Today marks fifty years since President Richard Nixon resigned from office during the fallout from the Watergate scandal. Operatives allegedly linked to the Commander-In-Chief broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel next to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. A Congressional committee investigation led by North Carolina U.S. Senator Sam Ervin, punctuated by testimony by former House counsel John Dean, grabbed the headlines. But, two Alabama lawmakers reportedly helped seal Nixon’s fate.
The Associated Press reported, in 1978, on how Governor George Wallace refused to act on Nixon’s behalf to convince an Alabama member of the U.S House to vote against impeachment. That reportedly helped to clinch Richard M. Nixon's decision to resign. The AP’s 1978 account quoted a book by television personality David Frost.
The AP reported…
“In an account of a telephone conversation with Governor Wallace that was overheard by the former White House chief of staff, Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Mr. Nixon is quoted as saying: “Haig had been in the room as I was talking. And I said, and he recalls this very vividly, I said, ‘Well, Al, there goes the Presidency.’ ”
In the book, “I Gave Them a Sword,” Mr. Frost wrote that Mr. Nixon said he decided then to resign, although he did not actually leave office for more than two weeks.
Governor Wallace's office In Montgomery, Alabama, said the account was “substantially correct.”
The Associated Press, in 1978, obtained a copy of the 320‐page book, four days before its scheduled release by William Morrow & Company. It gives an account of the events leading to and including the 29 hours of interviews with Mr. Nixon that Mr. Frost distilled into five televised interviews last year.
Request for Intervention
The book quotes Mr. Nixon as saying that he telephoned Governor Wallace on July 23, 1974, after the Governor's 1972 Presidential campaign manager suggested that such a call might be welcome. But Mr. Nixon said that Mr. Wallace “seemed not to understand why I was calling” when he was asked to talk to Representative Walter Flowers, a Democrat who was a member of the House Judiciary Committee, in an attempt to persuade him to oppose impeachment.
Mr. Nixon continued: “He said, ‘Well, this is the first I've ever heard about this.’ He said, ‘I won't believe that there is anything I can do to be helpful.’ He was very kind, however. He said, ‘I'm praying for you.’ He says, ‘I wish this didn't have to be visited upon you, but I think that if I were to call, it might be misinterpreted.' ”
The AP reported, in 1978, that Mr. Frost's book also discussed the fee for the interviews, Mr. Nixon's opinion of Henry A. Kissinger and the former President's failure to destroy incriminating Watergate tapes. It also disclosed why Mr. Nixon chose. Mr. Kissinger as Secretary of State over John B. Connally, the former Texas Governor.
Payment for the interviews, Mr. Frost wrote, was $600,000 plus 20 percent of the profits. With most of the commercial time on the series selling for $1125,000 a minute and with sales in foreign countries, the enterprise may have cleared more $3 million. Mr. Frost has declined to specify the amount.
On the Watergate scandal, the visitor website of the U.S. Capitol writes…
“Five men were arrested in June 1972 for illegally entering the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington’s Watergate building. Republican president Richard Nixon denied any connection between the burglary and his reelection campaign. Yet, suspicions lingered. After Nixon’s landslide victory in November, the Senate appointed a special committee to investigate the matter.
In televised hearings, the Watergate committee, chaired by North Carolina senator Sam Ervin, grilled key administration figures. The committee soon discovered that Nixon had secretly recorded his Oval Office conversations, and the Supreme Court ordered the president to give these tapes to a special prosecutor. They revealed Nixon’s role in the cover-up. The Senate hearings swayed public opinion and helped lead to an impeachment effort in the House—halted abruptly by President Nixon’s resignation. The Watergate affair reinforced the Senate’s investigative role and—into the 21st century—strengthened its vigilance against abuses of governmental power.”
