Events That Led Up to Nixon's Resignation
On Aug. 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned from office. Facing impeachment on a variety of charges involving abuse of power, Nixon said in his resignation speech that "I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." Nixon was never impeached or forced to testify about the actions that led to his resignation.
Other People Are Reading
-
The Pentagon Papers
-
On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers, which detailed the Pentagon's history of the Vietnam War. This history detailed many Pentagon secrets and contradicted much of what the public had been told. On Sept. 3, 1971, a team of individuals working for the White House called the Plumbers, broke into the office of a psychiatrist looking for files on Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the Pentagon Papers.
Watergate
-
On June 17, 1972, a group of men, including a former CIA employee and a Republican security aide, were arrested after breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The men were trying to plant listening devices in the office. On Aug. 1, a cashier's check for $25,000 turned up in the bank account of one of the Watergate burglars. The check had been earmarked for Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign.
-
Espionage
-
In October of 1972, a month before Nixon's re-election, the FBI stated that the Watergate break-in was a result of, according to The Washington Post, "A massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon re-election effort." A few weeks earlier it, was revealed that Attorney General John Mitchell had been, while serving as attorney general, in charge of a secret Republican fund used for intelligence gathering against Nixon's political opponents.
Hearings and Trials
-
In 1973, G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr., former Nixon aides, were convicted in the Watergate affair along with five others. Several other top White House aides were fired or forced to resign in the spring of 1973. In May, the Senate began official hearings into the Watergate break-in. Evidence began to accumulate of a direct connection between Nixon and the break-in. This was verified by testimony and internal memos.
Tapes
-
In July 1973, former Nixon secretary Alexander Butterfield revealed that Nixon had made a practice of tape-recording all conversations in his office. In a battle that made its way to the Supreme Court, Nixon was ordered to turn tape recordings over to the Senate committee investigating Watergate.
Impeachment
-
In October 1973, in a last-ditch effort to control the burgeoning scandal, Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in and abolished the special prosecutor's office so that Cox could not be replaced. On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee passed the first articles of impeachment against Nixon, charging him with obstruction of justice.
Resignation
-
Richard Nixon resigned from office on Aug. 8, 1974. He was replaced by his Vice President Gerald Ford, who granted a full pardon to Nixon.
-
