In the three-room suite on the fifth floor of Los Angeles' Ambassador hotel, the tension grew with each turn of the second hand. At 6:30 that Tuesday night, Dick Nixon was to face the television cameras to explain to the nation why he had drawn on an $18,000 private fund to pay some of his political expenses as a U.S. Senator (TIME, Sept. 29). Telephone calls poured into the hotel from G.O.P. bigwigs across the nation: some told him to fight, others told him that for the good of the party he must resign. Three hours before his broadcast...
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