Nation 1974: At Last, Time for Healing the Wounds Nixon Resigns

At Last, Time for Healing the Wounds

It was over. At last, after so many months of poisonous suspicion, a kind of undeclared civil war that finally engaged all three branches of the American Government, the ordeal had ended. As the Spirit of 76 in one last errand arced across central Missouri carrying Richard Nixon to his retirement, Gerald Rudolph Ford stood in the East Room of the White House, placed his hand upon his eldest son's Bible, and repeated the presidential oath "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." By the time the 37th President of the U.S. arrived at the Pacific, the 38th President had taken command.

It was the first time in American history that a President had resigned his office. The precedent was melancholy, but it was hardly traumatic. All of the damage had been done before in the seemingly interminable spectacle of high officials marched through courtrooms, in the recitation of burglaries, crooked campaign contributions and bribes, enemies lists, powers abused, subpoenas ignored—above all, in the ugly but mesmerizing suspense as the investigations drew closer and closer to the Oval Office. Now the dominant emotion throughout the nation was one of sheer relief.

A few of Nixon's last supporters still summoned up bitterness. Not a few Americans cracked open bottles of champagne. Mostly, the nation was massively grateful to have it ended. As Ford said at his swearing-in, "Our long national nightmare is over." By his leaving, Nixon seemed at last to redeem the 1968 pledge he took from a girl holding up a campaign sign in Ohio: BRING US TOGETHER.

The denouement was jarring in its swift resolution and therefore a bit surreal. Nearly 800 days after the Watergate breakin, 289 days after the Saturday Night Massacre, 97 days after the White House transcripts were released, twelve days after the Supreme Court voted, 8 to 0, that the President must surrender 64 more tapes, five days after the House Judiciary Committee voted out articles of impeachment, Nixon's defenses finally vanished. On Monday he issued the June 23, 1972, transcript that amounted to a confession to obstruction of justice and to lying to the American people. With that his clock had run out.

His televised resignation speech was a peculiar performance. In some ways, it sounded like a State of the Union address, a recitation of his achievements. He admitted no guilt, only casually did he mention mistakes made "in the best interests of the nation." If some expected a bitter, angry valedictory, Nixon was controlled and ultimately conciliatory. Nixon once said that the test of a people is the way it handles the transition of power, and last week—in his resignation speech if not in his mawkish, self-pitying White House goodbye—he deserved credit for helping to bring off the transition with dignity in what must have been the most painful moment of his life.