General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere were you 40 years ago this evening when President Richard M. Nixon resigned?
I was a kid at home in Maryland. My parents opened Champagne. Many others (including some stalwart Nixon haters) have told me that they wept. If you were around, what did you do , where were you, and what did you think?
27 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
I was not yet born | |
3 (11%) |
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I was too young to have any real memory/understanding of what was going on | |
4 (15%) |
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I was driving/at work and heard it on radio | |
0 (0%) |
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I watched at a bar/ party away from my home | |
2 (7%) |
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I watched at home | |
11 (41%) |
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Other (please describe) | |
7 (26%) |
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0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
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Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll |
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)I wasn't born yet, so I must have been some single celled organism that was swimming around.
Lugnut
(9,791 posts)He really was a crook.
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)I can't remember if we celebrated, but I watched every second of the Watergate hearings that I could.
Good riddance.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)Coventina
(27,223 posts)I was super excited about it, because I misunderstood my parents saying "Mr. Nixon" for "Mr. Dixon."
"Mr. Dixon" was a member of our church, and I had no idea he was also the president! And he was going to be on TV!!
The idea of someone I knew personally appearing on TV was sooo exciting!! (Keep in mind, I had just barely turned 6!)
Needless to say, I was bitterly disappointed by the whole thing, because the man on TV was not the man I was expecting to see.
Looking back on it, I wonder if my parents were surprised by my enthusiasm for politics at such a young age!
H2O Man
(73,692 posts)my brother and I were recording the evening on a cassette that I mailed to friend Rubin "Hurricane" Carter the following day.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)dorky 10-yr old kid interested in politics, lol.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)My first memory of Watergate-as-scnday was the post headline when Dean was fired and Erlchman, Haldemann, and Mitchell resigned. IIRC, that's also when we got the "I am not a crook" speech..
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)I remember there being something other than soap operas on the TV on weekdays. Everybody was watching, even dorky 10yr old kids (well, at least this one), lol.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)But I do hear you about being a dorky 10 yr old kid interested in politics. I remember sitting and watching the election results in 1980, which would have made me just a little younger than that.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)18 minutes of missing tape?", lol.
meaculpa2011
(918 posts)I was working at NBC News and had put in many, many hours during the hearings.
The resignation happened on my day off and I scooted to Jones Beach far, far away from any phones.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)picnic that day. I was riding in a car on the way to the picnic when I listened to Nixon resign.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)At one level, it was the Cold War, and I'm sure the disruption was disturbing. OTOH, by mid-74, even most Nixon supporters were over it.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)unfairly railroaded. Some thought it was about time. Many thought that it was time to move on and that was only possible if Nixon stepped down. With Gerald Ford becoming President - there was little thought that there would be any significant change in policy.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)"All of 'em do this kind of thing" people would reason, "his only fault was getting caught"
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,976 posts)I even kept the little black and white TV I watched it on as a souvenir (I think it's still out in the garage). And I also remember thinking, we just got rid of the worst possible president. That feeling lasted only until 1980...
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)I remember my mother was quite upset because she believed it was a terrible thing for a president to resign over corruption, even a president she did not like.
catbyte
(34,534 posts)swankiest French restaurant in town. My dad, a cop, was working that night. As my mom enjoyed her escargot & steak au poivre and me my duck a la'orange, we watched Tricky Dick resign. Other customers had brought in a small portable TV & we all watched his speech. I remember there were about 4 tables that night & the owner gave us all free champagne, LOL.
Good times.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Watched it with my dad - who before he got hurt and semi-retired had been a union man for decades and the only Republican he spoke well of was Ike. I was a long-hair pot-smoking bass player. We both hated Nixon. A good time was had by all. My dad passed in November of that year.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)I'm 42, so was not quite 3 then.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)The poll is just a reference point. There's no desire or attempt for accuracy.
Hekate
(91,005 posts)TransitJohn
(6,932 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Edited to add: In short, you're right. DU skews old for the internet. It just does. Explains a lot.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)so you know, you're welcome too.
Hekate
(91,005 posts)...this little thread of snark at DU regarding age that I've noticed just in the past year or two. It's like some of the more recently-arrived DUers don't recognize who was clearing the way through the jungle of society before they showed up. I didn't feel old or out of place until that started happening -- I was just another DUer who joined in 2002. It's always been nice to find so many of my own age-cohort here while welcoming input from members of all ages, so this development has struck me as strange in the extreme.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)So how fucked up is that?
But yes, I hear you.
Hekate
(91,005 posts)Aggravating as hell, that is.
GeorgeGist
(25,326 posts)who'll be 42 this year.
BuelahWitch
(9,083 posts)liberal N proud
(60,352 posts)Old enough to know what was going on.
Tikki
(14,562 posts)When I awoke from anesthesia, Ford was President..
We all kind of knew nixon was in trouble and might resign...We just didn't know when.
Tikki
gordianot
(15,253 posts)I always hoped the truth of several mysteries would be told it never happened. Reagan was worse and we have now fallen in the pit of perpetual fascism and corruption.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Even being pretty young I knew how awful he was...now, if only I could have had a similar experience with george W. Bush!
Scuba
(53,475 posts)I was among the airmen surreptiously booing when he boarded a plane (not Air Force One) to depart. Adios mother fucker.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)Your planes flew over my house like every 10 minutes.
HERVEPA
(6,107 posts)Went to my car to hear it, then came back and it was announced from the stage "President Nixon is now Citizen Nixon".
To great applause and cheers of course, as this was a liberal folkie crowd.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)I didn't understand the political ramifications, but remember my parents talking excitedly about what it meant
roamer65
(36,748 posts)What I remember most about Nixon is his perspiration problem. I remember thinking, "Wow that guys sweats a lot".
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)moondust
(20,025 posts)Before deploying to Berlin.
Even my staunch Republican grandfather believed Nixon should be held accountable for any wrongdoing.
hlthe2b
(102,509 posts)did not miss a second of the Watergate hearings... Even though I was far younger, the death of JFK, RFK, MLK--all had far more impact on me.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)Unfortunately, it's one of my earliest memories.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,430 posts)I had just turned 17 and was about to start my senior year of high school. Don't remember any specifics about that day other than hearing Tricky Dick's resignation speech.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,430 posts)How was Nixon liberal? Were you around then?
onehandle
(51,122 posts)He was right. My parents were horrified when Nixon was first elected. The first election I can remember.
I had a McGovern sticker on my notebook in school in 1972.
Little did we know what would follow Nixon...
_________________
Noam Chomsky: Richard Nixon Was 'Last Liberal President'
Three Democrats have held the position of commander-in-chief since the Richard Nixon era, but if you ask philosopher Noam Chomsky, it was the 37th president and infamous Watergate casualty who was truly the last liberal to preside in the Oval Office.
During a discussion on HuffPost Live, Chomsky weighed in on the minimum wage debate, blaming neo-liberals for keeping talk of wage increases off the table until now.
"It's a shame that it's taken so long to even be a discussion," Chomsky said. "As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president."
In the 1950s and 1960s, before Nixon took office, minimum wage stayed on track with productivity. However, that pattern fell off in the next decade. After six years of stagnant wages and escalating costs of living, the Nixon administration stepped in -- in 1974, Nixon signed an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act. That law raised wages by more than 40 percent.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/noam-chomsky-richard-nixon_n_4832847.html
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,430 posts)I get it.
Though I agree with Chomsky on a lot of things he also spews his fair share of bullshit.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Nixon, while a domestic criminal and a war criminal who should have lived out his life in prison for treason did not share the trademark outlook of the modern reichwingers, that being an implacable and unquenchable hostility to government in all its forms and the framework of regulation and programs initiated since FDR and the New Deal (and arguably since TR and the Square Deal). Nixon approved OSHA and the EPA.
I have hated Nixon as long as I can remember but facts are facts.
2naSalit
(86,920 posts)Clean Air Act; The Wilderness Act; Signed Title IX in 1972; ended the policy of forced assimilation of American Indians, returned sacred lands, and became the first American President to give them the right to tribal self-determination; NEPA; Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972; Endangered Species Act of 1973.
And he vetoed the Clean Water Act of 1972objecting not to the policy goals of the legislation but to the amount of money to be spent on them, which he deemed excessive. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.
Personally, I despised him and to be fair, he did much of this for political capital as he saw how people hated him for Vietnam, he though this would appease us somewhat.
I was enjoying one of my first legal alcoholic beverages in a tavern with many happy people who cheered for a long time at the announcement of the resignation... many of us had siblings, loved ones an relatives who were sent to the war, many never came all the way home or didn't come back alive.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)in the centennial year of the Battle of the Wilderness.
2naSalit
(86,920 posts)My error. Thanks for the correction. I was kind of tired when I posted and spaced out looking that up to confirm my claim.
4dsc
(5,787 posts)Happy Anniversary Wilderness Act.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)I remember one of the NCOs saying "Well, there it is."
The following year I was stationed in a Cav unit in Germany, and there was a lot more reaction in our unit when Saigon finally fell.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)I watched it with my grandmother, who told me what I was seeing was history.
At the time, though, I didn't really understand what the big deal was. It wasn't until I was in high school (when I took it upon myself to research what Watergate was because we didn't learn much about it in history class) that I began to understand what had happened and why it was important.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)..and thinking of a post upthread, from November of 1963 to August 1974 -- a little more than a decade -- think about how much American history many got to witness. Much of it was horrific, while some of it was breathtaking.
JFK was before my birth, and I don't remember the RFK or MLK assasinations. I don't remember Apollo 11, but I rember Apollos 14-17. I remember the POWs coming home. I remember the Watergate hearings, and I remember Nixon stepping down.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)During that time frame I got married, got to experience Freedom Summer in Alabama in 1964, followed the Viet Nam war daily because my husband and then my brothers were sent over there, had 2 babies, became very active in the anti-war movement, got a divorce, and was glued to the tv when Nixon resigned.
AND knew immediately that Ford would pardon him.
Never ever once trusted Nixon. Was flat out amazed that ANYONE looking at him could trust him.
Kath1
(4,309 posts)I was 14 and in high school. My girlfriends and I were all young hippies with the peace symbols, really long hair, bare feet, bellbottom jeans... the whole thing. We were all political nerds and really into the anti-war movement. We had a Nixon Resigned party soon after. We all hated him.
razorman
(1,644 posts)In those days, boot camp was cut off from the rest of the world. So, when rumors started flying around the base that the president had resigned, we all said, "Bullshit. Presidents don't resign." Boy, were we wrong.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)It was on the TV. Everyone was in a party mood, booing and cheering as he spoke. Everyone was happy he was gone.
Arkansas Granny
(31,540 posts)I couldn't believe the victory/peace sign he flashed when he entered that helicopter for the last time.
Hekate
(91,005 posts)MANative
(4,113 posts)and it was the beginning of my political awareness. I guess you could say that we have Dicky Nixon to thank for me being a lifelong Democrat!
csziggy
(34,139 posts)We'd all been watching the hearings in between college classes and heard that Nixon was going to be on that night. Just about everyone expected him to resign so we gathered at someone's house and had a big party to watch his speech.
By the time he actually resigned, we were all wasted. A good time was had by all.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)That evening we went to a party at my doctoral adviser's house. We were pretty much all in a state of shock. The long-anticipated event had arrived.
I have a lot of very specific memories of that period--listening to the radio the night of the Saturday Night Massacre in October '73 (half expecting to see tanks on the streets of Madison the next morning); watching the Sam Ervin show all summer on a TV in the UW Madison student union
.Those were crazy times. Now, even though the times are objectively much crazier, I think we are all more inured to the craziness, so nutzo feels almost normal.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)...is a white T-shirt with Ervin's face on it in profile and the caption "Uncle Sam."
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)saying "IMPEACH!! Dick's pulled his last trick!" Left it on after he resigned.
BarbaRosa
(2,685 posts)watching a crappy almost color TV someone had given me, elbow bending the cold and frosty.
Historic NY
(37,460 posts)RobinA
(9,903 posts)I was in high school at the time a I cannot remember a thing about Nixon's resignation.
What I do remember is the Saturday Night Massacre as it became known. That was probably the first (and probably the last) time in my life that I saw politicians act in an admirable way - putting what is right above carrying out orders. I was quite impressed at the time with those involved who did the right thing.
Ahhh...it was a different time.
JustAnotherGen
(32,025 posts)in West Germany.
But my parents shared with the me the experience of that happening while stationed abroad.
MiniMe
(21,722 posts)It is my birthday today, so I always remember the date he resigned.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)LibertyLover
(4,788 posts)with my mom. We were on vacation and heading to Kenya and Tanzania but first the tour went to South Africa and (at the time) Rhodesia. The tour split for a couple of days - some people went to Kruger National Park and the rest of us headed to Capetown. Mom figured since we were going to the parks in Kenya and Tanzania on safari, seeing Capetown was a better idea. It was lovely and we got to visit some of the vineyards and sample Cape wine. Very good even back then. Anyway, we'd been following the drama via the BBC on tv and found it very interesting that the news readers were so very dispassionate about the news, that is until after Tricky Dicky resigned. Then the gloves came off and from the way the news readers savaged him, you would have thought that he had been responsible for all the ills of the world instead of only about 50%. We had a couple and her sister on the tour from Pennsylvania. They were rock-ribbed Republicans and let everyone know that Nixon was innocent and a near deity and was going to rise above this witch hunt, etc. That is until he resigned. We watched them drink their dinner that night in the hotel's bar. Meanwhile mom and I had wine with our dinner and toasted Nixon's departure.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)If so, what were your impressions?
LibertyLover
(4,788 posts)I wasn't prepared for how apartheid would make me feel. To see signs on restrooms that actually said whites only made me ashamed. I had nothing to do with the policy, but as a 20 year old white woman, I was still ashamed. We were only in Rhodesia for 2 days, but flew up from Jo'burg on an Air Rhodesia plane that their president was also in. South Africa was about the only place he could visit. On our way to Kenya, at the Jo 'burg airport, I got into trouble with the South African police. I had a case of, to put it politely, Mummy Tummy, and needed the rest room badly. Our bus stopped at the terminal and I dashed into the building quickly and located a ladies' restroom. I thought nothing of the fact that there were several women of color in it because heck, if you're from New York City, that's perfectly normal. What I didn't get was the odd looks I was getting. I finished and was washing my hands when one of the women dropped something. She had a baby so I picked it up, handed it to her and said something about what a lovely child she had. When they heard my accent, they all relaxed just a bit. As I exited, there were two cops waiting for me. I was stopped and questioned as to why I had gone into the "nie blanc" restroom. I just sort of looked at them like WTF? and asked what that meant. I could read the Afrikaans, but hearing it spoken I was clueless. Again once they heard my accent things cooled a bit. I had to produce my passport and explain that I was on my way out of their country and had simply needed the restroom or have an accident. I was let go with a stern warning to use the proper facilities. On our way through Customs and Immigration, we were asked how we had liked South Africa. It was lovely I said truthfully. I was asked if I would like to immigrate. I said no, that I would not be interested and apartheid was the reason. My passport was stamped quickly and there were no more pleasantries. I was relieved to leave.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)My MIL grew up in DC. Her husband (my FIL) was in the Marines at Camp Lejeune. She got on a city bus in Charleston (I think) and sat down toward the back, not knowing that the busses were segregated. The driver stopped the bus and indicated to her that she needed to come up front. Keep in mind that this was a little over 60 years ago. Times do change.
I find it interesting that they asked if you wanted to immigrate. Thanks for sharing that story.
LibertyLover
(4,788 posts)I was a 21 year old, red-haired, fish-belly-white-with-freckles skinned college educated (well, one year to go) woman. I was prime recruitment material. Gotta breed those blanc babies. I'm happy to have shared - I will say that my mom who was waiting for me to go to the boarding area was very unhappy with the SA police when I told her what had happened. She got asked if she wanted to immigrate when they stamped her exit visa and she was just as emphatic in her refusal as I had been a minute or two before.
KeepItReal
(7,769 posts)SteveG
(3,109 posts)But being summer, I was working construction so I was on a job site when it actually happened, I watched it on the news that night when I got home. I was glad he was gone.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)I remember back then meeting old guys who'd served in "The Great War" -- all gone now.
Kip Humphrey
(4,753 posts)wandy
(3,539 posts)Listening on 'da radio planning our "next adventure".
And then it happened.
Others, with radios blaring, got out of their cars, cheered and applauded.
We did the same.
It was a good day.
Alas, Richard M. Nixon, the last honorable republican president.
It did nothing but go down hill from there.
wyldwolf
(43,873 posts)... now my kid does the same to me.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)ABC broke in to announce peace between Egypt & Israel. Those of us under 15 were more concerned with the Cylons...
tblue37
(65,528 posts)Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)What did the Spanish think?
tblue37
(65,528 posts)We forget how extraordinary some countries' people find it that we can actually remove people from powerful offices without a bloody revolution.
Of course, with black box voting, legalized bribery, unrestrained surveillance, voter restrictions, and pervasive corporate/MIC control of our government and economy (and of that of the entire world in many ways), our ability to influence our government and to remove the worst actors from power is steadily decreasing.
JFK was right when he warned that making peaceful dissent impossible makes violent revolution inevitable. Thankfully we are not at that point yet, but I fear for the future. The novel 1984 wasn't "wrong"--it was just premature. Now, 30 years later than 1984, we are almost as surveilled by BIG Brothers (not just *one*!) as Orwell feared, and the tools of pervasive and brutal state control are being put in place and used in trial runs.
Eisenhower's warning about the MIC should be continually pushed into public awareness, and books and movies about J. Edgar Hoover's abuse of FBI intelligence should be continually produced and heavily marketed, as should works reminding people about the lies and war crimes of the Iraq invasion and the servile complicity of the MSM.
Unfortunately, though, that won't happen. What Americans will get instead is a steady diet of bread and circuses, interspersed with constant, pervasive war propaganda and jingoistic indoctrination.
Aristus
(66,522 posts)I remember my 3 year-old brother walking into the living room and asking: "Mommy, what's a kissinger?"
And I remember my mother showing me the front page of the newspaper with a photo of Gerald Ford, and telling me: "He is going to be our new President."
rbrnmw
(7,160 posts)My mom was crocheting and my dad was happy He was drinking a beer.
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)I remember singing "Jail to the Chief"...that would REALLY piss off my mom (a staunch Republican) and make my dad (a Dem) laugh his ass off.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Severna Park to be exact and even though I didn't quite understand what the big deal was, I knew it was something important!
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)PG County started bussing in '73. By '75 there was massive flight out to Howard County by white families.
Response to Algernon Moncrieff (Original post)
onethatcares This message was self-deleted by its author.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)August 9 is my birthday, and I still have the Madrid newspaper with the news.
We didn't know until we were on a tour of some place, and the guide made reference to it. We were dumbfounded.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)tblue37
(65,528 posts)I was 24 in August of 1974. Each summer, he and another professor would take our university's study-abroad group to Spain for two months, followed by two weeks of travel on their own once classes were over.
Spain is 7 hours ahead of us. I forget the exact time of Nixon's primetime resignation address, but we (Bob, I, the other professor and his wife, all of our students, plus several Spanish acquaintances) all stayed up until the ugly predawn hours of the morning to watch Nixon's televised address. We exploded in cheers when he was done, but our Spanish friends were obviously puzzled and rather subdued over what they had just witnessed. To them it was a momentous, yet almost unbelievable event.
distantearlywarning
(4,475 posts)Probably more like a giant bowling ball sitting on her bladder while she watched him on the evening news.
gateley
(62,683 posts)But most likely with my boyfriend whose degree was in poly-sci and he had hated Nixon from the beginning.
PDJane
(10,103 posts)And at home. I was beginning to recover from a severe head injury that I gained during a pedestrian accident while pregnant.
I remember being quite pleased with the resignation and hoping for better. I had a lot of time to read, and thought then, and still think that the US secret government began then....and has continued.
likesmountains 52
(4,100 posts)so we could watch. We all thought he was a crook.
lpbk2713
(42,774 posts)Good. Best news I'd heard in a long time.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)to see it in newsprint on a stroll through town.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)but I did watch it on TV and thought GOOD at the time. I was still an Independent at the time.
minivan2
(214 posts)Waiting to be released into this world.
mcar
(42,465 posts)I was 15. I vividly recall my same-age cousin saying "that's all folks" whennl the speech ended.
calimary
(81,594 posts)up next to the TV and record the audio! Drove like a maniac - HAD to get there in time! And I did!
And I parked myself in front of that TV in our family room and just watched, mouth-agape and eyes bugging out. I so wanted to be able to witness it. Ahh... nixon. Whoda thunkit - that we'd have to endure later presidents who stunk up the joint so much worse than he did. Funny enough - ALL of them republi-CON. At the time I figured we couldn't get any worse.
It still kinda gives me a thrill, though. We actually got one. We got one to resign and clear outta the White House. We actually got RID of one. Too bad it stopped with him.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)brother watch the address on television. I don't think I really understood the implications , though.
Hekate
(91,005 posts)... which was bipartisan and composed of some truly remarkable public servants. Rep. Barbara Jordan of Texas said in her deep deep voice: "The Constitution is whole."
I truly thought we could begin again -- but the poisonous seeds planted by Nixon have grown and now have deep roots. The fight has to go on.
El Supremo
(20,365 posts)Whom I campaigned for in 1976.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)unlike the Kennedy assassination when I was much younger, and which I remember very well.
Nixon's resignation was not a big surprise, it was clearly in sight.
I must have been working some summer job in college. I remember much better the Watergate hearings the summer before, which I watched most of. Great television.
madokie
(51,076 posts)on that day. It was awesome cause we had a lot of heated discussion concerning tricky dick with one of the admins at the school and when he resigned on our last day was priceless. We won without a doubt
quaker bill
(8,225 posts)It was a pleasant party as I recall it.
BainsBane
(53,127 posts)I was young, but I do remember earlier events. I have a memory of the withdraw from Vietnam, Watergate, but not Nixon's resignation. We must not have had television at that point. In fact, I'm pretty sure we didn't.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Did not actually watch the tv. But it was all anyone was talking about.
cally
(21,601 posts)I remember being absolutely shocked because we had been away from news for awhile. My parents were Republicans and were very upset.
dflprincess
(28,094 posts)This trip had been set up before we knew Nixon would be speaking that night.
I was with several cousins and two of my aunts. We were at Penney's and my one aunt (not the mother of the bride) and I kept escaping to the T.V. displays to watch.
My other aunt (the mother of the bride) came looking for us to try and herd us back to the bridal department but the aunt I was with loudly proclaimed "This is the happiest moment of my life and I'm not going to miss it!"
We rejoined our relatives after the speech.
cloudbase
(5,530 posts)aboard the S.S. Export Courier in the Port of Philadelphia.
Delmette
(522 posts)My future husband (now my ex-husband) and I had some earth shaking question about the wedding. We called the priest and he wouldn't talk to us. He was more interested in the President's speech. I can't blame him. I do remember the next day better, when Nixon left and President Ford saying how aware he was of not being elected.
ancianita
(36,216 posts)Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)I was at home, watching the news on tv.
My dad was really worried that there wouldn't be an orderly transition of power in this country.
He was worried that the Republicans would "just take over" the federal government, by force, if necessary.
It was obvious that the entire Republican party suffered from a cancer that had grown within the GOP for many years.
Ford claimed at first that he was never interested in being the President.
But, once he was sworn in, woo boy, did he ever begin to like all of the power that office had to offer, and so, then he ran for the office, all the while acting like he was an incumbent during that campaign in 1976 . . . yet, Ford had never even been elected to the job to begin with!!!!!!
He probably would have won that election, too, if he had not been such a stumbling idiot who constantly fell down the stairs that came from Air Force 1 when he was deboarding, or when he fell off of some platform that was set up at a political rally the summer of 1976.
Chevy Chase -- singlehandedly, more than any other American -- made fun of Ford's clumsiness on the new comedy sketch program called Saturday Night Live, and as a result, the majority of voters saw Ford as a complete moron, and this country was spared the humiliation of Ford being elected President of the United States.
Ford was -- and hopefully, gawd willing, he always will be -- the only man in America history to serve as both the Vice President and the President, without ever being elected to either of those positions of high office in the first place!!!
Ford was proof that Nixon was a total crook by issuing that pardon, and also at the same time, Ford became a willing participant in the greatest cover-up of a political scandal in American history by issuing Nixon "a full and unconditional pardon".
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)But you are correct, he announced that he's resign the Presidency "effective at noon, tomorrow " (i.e. 8/9)
I think Ford, whatever his faults may have been as President, gate the perfect speech upon succeeding to the presidency:
I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many... If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one womanmy dear wife, Bettyas I begin this very difficult job... My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over... Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.
I'd also assert that the Ford Presidency was worth it if for no other reason than one: Betty Ford was an awesome First Lady during and after her husband's Presidency.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)from the hotel room window. Our room did not face the White House so I didn't get to see it lift off, just fly away.
I was 11, there on family vacation. We watched everything on TV in the hotel room.
I didn't really understand what was going on at the time, but it still left a lasting memory.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I watched with my mother and step-father in our home in the West Salem hills in Oregon. I still remember the news anchor reporting that large crowds were outside the White House chanting "Jail To The Chief".
And I still remember the rage we all felt when, days later, Gerald Ford announced the pardon. Ford cost himself the '76 election by doing that(Carter ran a horrible fall campaign and managed to nearly do the impossible and blow a thirty-point lead). If Ford had told everyone, in the pardon announcement, that Nixon had refused to resign UNLESS he was guaranteed a pardon, he probably would have won.
And if he had, the Democrats would likely have won a HUGE victory in 1980, given that it would have been a Republican administration that would have had to deal with the late Seventies recession, the second oil crisis, and the situations in Iran and Nicaragua.
Ex Lurker
(3,816 posts)we watched it on a little black and white TV in the gift shop of Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.
Skittles
(153,298 posts)yup
jen63
(813 posts)on vacation with my brother and parents in Virginia Beach. The TV in the motel room was on all the time, but I don't remember any particular comments by my parents, who are staunch repubs. At that time they were normal. Since the advent of Fox News, they and my brother have become frothers. No talking to them about anything, unless you agree with the echo chamber. I'm the only liberal in my family. Every time I have contact, they dig me, in order to convert. Really? Using Fox talking points to try to change my political philosophy. Bwaaaaha. It irritates them to death and they get really venomous at times. I don't see them very often now, it just raises my blood pressure.
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)I was a kid then. I distinctly remember the day though because the adults were glued to the tv and looking somewhat somber yet vaguely embarrassed. I went for a walk with my Aunt Mary along the beach and asked her to explain what was going on and what it all meant. It was really my first introduction to politics. And I understood that the adults (all hard core Dems) were somber and embarrassed as Americans that the Grand Pooh-bah of the country was such a criminal disgrace. Aunt Mary (such a character she was!) explained that a president of a country was like a Grand Pooh-bah since I (being a young and ignorant waif) had really no idea what a president was. President of a company I could understand, but finding out there was a Grand Pooh-bah of the country that held the same title was astonishing and puzzling. I was determined to puzzle it all out while kicking everyone's ass at skee ball the next day (I was the Grand Pooh-bah of skee ball as a youngster whooping everyone's butt... I once played for around three hours on a single quarter).
The biggest reason I probably so clearly remember the day was because while walking on the beach with Aunt Mary explaining what happened and what it all meant I was so engrossed I forgot to watch where I was walking and stepped on a soda can tab nearly slicing my big toe off which horrified me not only because of the blood (and there was buckets of it) but because of what it might mean to my future non-existent ballet career. Aunt Mary got a lifeguard to clean it out and put on a huge bandaid, and later that night just to make me feel better she drew smiley faces on it with a sharpie. I even remember thinking as I admired my unique bandaid that it would be so cool if some company made bandaids with pictures on them like smiley faces. Decades later I was miffed to discover that some company eventually did and was reaping a fortune off of my childhood idea.
For those to young to recall, soda can tabs used to come completely off creating an evil sharp foot cutter to abundantly littler the ground absolutely everywhere. They looked like this...
You could make cool chain jewelry and other stuff with them though like this (ok, back then we thought it was cool... though back then it wasn't called "cool" but "boss" ...
So, yeah, that's my Nixon story.
I actually haven't played skee ball since I was far enough into my teens to notice boys and therefore spent beach time away from the game. I probably suck at it now.
And for those that don't know what skee ball is...
MADem
(135,425 posts)tenderfoot
(8,438 posts)Too young to get what was going on.
livetohike
(22,169 posts)Watching a black and white tv and lighting up a joint to celebrate . At that point, I thought Nixon was the worst President ever, but I was just 22 years old and couldn't imagine what was to come.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)We didn't get our first color set until '76, so obviously, I too saw the event in monochrome.
chrisstopher
(152 posts)Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)When I got to high school, they were transitioning from the hip-huggers to the slit denim skirts.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Stopped near Angoulême to buy an International Herald Tribune. I and the only other American in our group of four girls did the happy dance on reading the headline.
oldhippie
(3,249 posts)... watching the Korean TV in the Officer's Club at a Nike-Herc launch site out in the boonies on the coast of the Yellow Sea.
nutsnberries
(1,772 posts)we had no TV.
I'll never forget how we listened to it on the radio while watching it thru the window of the neighbor's house. I was staying on the Cape for a week with my sister, her husband, and their 2 children. I remember the strange vaguely sad/mostly happy feeling.
treestar
(82,383 posts)I was already a Democrat, wore a McGovern button at school around election times, which a lot of kids had done.
I didn't completely understand Watergate, but followed it as best I could.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,795 posts)Nixon was clearly involved in the cover-up and in obstructing justice. Did he know about the break-in? Who ordered the break -in; Colson? Mitchell? Nixon?
Although somewhat Republican leaning in it's POV, Watergate: A Novel provides an interesting narrative on how in might have happened, and the characters are a who's-who of Washingtonians of the day.