Letter to the Editor: End of Nixon Presidency Has Parallels to Today

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As the multiple investigations of Donald Trump relentlessly intensify, speculation as to the president’s eventual fate is constant. The road finally taken may be that of Richard Nixon, the only occupant of the White House ever to resign.

Nixon was a major political figure in this country from his election to the U.S.House of Representatives in 1946 until his departure from the Oval Office in 1974. The following is a brief biography:

Born in 1913 in the hamlet of Yorba Linda, California, to humble parents, Nixon had a hardscrabble life from the very beginning. His family was poor and two of his brothers died young, one at age 7.

Out of sheer necessity, the young Nixon toiled at such unpleasant tasks as janitor and carnival barker while attending high school and college.

After service in the Pacific during World War II, Nixon ran for Congress in 1946. Intelligent, determined and possessed of a fine speaking voice, the future president won election to the U.S. Senate in 1950, defeating Democratic incumbent Helen Gahagan Douglas, the wife of actor Melvyn Douglas.

Only two years later, at age 39, Nixon was chosen to be Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice presidential running mate. The two Republicans handily defeated Democrats Adlai Stevenson and John Sparkman. 

At this point, Nixon had had a brilliant and meteoric career, and was carefully preparing a presidential run of his own. This was a young man in a hurry. But by a tiny margin, Nixon’s campaign against John F. Kennedy failed in 1960.

Many wanted a change of party after eight years of Eisenhower, and Nixon could not compete with the the grace, wit and charisma of the mediagenic Kennedy.

The Golden State native attempted a comeback in 1962, vying for the governorship of California against Democratic incumbent Pat Brown, the father of retiring Governor Jerry Brown. Nixon infamously lost this race, and bitterly blamed the press for his defeat. The former janitor, senator and vice president had been publicly humiliated, and vowed never to lose again. 

By a very narrow margin, Nixon won the presidency in 1968 over Democrat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace in a campaign that was disfigured and traumatized by the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Nixon nearly had lost again, and was resentful, suspicious and paranoid.



The Nixon administration had some success, particularly in foreign policy. But the president’s irrational fears and occasional, bizarre ineptitude led eventually to the notorious Watergate scandal and the collapse of his career.

So overwhelming was the evidence against Nixon, as revealed in the incriminating “smoking gun’’ audiotape, that his venality and attempted obstruction of justice were indisputable.

Republican support for the president, already diminished, now vanished. The indefensible could not be defended.

To their great credit, GOP congressional leaders Hugh Scott, John Rhodes and Barry Goldwater journeyed to the White House on Aug. 7, 1974, and warned Nixon in correct but forceful terms that he was through. 

No other such episode has transpired in the more than 200 years of this republic. Nixon resigned two days later.

Prediction of political events is never certain, but Donald Trump probably could do the same.

 

Joseph Tipler

Centralia