By the middle of 1974,
Nixon's presidency had already been tottering because of revelations of
corruption and accusations of abuse of power stemming from the Watergate
affair. And most of the damage had been self-inflicted. The previous July,
it had been disclosed that Nixon had taped his office conversations. However
when the court ordered him to surrender the recordings, Nixon stubbornly
refused. That October, Nixon offered to give a summary of the tapes to
special prosecutor Archibald Cox but Cox refused the offer, prompting
the President to order Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox.
Instead, both the Attorney General and his deputy resigned, leaving Solicitor
General Robert Bork to fire the special prosecutor. The public was outraged
by this blatant abuse of power.
Bowing to public outrage,
Nixon gave in partially in November by handing over 7 out of the 9 subpoenaed
tapes and claiming the other two did not exist. One of the tapes contained
a suspicious 18-minute gap, supposedly the result of a technical slip-up
by the tape's transcriber, Nixon's long-time secretary Rose Mary Woods.
The tapes revealed the President to be foulmouthed, paranoid, cynical
and occasionally anti-Semitic but contained no clear evidence of guilt.
Meanwhile, the Watergate
investigation committee was investigating White House and Nixon campaign
officials and televised hearings containing confessions and accusations
of dozens of conspiracies, from money laundering to illegal wiretapping.
And as 1974 progressed, more and more officials were convicted of Watergate-related
charges, including former attorney general Richard Kleindienst and former
presidential counsel John Dean. Congress began to draw up articles of
impeachment. On August 5, Nixon was forced to release another set of tapes
which clearly connected him to a cover-up of White House involvement in
illegal activities.
On August 8, Nixon
resigned and a terse note was delivered to Henry Kissinger the next day:
"Dear Mr. Secretary of State, I hearby resign the office of President
of the United States. Sincerely, Richard Nixon".
