le of this help to secure re-election in 1972, as he faced a badly divided Democratic Party headed by a self-righteous and indecisive George McGovern. Nixon won the election with 60.7 percent of the vote, but a host of revelations in 1973 undermined Nixon's presidency and finally brought him to resign. The involvement of the CIA, supposedly under Nixon's direction in a military coup that overthrew Chile's Salvador Allende, the Western Hemisphere's first popularly elected Marxist was exposed. Vice President Agnew was forced to resign when it was revealed that he had cheated on his income taxes and had taken more than $100,000 in payoffs from contractors between 1966 and 1972. The IRS also disclosed that Nixon himself owed more than $400,000 in back taxes and penalties, and critics pointed out that the Nixon administration had raised subsidies to milk producers, who then donated over a half-million dollars to the Republican Party. The final blow came when investigative reporters revealed Nixon's involvement in the plumbers' Watergate burglary. Nixon's involvement was documented on audiotapes of White House conversations, which Nixon refused to turn over to investigators. Nixon cited "executive privilege" and national security as reasons for keeping the tapes, but his appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected. A few days later, the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach the president on three counts. Nixon finally released the incriminating tapes, and over the next few days both Republican and Democratic Senators, enough to get a conviction, indicated that they would vote against the president if the House offered articles of impeachment. On August 9, 1974, before the House could vote to impeach him, Nixon resigned the presidency, the first incumbent ever to do so.Nixon was succeeded by Gerald Ford, the man he had appointed to replace Spiro Agnew as Vice-President. Soon after taking office Ford granted Nixon a pardon for any ...
