On August 9, 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned from office. His resignation was one of most important political moments in U.S. history.
Nixon was tied to the Watergate scandal, in which political operatives were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. The break-ins resulted in the incarceration and indictment of 43 people - and Nixon was set to be impeached after revelations his administration attempted to cover-up the scandal. However, before formal impeachment proceedings, Nixon resigned from office, making him the first and only president to do so.
During those years, Max Friedersdorf from Sanibel Island, was the deputy director of the Congressional Relations Office in Nixon’s White House. Friedersdorf was “in the room” when Nixon told his last few allies in the U.S. House that he would be resigning. He was in charge of keeping a vote count in the House for impeachment proceedings. Following his stint in Nixon’s West Wing, he worked for several presidents, including Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
Forty years after President Nixon’s resignation do you think he knew about the Watergate break-ins?
