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cox. Mr. and Mrs. David Eisenhower.” Normal. Thunderous applause. Scraping of chairs as people rose to their feet. “Hail to the Chief.”
Platform ahead. Step up onto platform. Find name marker. Do not trip over wires. Stand on name marker. Reach for Mama’s hand. Hold it. Applause. Daddy is speaking. People are letting tears roll down their cheeks. Must not look. Must not think of it now.
The words themselves were unique for Daddy because they were from the heart. Not formal. I was glad that at the end people at last had a glimpse of the fine person he had always been. At last the “real” Nixon was being revealed as only he could reveal himself. By speaking from the heart people could finally know Daddy. It was not too late.
The emotion in the room was overpowering. For several minutes I could not quiet the applause. After I started to talk, I began to look around. Many of the faces were filled with tears. To this day I can remember seeing Herb Stein, a man I had always respected for his cool and analytical intellectual ability and his dry sense of humor, with tears streaming down his face. I knew that if I continued to look around this way, it would be difficult for me to contain my own emotions. So I turned away from the red eyes of the crowd and looked only at the red eye of the camera, talking to all the nation.
By now I was fighting back a flood tide of emotions. Last night had been the formal speech for history, but now I had a chance to talk personally and intimately to these people who had worked so hard for me and whom I had let down so badly.
This was the nightmare end of a long dream. I had come so far from the little house in Yorba Linda to this great house in Washington. I thought about my parents, and I tried to tell these people about them.
I remember my old man. I think that they would have called him sort of a little man, common man. He didn’t consider himself that way. You know what he was? He was a streetcar motorman first, and then he was a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California, I can assure you. He sold it before they found oil on it.
And then he was a grocer. But he was a great man because he did his job, and every job counts up to the hilt, regardless of what happens.
Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother: my mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three years in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own.
Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint.
I had wanted to find a new way of saying something to the White House staff that would inspire them. I had tried to find a way of urging them, without any platitudes, to look beyond this painful moment. I took the book from Ed, put on my glasses and read the moving tribute Theodore Roosevelt had written when his first wife died:
She was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit. . . . When she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun and when the years seemed so bright before her, then by a strange and terrible fate death came to her. And when my heart’s dearest died, the light went from my life forever.
Putting down the book, I said that TR had written these words when he was in his twenties. He thought the light had gone out of his life forever. But he went on, and he not only became President, but after that he served his country for many years, always in the arena, always vital. I said that his experience should be an example for everyone to remember.
We think sometimes when things happen that don’t go the right way; we think that when you don’t pass the bar exam the first time—I happened to, but I was just lucky; I mean, my writing was so poor the bar examiner said, “We have just got to let the guy through.” We think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat, that all is ended. We think, as TR said, that the light had left his life forever.
Not true. It is only a beginning, always. The young must know it; the old must know it. It must always sustain us, because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes and you are really tested when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain. . . .
Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
Finally it was over. We stepped down from the platform. People were clapping and crying as we went by.
Jerry and Betty Ford were in the Diplomatic Reception Room on the ground floor. As I entered the room, Ford stepped forward to meet me. We shook hands.
“Good luck, Mr. President,” I said to him. “As I told you when I named you, I know the country is going to be in good hands with you in the Oval Office.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” he replied.
Betty said, “Have a nice trip, Dick.”
We walked out under the canopy and started down the long red carpet that led to the steps of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Then we were there, quickly shaking hands with Jerry—Pat embracing Betty—kissing Julie—saying goodbye to David. Then I was there alone, Pat, Ed, and Tricia already inside, standing at the top of the steps in the doorway, turning, looking back one last time.
The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the
green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The starched uniforms and polished shoes of the honor guard. The new President and his First Lady. Julie. David. Rose. So many friends. The crowd, covering the lawn, spilling out onto the balconies, leaning out of the windows. Silent, waving, crying. The elegant curve of the South Portico: balcony above balcony. Someone waving a white handkerchief from the window of the Lincoln Bedroom. The flag on top of the House, hanging limp in the windless, cheerless morning.
I raised my arms in a final salute. I smiled. I waved goodbye. I turned into the helicopter, the door was closed, the red carpet was rolled up. The engines started. The blades began to turn. The noise grew until it almost blotted out thought.
Suddenly, slowly we began to rise. The people on the ground below were waving. Then we turned. The White House was behind us now. We were flying low next to the Washington Monument. Another swing and the Tidal Basin was beneath us and the Jefferson Memorial.
There was no talk. There were no tears left. I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I heard Pat saying to no one in particular, “It’s so sad. It’s so sad.”
Another swing, and we were on course for Andrews, where Air Force One was waiting for the flight home to California.
The Nixon family in Yorba Linda in 1916. From left: Harold, Frank, Donald, Hannah, Richard.
The Nixon brothers in Yorba Linda in 1922. From left: Donald, seven, in the tire; Richard, nine; Harold, thirteen, already sick with tuberculosis, wearing a bathrobe; and Arthur, four.
RN in East Whittier in 1927.
Fullerton High School orchestra, sophomore year, 1928.
The last photograph of Harold, who died in 1933, and RN.
Number 23 on the Whittier College football team, October 1933. (UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL)
RN in front of “Nick’s Hamburger Stand” on Bougainville in the South Pacific
RN Page 149