THE RESIGNATION: EXIT NIXON

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Amidst a riotous swirl of banners and balloons Miami's cavernous Convention Hall, Richard Nixon strode to the microphones on Aug. 8, 1968, and, confident of victory in November, accepted the Republican nomination for President. It was the culmination, he said, of "an impossible dream" he had had all his life. Four years later, Nixon was renominated for what looked like—and proved to be—a push over of a campaign for a second term. On yet another Aug. 8, last week, Nixon announced his resignation, midway through his term, ruined by his own deeds. The impossible dream had been transformed into a nightmare and his fall from power was almost poetic in its stark, measured recessional.

The decision to resign had probably been reached on Tuesday, Aug. 6, and firmed up on Wednesday. During his undecided hours he appeared gray and wretched. Once the decision was made, as has happened before when he finally resolved a crisis, Nixon seemed a different man. He seemed al most "serene," one aide said.

Nixon rose early Thursday, going by himself to the Lincoln Sitting Room to ponder and plan his day. He met later with his chief of staff, General Alexander Haig, and at 11 a.m. he called in his successor, Gerald Ford, for a private talk that lasted an hour and ten minutes. "The President asked the Vice President to come over this morning for a private meeting," Deputy Press Secretary Gerald Warren announced to newsmen shortly before the two sat down together. "And that is all the information I have at this moment." It was information enough, however, to alert reporters that resignation, expected since Monday's devastating admission of obstructing justice, was imminent.

If further confirmation were needed, it was visible a little later on the haggard, emotion-wracked face of the usually deadpan Ron Ziegler, who, with Haig, was Nixon's closest adviser in the dying days of his Administration. "Tonight at 9 o'clock, Eastern Daylight Time," Ziegler said, struggling to hold back tears, "the President of the U.S. will address the nation on radio and television from his Oval Office."

No Precedents

Without a glance at the 150 reporters who jammed the White House briefing room, Ziegler turned on his heel and walked out. Nixon himself sat down in the Executive Office Building and, working from a draft prepared by Speechwriter Ray Price, he composed his final nationwide address, which would be the 37th speech from the White House by the 37th President.

Even as he wrote, he was frequently interrupted by the more prosaic functions of his office as the federal bureaucracy continued to move ahead with its own ponderous momentum. A $13.6 billion agricultural and environmental bill was vetoed as inflationary; legislation was signed providing cost-of-living Social Security increases; three people were nominated to be federal judges; and a new member was named to the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission.

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