1974: a President resigns: thirty years ago this summer, in the aftermath of Watergate, Richard Nixon left office in disgrace.

• Author: Nassivera, Joan
• Position: Times Past

Washington, a city built on a swamp and known for its steamy summers, usually empties out in August. But not in 1974, when Richard M. Nixon was desperately trying to hold on to the presidency in the wake of the political scandal known as Watergate. On the night of August 8, with Congress gearing up to remove him, he went on television to announce he would become the first President in U.S. history to resign.

"I have never been a quitter," Nixon, 61, said. "To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body." He had, he said, chosen to put "the interests of America first." He also conceded that he didn't have the votes to stop his impeachment by the House of Representatives and his conviction in the Senate, which would have meant his removal from office.

A FOILED BURGLARY

Watergate began as a botched attempt by five men, nicknamed the "plumbers," who were hired by Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the Watergate complex in Washington. When they were caught in the DNC offices in the early morning hours of June 17, 1972, it was not considered front-page news: The New York Times ran its article about the break-in the next day on page 30.

The Nixon campaign denied any involvement and the administration dismissed the break-in as "a two bit burglary." Nixon was re-elected in November; beating Democrat George McGovern in a landslide. But reporters, especially two young staffers at The Washington Post, Bob Wood ward and Carl Bernstein, thought there could be a bigger story to the break-in,

A COMPLEX TRAIL

Thanks in large part to Woodward, Bernstein, and a mysterious, highly placed source they called "Deep Throat," the complex trail of Watergate, leading from the plumbers back to Nixon's campaign, was slowly revealed over the next two years. (The identity of Deep Throat is still a secret.)

The campaign espionage was part of a larger operation that Nixon's underlings had devised to spy on political opponents. Nixon, a Republican who took office in 1969, was convinced that leaks to the press threatened his administration. As Jeb Stuart Magruder, an official in Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign, told PBS recently: "Nixon always wanted more information. He wanted to get his enemies, opponents. He just felt it was the best way to keep himself on top and everyone else on the bottom."

To this day, there is no conclusive evidence that Nixon knew about the...