40 years ago today: President Nixon leaves the White House

[jtbell]

http://www.c-span.org/video/?8671-1/president-nixons-departure-white-house

I was at home that summer, between my junior and senior years in college. My parents and I watched Nixon's departure on live TV that morning, followed by Gerald Ford's taking the oath of office as his successor.

 

[OmCheeto]

http://www.c-span.org/video/?8671-1/president-nixons-departure-white-house

I was at home that summer, between my junior and senior years in college. My parents and I watched Nixon's departure on live TV that morning, followed by Gerald Ford's taking the oath of office as his successor.

I would have been 15 years old. I remember him flying away, but not much else. I remember he'd said he wasn't a crook. Which I believe, we found out he was. Though, I suppose, by today's standards of politicians, he should be considered a saint.

 

[marcusl]

No, he was a crook even by today's standards.

 

[jim hardy]

Some of my ultra-conservative friends until very recently still defended Nixon.

But - when i observed
Nixon ended the gold standard, deregulated the banks, and facilitated international movement of capital
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/government/international/deregulation.html

In 1971 President Nixon disconnected the value of the US dollar from the gold standard. Other countries, since the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of the second world war, had fixed the value of their currencies to the US dollar, on the understanding that the value of US dollar would be fixed at $35 per ounce of gold. However now that the value of US currency fluctuated, free of the value of gold, many countries found it very difficult to keep a fixed exchange rate between their own currency and the US dollar. This led to most adopting a floating exchange rate; that is, an exchange rate set by the market rather than the government. In 1974 Nixon deregulated the movement of capital in and out of the US. Britain followed suit in 1979 and other countries did so during the 1980s so that by the 1990s most of the world’s flow of capital was deregulated.

he created the EPA
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/gallery-why-nixon-created-the-epa/67351/ Dec 2, 2010

Forty years ago today, Richard Nixon's Administration officially created a new entity, the Environmental Protection Agency.

1970 was a year of tremendous environmental action by Nixon and Congress.The President signed the National Environmental Policy Act on January 2nd, delivered a call to make "the 1970s a historic period when, by conscious choice, [we] transform our land into what we want it to become" in his State of the Union Address, and ended the year with the creation of an independent agency to regulate the environment.

and, to antagonize the Russians he started relations with China..
http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/od/asia/a/Nixon-Goes-To-China.htm

Internally wounded, China was also increasingly isolated on a global scale. As border fighting broke out between Chinese and Soviet troops, China found itself pitted against its old ally and still cut off from the Western world by the American policy of containment.
Exploiting The Breach

Enter Richard Nixon. Nixon had made a political reputation after World War II by chasing Communists. He gained national fame by leading an investigation of accused Communist Alger Hiss, and he parlayed that notoriety into eight years as Eisenhower's vice-president. Eisenhower struck a relaxed, affable posture as president; he left strong-arm anti-Communism to Nixon and his secretary of state John Foster Dulles. Nixon again became famous for debating Khrushchev on the merits of capitalism versus communism in a mock-up of a modern kitchen at a Moscow exhibition.

Nixon lost the 1960 presidential race to John F. Kennedy, as well as the 1962 California gubernatorial race. Still, private-citizen Nixon kept up with foreign affairs, and he keenly watched the widening Sino-Soviet rift.

Nixon won the 1968 U.S. Presidential race, and as soon as he took office in 1969, Nixon set his National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger to begin exploiting China's isolation.

Suddenly he's to blame for all that ails the country.

 

[Dotini]

Not owning one, I bought a small TV just to witness his resignation. I'll never forget the last words he said on TV as President:

"those who hate you don't win, unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

 

[dlgoff]

Between my Junior and Senior year was when I learned of the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters from a friend that played with the Kansas City Philharmonic (now the Kansas City Symphony).

 

[jtbell]

Nixon was definitely one of our most intriguing Presidents. He's even the only one to have had an opera written about him, as far as I know: John Adams's Nixon in China (1987).

 

[marcusl]

I was home from college in the summer of 1973, feeling sorry for myself for missing the most important witnesses in the Senate Watergate Hearings. These had started in May, and that year I had fairly intense end-of the year studying and finals. I watched a procession of minor officials appear before the committee in July, in our family living room. I was watching as one of these boring "little fish," named Butterfield, mentioned calmly that every conversation in the oval office had been taped. I couldn't believe it! Senator Sam Irvin asked again and again. All hell broke loose and the rest of the summer was dynamite!

 

[jtbell]

I was watching as one of these boring "little fish," named Butterfield, mentioned calmly that every conversation in the oval office had been taped.

The man who revealed the Nixon tapes (Washington Post, 2012)

I didn't see his testimony live, but I certainly remember what a bombshell it was.

And then there was the 18.5 minute gap in the tape during a crucial Watergate-related meeting. Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods claimed that she had accidentally erased the tape while transcribing it, and demonstrated how it might have happened, leading to jokes about the "Rose Mary stretch".

 

[mheslep]

Some of my ultra-conservative friends until very recently still defended Nixon.

But - when i observed
...

Don't forget wage and price controls.

 

[Astronuc]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/worse-than-watergate--new-revelations-from-nixon-tapes-40-years-after-resignation-180150338.html

Ken Hughes, the author of a new book about Nixon, "Chasing Shadows," joined Kunhardt for an interview with "Top Line" and said that one of the most shocking recent revelations about Nixon is that he intentionally prolonged the war in Vietnam for political gain.

"He realized if Saigon fell before Election Day 1972, it would take his chances of a second term down with it," Hughes said. "You can hear him discussing that in his keeping the war going, sending more Americans to fight and some to die; and it's for political reasons."

The documentary lays out which aides to Nixon were aware they were being recorded and those who were unaware. Among those who were unaware: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

"There is I think an extra degree of openness and candor with the people who don't know they are being taped," Hughes said. "Henry Kissinger clearly did not know he was being taped and was very angry about being taped."

I seem to remember something about cash in safe in the Oval office with which he paid off people who did illegal things - such as the break-in at the DNC headquarters at the Watergate hotel.

I was doing a summer program in Electrical and Nuclear Engineering at Colorado School of Mines between 11th and 12th grade. We were busy with studies and weekend visits to state and national parks, and sites like the Museum of Natural History in Denver. We caught bits and pieces of the news from others, and then heard about the resignation. On one of tricks, we encountered some back country hikers, who were surprised to learn that Nixon had resigned.

 

[Astronuc]

I was home from college in the summer of 1973, feeling sorry for myself for missing the most important witnesses in the Senate Watergate Hearings. These had started in May, and that year I had fairly intense end-of the year studying and finals. I watched a procession of minor officials appear before the committee in July, in our family living room. I was watching as one of these boring "little fish," named Butterfield, mentioned calmly that every conversation in the oval office had been taped. I couldn't believe it! Senator Sam Irvin asked again and again. All hell broke loose and the rest of the summer was dynamite!

The tapes were the turning point.

As for Alexander Butterfield, "Among his responsibilities was the setting of Nixon's schedule and the maintenance of his historical records, which included the operations of the secret taping system which Nixon had installed in the White House."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Butterfield