- guardian.co.uk,
- Saturday August 10 1974 12:36 BST
At 10.15 Richard and Patricia Nixon, still technically President and First Lady, swished away westward in the glittering blue and silver flagship of the US Air Force fleet. One hour and twenty minutes later, when the couple were somewhere over the Mississippi River, near the quintessentially Middle American town of Carbondale, Illinois, a stiff white envelope was taken by Haig to the small office in the White House used by the Secretary of State. Dr Kissinger opened the note which read starkly: "Dear Mr Secretary, I hereby resign the office of President of the United States. Sincerely, Richard Nixon." And as Air Force One crossed into the State of Missouri, so the thirty-seventh President officially laid down the mantle, and the thirty-eighth, the recently obscure lawyer from Michigan, took over. The manner of the passing may have been exquisitely hurtful for Mr and Mrs Nixon, as they must now be known; but the world, six miles beneath the shiny belly of the great jet, would never know exactly how it felt.
His last hours at the White House must have been agonizing. Official photographs released today show him hugging his weeping daughter Julie in the wake of taking his decision. The Press were locked inside the room - the one Mr Nixon had designed specially for their comfort - when he walked the paths to his last dinner at the official mansion last night. We were not allowed to see how terrible he looked.
The telephone calls from his supporters that came in after his television speech can only slightly have mollified the hurt of the baying crowds that gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue as the night wore on. The mob there was huge - 5000 people, mostly young, many of them drunk, nearly all giggling, laughing, shouting derision at the policemen at the White House. A sign "under new management" was hung briefly on the mansion fences, before being torn away by the guards.
A slight figure in a pink dress pushed aside the curtains in an upstairs room in the White House to peer out at the crowds, which turned to jeer even louder until the window darkened again. Probably it was Tricia, who is said to be the President's favourite child. The sight outside could not have been a pleasant one for her.
And then this morning, after we had seen the near incredible headlines, in which the New York Times looked for once in its life like the Daily Express, and when the never-to-be-read supplement, in easily disposable sections, had been discarded by the ton, Mr Nixon and his stiffly sad family trooped into the East Room for the final indignity - a bitter, grotesque public farewell to the staff of the Executive Mansion.
If Mr Nixon had been at his best last night, then he was at his worst this morning. Sometimes one wished that his agonized wife would take this wretched slobbering, spluttering man away by the arm and propel him into some windowless vehicle for transport to obscurity. But Pat Nixon, with Julie and Tricia and their grey-faced husbands beside them, allowed the man to proceed. It would have been worse, perhaps, if they had tried to stop him.
"I remember my old man. They would have called him a common man he was a street car motorman at first my mother" - at this point he sobbed violently, his tears somehow eluding the gravitational pull and remaining shining in his eyes - "a saint. She will have no books written about her." That was the measure of the address - Checkers revisited, only far, far more painful for everyone who had to suffer hearing it.
Once more, there was not a spark of contrition in the man. "Sure, we have done some things wrong in this Administration. And the top man always takes the responsibility. And I've never ducked it but no man and no woman came into this Administration and left it with more than he came in. No man or woman ever profited at the public expense or the public till. Mistakes, yes. But not for personal gain, ever. You did what you believed in, sometimes right, sometimes wrong."
A viewer at this point breathed "How dare he?"; his staff and Cabinet in the East Room, though, looked stoney-faced through it all. None of them seemed concerned, but even at the end Mr Nixon was not coming clean as he had this final opportunity to do.
And so, asking for help for President Ford, and thanking the staff for their loyalty, Mr Nixon and his small loyal troupe and Mrs Ford shook walked quickly out to the south lawn. Mr and Mrs Ford shook hands with them. Then, without further ceremony, the Nixons went to the helicopter. The blades began to whirl, women in the crowd became immediately more concerned that their skirts stayed put than that the President was leaving, and the lone machine climbed into the grey sky.
It passed over the mudflats of Potomac River, the Jefferson Memorial to the right, Washington monument ahead, Lincoln behind, the White House itself below to the left. Twelve minutes later it landed at Andrews Air Force base, Maryland; five minutes later still, Air Force One was airborne, and Mr Nixon was carried out of Washington for the last time as Chief Executive. But almost certainly he will be back. Unless President Ford offers immunity, a wealth of trials, to which Mr Nixon could be witness for the accused, are due to open here. Mr Jaworski left open last night the possibility that, for alleged tax frauds and for alleged conspiracy to obstruct justice, Richard Nixon could soon be back in the dock.
Americans are divided on the need for such a final public vengeance; some think that, for the guardian of the public trust, some retribution over and above giving up that trust, is required. Others say that the "nightmare", as President Ford called it today, should be permitted to conclude. But debate on that issue is the business of next week. For the time being, all one can say is that after 2027 days and 2026 nights, Richard Nixon has taken the counsel of his people and has left the city where he was wanted no longer.
