by Tom Ontis

Created on: May 24, 2008

Richard Milhouse Nixon became an ex-President on August 9, 1974 at 12 noon Eastern Daylight time. In a familiar raise of the two fingered victory sign, Nixon and his family were whisked by the Marine One helicopter to the waiting Air Force One at National Airport, for the six hour flight to California and then on to his co mpund at San Clemente, in Southern California.

Nixon was not a victim of politics, though the first inquiries into the break-in at the Watergate office and hotel complex was political in nature. Nixon was not a well liked man, even in his own Republican Party.

The five burglars at the Watergate were found with money and phone numbers. Some of the numbers led back to people who either had worked in the White House or were working for The Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CREEP. Seven men were convicted in the break-in, the five burglars and two on the outside who were acting as lookouts. One, Gordon Liddy more than likely masterminded the entire operation.

One of the burglars, an ex-CIA agent named James McCord began to sing and decided that he was not going to go down alone. He began revealing the ties to the White House and CREEP. Every day, we found out something new.

Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward began investigating what the White House called 'a third rate burglary. That was mistake number one. The reporters followed the case all the way to a very high political operative in the White House, Howard Hunt. Curious because Hunt's wife had died a few months before in a plane crash in the Chicago area and was found carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in small bills. Woodward and Bernstein began to 'follow the money,' as was suggested by their shadowy contact 'Deep Throat.'

The money trail went all the way to CREEP and its director, Attorney General John Mitchell, who later spent time in prison for his activities. How far did it go? Eventually all the way to the top: The President himself!

Nixon's two top aids, Bob Haldeman and John Erlichman were implicated and eventually convicted for their role in Watergate.

President Nixon was listed as an 'unindicted co-conspirator.' Haldeman and Ehrlichman resigned and White House Counsel John Dean was fired. The Attorney General refused to fire the Special Prosecutor, as did his top assistant. It was only after they refused, was the third third ranking Justice Department official fired the Special Prosecutor.

To a really long story short, after two years and two major investigations, Nixon, who had lost support of his friends in Congress resigned, the only president to do so. He never apologized to the American people. He took the secret of his involvement to his grave. Conventional wisdom seems to indicate that his was involved from the beginning up to approving the break-in.

Nixon resigned not only because of his support eroding under him, but to preserve his government pension as President, Vice-President, US Senator and Member of Congress for about 26 years.

The National Archives, which is in charge of Presidential records unseals records from that era nearly every day and finds the darkness that was Richard Nixon.

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