Richard Nixon’s life after the Presidency
Richard Nixon is the only American President so far to resign from office. With a history that spans for more than 200 years and 50 presidents, that’s quite the statement and while he was preceded by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, J.F.K and Lyndon Johnson, you could say the line of great men broke with his immediate predecessor.
The reason for his resignation on August 9, 1974 was the certainty of impeachment caused by the infamous Watergate scandal. As that has been covered extensively through the years that followed, this article aims to discover Nixon’s life after his fall from grace.
“And as the helicopter began to rise,” the president continued. “I heard Mrs. Nixon, who was sitting in the seat next to us, speaking to no one in particular but to everyone, and she said, ‘It’s so sad. It’s so sad.’” Recalls the former President of his departure on his last day in the White House. That’s when both their lives restarted, almost overnight, with Richard a broken man, having no idea where to start the tedious process of reconstructing their lives.
They retreated to “La Casa Pacifica”, their home in California and were faced with a mountain of debt from back taxes and the cost of his defence in various cases that originated with the Watergate scandal. For the first part of their California stay, Nixon was extremely lonely. He used to be up in his office at 7 a.m. but found little to do and often had to spend time doing nothing, in the company of Ron Ziegler, his former press secretary. To make things worse, at the end of 1974 Nixon had to have a blood clot extracted from his foot, a procedure that sent him into shook from internal bleeding which ended with another surgery and a very long convalesce. By all accounts of friends and family this was one of, if not the, worst period in Nixon’s life. He slowly recovered beginning of 1975, but the weight of his resignation was still very much upon him. It is reported that at one time that year he had just 500$ left in his bank account and the statement release after his pardon was as valid as ever: “…. No words can describe the depth of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency, a nation I so deeply love, and an institution I so greatly respect.”
Read more and video: https://epeak.in/2017/11/10/richard-nixons-life-presidency/
great content!