Ten Words from NY Times History: Nixon Resigns - August 8, 1974

Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, announced tonight that he had given up his long and arduous fight to remain in office and would resign, effective at noon tomorrow.

The 61-year old Mr. Nixon, appearing calm and resigned to his fate as a victim of the Watergate scandal, became the first President in the history of the Republic to resign from office.

He also admitted that he had kept the evidence from both his attorneys and the House Judiciary Committee, which had recommended that the House impeach him on three general charges.

Conceding that he did not have the votes in Congress to escape impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, Mr. Nixon said, "To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home."

"By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America," he said.

Ronald L. Ziegler, the Presidential adviser and press secretary, also said that Mr. Nixon's letter of resignation would be delivered to the office of Secretary of State, Kissinger in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House by noon tomorrow.

His chances of being acquitted were almost hopeless.

It was his friends, not his legions of enemies, that brought the crucial pressures for resignation.

In that statement, Mr. Nixon admitted, as the transcript showed, that, on June 23, 1972, he ordered a halt to the investigation of the break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex here six days earlier by persons in the employ of agents of Mr. Nixon's re-election campaign.

Mr. Nixon, who was described as wretched and gray yesterday while wrestling with his decision, was described today as relaxed.