Richard M. Nixon: Resignation Address to the Nation

Richard Nixon had earned a reputation as a hard-nosed politician with a gift for seeking publicity. When, during the 1952 presidential campaign,  Nixon found himself having to deal with accusations that he had used a secret political fund for his personal benefit, the vice presidential candidate turned to the relatively new medium of television to deliver his famous “Checkers” Speech. In later years Nixon continued to rely on radio and television to mold his image, as in his famous “Kitchen” Debate with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, where Nixon proved that he could remain cool under pressure, especially when a world leader tried to bully him. By the beginning of Nixon’s second term, however, the years of political battles seemed to have soured him as well as induced a strain of self-pity. With the House of Representatives ready to impeach him for covering up the crimes associated with the Watergate break-in (when men in the employ of the Republican National Committee burglarized the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate Hotel), he delivered his Resignation Address to the Nation—a rather sentimental defense of his actions in an effort to shore up his persona during a period of failure and shame.