When President Nixon delivered his resignation speech in August 1974, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger was visiting with Gould in The Hague during his tenure as Ambassador to the Netherlands. When discovering that Burger would swear in Gerald Ford to the presidency, Burger told Gould: "Do you understand the irony, Kingdon? That man [Nixon] appointed me to the highest office, and I wrote the opinion [that forced Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes and papers as evidence in the trial of presidential aides accused of covering up the Watergate scandal]".