Forty-nine years ago today, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency. Nixon announced his decision the previous night in a televised address, and then left the White House the following day when the resignation became effective.
The resignation of the 37th president—the first in American history—was the result of a two-year-long scandal that began with the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex.
The break-in was just the tip of the iceberg of, as the Washington Post reported, “a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon’s re-election and directed by officials of the White House.”
The spiraling controversy eroded Nixon’s support among voters and within his own party. In his address to the nation, Nixon said he had never been a quitter and that leaving office before the end of his term “is abhorrent to every instinct in my body.” But, he added, “as President, I must put the interests of America first.”
“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,” Nixon said.
The famous speech was written for Nixon by Raymond Price. Price was a former newspaper man who had been with Nixon since his successful presidential campaign in 1968. He knew Nixon’s voice well.
But the speech Price wrote for the President was not the only draft. There was another text that Price prepared for Nixon, commonly called the “fight on” speech, where Nixon refused to resign. I heard about that second speech while listening to an interview on The History Channel with Jeff Nussbaum, author of Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would have Rewritten History.”
According to Nussbaum, here is part of what Price wrote for Nixon:
“If I were to resign, it would spare the country additional months consumed with the ordeal of a presidential impeachment and trial, but it would leave unresolved the questions that have already cost the country so much anguish, division and uncertainty.
More important, it would leave a permanent crack in our constitutional structure. It would establish the principle that under pressure, the president could be removed from office by means short of those provided by the constitution, by establishing that principle it would invite such pressures on every future president who might for whatever reason fall into a period of unpopularity.”
Of course, that is not the speech he gave, and the one we remember is his resignation.
The arc of history bends according to the words and deeds at critical moments. Nixon chose the resignation speech 49 years ago. How different would the country be today if he had chosen the other one?