To say the least, Watergate was a national nightmare, even for a 12 year old. It dominated the news at night. The Watergate hearings were on TV, all day, every day.
You know, before Watergate, Nixon didn't seem to be a bad guy. The Vietnam mess he inherited from Kennedy and Johnson was going away. We were friends with the USSR and China. Nixon visited, and TV brought us images we had never seen before. Even though Kennedy started the space thing, and Johnson pushed it forward, Nixon was in the White House during the moon landings. It was a fascinating time, especially for a young news hound.
Nixon cruised to re-election in 1972. I don't think America ever really loved Richard M. Nixon, but he was a guy we were comfortable with.
And then, the wheels came off.
I remember riding bikes with my friends and hanging out at the corner playground the evening of August 8, 1974, and then going home to watch Nixon's 9 PM resignation speech. We all knew what Nixon was going to say and do. The resignation was a relief.
It really hit me the next day. I watched Nixon's teary address to the White House staff, and I watched him board the helicopter on the White House lawn. While Nixon didn't deserve sympathy because his own stupidity and paranoia put the country through hell, I remember being saddened by the whole thing. This didn't have to happen, but it did, and at least, it was over.
Nixon turned out to be a pretty good ex-president. The man was said to be a foreign policy genius. Even though Clinton won by focusing on the economy, we now know foreign policy can be almost as important.
One of my major irritants is watching great potential wasted. Richard Nixon could have gone down in history as one of our better presidents. You know the rest.
