On the evening of August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon made a nationally televised address from the Oval Office.

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Watergate scandal

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Final investigations and resignation

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Resignation
Further information: Richard Nixon's resignation speech and Inauguration of Gerald Ford


Nixon's resignation letter, August 9, 1974. Pursuant to federal law, the
letter was addressed to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. When Kissinger
initialed the letter at 11:35 am, Ford officially became president.


Oliver F. Atkins' photo of Nixon leaving the White House shortly
before his resignation became effective, August 9, 1974

The release of the smoking gun tape destroyed Nixon politically. The ten congressmen who had voted against all three articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee announced they would support the impeachment article accusing Nixon of obstructing justice when the articles came up before the full House. Additionally, John Jacob Rhodes, the House leader of Nixon's party, announced that he would vote to impeach, stating that "coverup of criminal activity and misuse of federal agencies can neither be condoned nor tolerated".

On the night of August 7, 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Congressman Rhodes met with Nixon in the Oval Office. Scott and Rhodes were the Republican leaders in the Senate and House, respectively; Goldwater was brought along as an elder statesman. The three lawmakers told Nixon that his support in Congress had all but disappeared. Rhodes told Nixon that he would face certain impeachment when the articles came up for vote in the full House. By one estimate, out of 435 representatives, no more than 75 were willing to vote against impeaching Nixon for obstructing justice. Goldwater and Scott told the president that there were enough votes in the Senate to convict him, and that no more than 15 Senators were willing to vote for acquittal—not even half of the 34 votes he needed to stay in office.

Faced with the inevitability of his impeachment and removal from office and with public opinion having turned decisively against him, Nixon decided to resign. In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on the evening of August 8, 1974, the president said, in part:

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me. In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.

... I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations. From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.

... I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad. To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home. Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

The morning that his resignation took effect, the President, with Mrs. Nixon and their family, said farewell to the White House staff in the East Room. A helicopter carried them from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Nixon later wrote that he thought, "As the helicopter moved on to Andrews, I found myself thinking not of the past, but of the future. What could I do now?" At Andrews, he and his family boarded an Air Force plane to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in California, and then were transported to his home La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente.

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