The Worst Was Yet to Come

 

by Pa Rock

Witness to History

Forty-nine years ago today Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, the only chief executive in our nation's history to ever take such a drastic action, although (IMHO) several others should have considered the option.  

Nixon ultimately resigned as a result of a series of political and criminal misadventures known collectively as the "Watergate Scandal," which began coming to the public's attention when a group of burglars were discovered and arrested late on the night of June 17th, 1972 while breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters in the new Watergate complex in Washington, DC.  As the story unfolded and unraveled over the next two years, it started becoming apparent that the burglars were connected to the Republican National Party and the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP).  

The Nixon administration went into full battle mode and tried to cover-up their involvement with the Watergate burglars, and that cover-up ultimately led to investigations in the House and Senate, and the beginning of an impeachment process in the House.   As the scandal grew, Republican Senators started abandoning Nixon, and his impeachment and removal from office began to be seen as a foregone conclusion.   Richard Nixon chose to resign rather than go through the humiliation of being kicked out of office.

I was a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant in the US Army and stationed at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, when all of that was going down.    We lived on base, and I had gone home for lunch and watched the whole the spectacle on television.  It was a bright and sunny day both at my military home in Virginia as well as not too far up the road in Washington, DC.

Nixon had announced the previous evening that he would be resigning at noon the following day.   At about 11:30 a.m. he and his family emerged from the White House and walked to a military helicopter. There he turned and spoke formally to the crowd of friends, family, staff, government officials, and well-wishers.  Pat, his loyal wife, looked on, as did his adult daughters, Tricia Cox and Julie Eisenhower, and their husbands, and a pall of great sadness prevailed.  Everyone knew that the Emperor had been brought down by his own hand, and even the Emperor himself knew it.

Richard Nixon and Pat got on that helicopter forty-nine years ago today, and they flew to Andrews Air Force Base where they boarded Air Force One for their final free flight home to California.   An hour or so later, reportedly while they were over Missouri, the clock struck twelve and the Nixon presidency officially ended.

I remember thinking at the time that I had just lived through the worst presidency that would ever befall our great nation.  I was wrong about that.