nixon leaves office-9 aug 1974 [View all]

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Resignation


Richard Nixon resigns

Resignation speech of President Richard Nixon, delivered August 8, 1974.

In light of his loss of political support and the near-certainty that he would be impeached and removed, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974, after addressing the nation on television the previous evening.[215] Nixon chose to resign after realizing public opinion was not in his favor to remain in office.[223] The resignation speech was delivered from the Oval Office and was carried live on radio and television. Nixon stated that he was resigning for the good of the country and asked the nation to support the new president, Gerald Ford. Nixon went on to review the accomplishments of his presidency, especially in foreign policy.[224] He defended his record as president, quoting from Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech Citizenship in a Republic:

Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly".[225]

Nixon's speech received generally favorable initial responses from network commentators, with only Roger Mudd of CBS stating that Nixon had not admitted wrongdoing.[226] It was termed "a masterpiece" by Conrad Black, one of his biographers. Black opined that "What was intended to be an unprecedented humiliation for any American president, Nixon converted into a virtual parliamentary acknowledgement of almost blameless insufficiency of legislative support to continue. He left while devoting half his address to a recitation of his accomplishments in office."[227]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon