In 1974, after more than two years of being mired in the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president in American history to resign from office.
On August 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon gave a televised address unlike any that a U.S. president had ever given before. He explained to the American people that the Watergate scandal, which had grown in intensity over the last two years, had consumed him and the nation.
“Therefore,” the president stated, as between 90 and 110 million Americans watched his speech on television and more listened on the radio, “I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.”
With that, Nixon became the first president in American history to resign from office. Others had died or been killed mid-term, but no one had ever voluntarily stepped down. Nixon did not do so easily — he told Americans that he had “never been a quitter” and that leaving office before completing his term was “abhorrent to every instinct in my body.”
So what happened?
Public DomainRichard Nixon lifts his arms into the air as he leaves the White House for the final time on August 9, 1974.
The roots of the Nixon resignation can be traced back to the infamous episode several years earlier when, on June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. after being foiled by security guard Frank Wills. Though Nixon was never definitively linked to the break-in itself, plenty of evidence began to emerge that he and his top aides had worked hard to cover it up.
From the break-in itself in 1972 until Nixon’s resignation in 1974, America watched as the full story of Watergate slowly came to light piece by piece, from hidden recording devices that Nixon had installed around the White House, to the involvement of his closest aides (including “Watergate Plumbers” G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt), to information being shared with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein by a secret government source known only as “Deep Throat.”
Through it all, though President Nixon steadfastly denied involvement in the break-in, it was more than clear that he’d been involved in the cover-up.
His resignation would have a profound impact on the United States. For many, it seemed like just one more reason not to trust the government, as the United States was also deeply mired in the increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. And Gerald Ford’s decision about how to treat Nixon after he left office in disgrace remains hotly debated to this day.
So what convinced Nixon to finally resign? And how much did the president really know about Watergate? This is the full story of Richard Nixon’s resignation.
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