e Scandal. The nation raged in anger, so three days after the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Nixon agreed to released some of the tapes and appoint a new Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. The tape of a conversation between President Nixon and H.R. Haldeman revealed that the President knew of the break-in three days after it happened and immediately ordered a cover-up. Even more suspicious was the eighteen and a half-minute gap in that same tape. After those tapes, impeachment was inevitable. On July 30, the House of Representatives voted 27-11 recommending the impeachment of Nixon on three charges: obstruction of justice, abuse of presidential power, and trying to impede the impeachment process by defying committee subpoenas. At nine o’clock on August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon made his last speech as president. He only admitted losing the support he had from Congress. He said:“I have never been a quitter, to leave office before my term is complete is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But, as president, I must put the interest of America first. Therefore, I shall resign to presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”The next morning, Nixon addressed a tearful White House staff. He then boarded a helicopter and began his journey home to California. At noon, the Vice President, Gerald R. Ford, who had been appointed after Agnew resigned, was inaugurated. He became the thirty-seventh president of the United States, and the only to never be elected. He told the American people in his first speech; “Our long national nightmare is over.” In September of that same year, President Gerald Ford granted Nixon a “full, free, and absolute pardon.” Undoubtedly, Nixon’s downfall was his cover-up scheme in the Watergate scandal. Prior to the scandal, Nixon was a popular president, despite his foreign policies in Vietnam. If Nixon would have been elected in 1960, how different his presidency could h...
