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

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The departure of Nixon was, above all, an extraordinary triumph of the American system. There were, of course, useful accidents of fate and generous helpings of blind luck. A night watchman named Frank Wills came upon the Watergate burglars one night when they taped some door locks with an almost ostentatious incompetence. The system was fortunate that Judge John Sirica pursued the case. And above all that Richard Nixon was surreptitiously taping his own conversations, and that he somehow never thought, or considered it necessary, or perhaps just did not dare, to heave all the tapes into the White House incinerator after their existence became known. Had it not been for the tapes, Richard Nixon would quite possibly have remained in the White House until January 1977. No presidency in the nation's history has ever been so well documented, and it is safe to predict that none will be again.

But it was, at last, Richard Nixon who destroyed his own presidency. His White House, as revealed in the transcripts, was saturated with pettiness and hatred, a siege mentality, Us against Them. It was an unhappy and self-defeating spirit in which to govern a democracy.

Nixon is gone—not a martyred figure as he may believe but tragic at least in his fall from a great height. He is gone because, with all its luck in this case, the American system, the Congress and the Judiciary, with the eventual overwhelming support of public opinion, slowly and carefully excised him from the body politic. If there is a certain "the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king" spirit in the American mood, the nation feels also that it deserves something better in its leadership and is going to get it.

CRIME

The Hearst Nightmare

The robbers—a black man and four white women—strode swiftly into the Hibernia Bank branch in San Francisco's Sunset district, pulling out semiautomatic carbines from under their long black coats. "Get on the floor, get on the floor," barked the stubbly-bearded leader at the two dozen terrified employees and customers. Two of the women rushed to the cash drawers, while another, in the best Bonnie-and-Clyde style, proudly announced: "We're from the S.L.A." One of the gang gestured toward the young woman who had taken up a position at the middle of the seven tellers' cages and shouted: "This is Tania Hearst!"

That surreal scene, captured on film by the bank's automatic cameras, was the Symbionese Liberation Army's way of introducing Patricia Campbell Hearst, 20, to the world in their role for her as an armed terrorist. The bizarre development in one of the most sensational crime sagas in U.S. history added a sharp new edge to the fears of a particular class of Americans, the wealthy and vulnerable.