How many Presidents have resigned from office? | Reference.com How many Presidents have resigned from office? A: Quick Answer As of 2014, there has been only one president to resign from office. That president was Richard Nixon on Aug. 9, 1974. Minutes after his resignation, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn into office as the 37th president of the United States. Full Answer Nixon's resignation can be largely attributed to the clandestine and illegal activities his administration undertook during his presidency. The activities were brought to light when members of his administration were caught breaking into the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. This scandal, named the Watergate scandal, resulted in the loss of almost all of his political support and the near-certainty of his impeachment. As a result, Nixon took to radio and television and announced his resignation. How many U.S. vice presidents have resigned from office? How many U.S. vice presidents have resigned from office? 2010.03.24 | Filed Under: History Two U.S. vice presidents have resigned from office.

John Calhoun resigned in a policy dispute with the president, and Spiro Agnew resigned after it was discovered he’d been taking bribes. Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Richard Nixon. Agnew was under investigation by the United States Attorney’s office on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy in 1973, and he was formally charged with having accepted bribes totaling more than $100,000. Agnew is the only U.S. Vice President in history to resign because of criminal charges. Read More Also, any literature on baseball written in the 1800's does not credit Abner Doubleday with the invention either. But if my... 2016-12-28T23:28:08+00:00 I'm not saying that whoever wrote this did not research this at all but I am saying this explanation of the origins of baseball...

2016-12-28T23:19:30+00:00 IT TOOK ME OVER WINTER BREAK 12 DAYS 3 HOURS 5 MINUTES AND 36 SECONDS. 2016-12-28T02:49:36+00:00 The math here is false. The fundation of how this was worked out is how long it takes to count to 100 in seconds; which is fine... 2016-11-08T22:41:08+00:00 How many United States Presidents have resigned from office? | I Agree To See I Agree To See Sign up for our weekly newsletter Email Only one president resigned from office, and that was President Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974. After the Watergate scandal, Nixon lost all support and there was even talk of impeachment. Therefore, he announced his resignation on radio and television. We’re sure you remember this famous photo. You can also watch his resignation speech below: How many U.S. presidents have resigned from office and when? How many U.S.

presidents have resigned from office and when? 2010.03.24 | Filed Under: History Only one U.S. president has resigned from office, Richard Nixon. Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States from 1969–1974, and was born in 1913. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California and graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937. Nixon was remembered best for the Watergate scandal, when illegal and secret activities were undertaken by the Nixon administration. News of the scandal became public when five men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. President Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974, but only after he faced near-certain impeachment. The famous quote from Nixon during the scandal? “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.

I’ve earned everything I’ve got.” Read More Also, any literature on baseball written in the 1800's does not credit Abner Doubleday with the invention either. But if my... 2016-12-28T23:28:08+00:00 I'm not saying that whoever wrote this did not research this at all but I am saying this explanation of the origins of baseball... 2016-12-28T23:19:30+00:00 IT TOOK ME OVER WINTER BREAK 12 DAYS 3 HOURS 5 MINUTES AND 36 SECONDS. 2016-12-28T02:49:36+00:00 The math here is false. The fundation of how this was worked out is how long it takes to count to 100 in seconds; which is fine...

2016-11-08T22:41:08+00:00 Nixon Resigns Nixon Resigns He Urges a Time of 'Healing'; Ford Will Take Office Today The 37th President Is First to Quit Post By JOHN HERBERS Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES RELATED HEADLINES 'Sacrifice' Is Praised; Kissinger to Remain Speculation Rife on Vice President: Some Ford Associates Say Selecting a Successor Could Take Weeks Political Scene Sharply Altered: G.O.P. Prospects Improved, Ford in Good Spot for '76 and Watergate Fades Rise and Fall: Appraisal of Nixon Career Jaworski Asserts No Deal Was Made: Says Nixon Did Not Ask for and Was Not Given a Way to Avoid Prosecution A Tiny G.O.P. Bastion Feels Loss and Relief Only Nixon Is Serene at Sad White House Washington, Aug. 8 -- Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, announced tonight that he had given up his long and arduous fight to remain in office and would resign, effective at noon tomorrow. At that hour, Gerald Rudolph Ford, whom Mr.

Nixon nominated for Vice President last Oct. 12, will be sworn in as the 38th President, to serve out the 895 days remaining in Mr. Nixon's second term. Less than two years after his landslide re-election victory, Mr. Nixon, in a conciliatory address on national television, said that he was leaving not with a sense of bitterness but with a hope that his departure would start a "process of healing that is so desperately needed in America." He spoke of regret for any "injuries" done "in the course of the events that led to this decision." He acknowledged that some of his judgments had been wrong. The 61-year old Mr. Nixon, appearing calm and resigned to his fate as a victim of the Watergate scandal, became the first President in the history of the Republic to resign from office. Only 10 months earlier Spiro Agnew resigned the Vice-Presidency. Speaks of Pain at Yielding Post Mr. Nixon, speaking from the Oval Office, where his successor will be sworn in tomorrow, may well have delivered his most effective speech since the Watergate scandals began to swamp his Administration in early 1973.

In tone and content, the 15-minute address was in sharp contrast to his frequently combative language of the past, especially his first "farewell" appearance- that of 1962, when he announced he was retiring from politics after losing the California governorship race and declared that the news media would not have "Nixon to kick around" anymore. Yet he spoke tonight of how painful it was for him to give up the office. "I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so," he said. Puts 'Interests of America First' "I have never been a quitter," he said. "To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body." But he said that he had decided to put "the interests of America first." Conceding that he did not have the votes in Congress to escape impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, Mr.

Nixon said, "To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home." "Therefore," he continued, "I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office." Then he turned again to his sorrow at leaving. Although he did not mention it in his speech, Mr. Nixon had looked forward to being President when the United States celebrates its 200th anniversary in 1976. "I feel a great sadness," he said. Mr. Nixon expressed confidence in Mr. Ford to assume the office, "to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us." "By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America," he said. "I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision.

I would say only that events that if some of my judgments were wrong -- and some were wrong -- they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interests of the nation." Further, he said he was leaving "with no bitterness" toward those who had opposed him. "So let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit of all Americans," he said. As he has many times in the past, Mr. Nixon listed what he considered his most notable accomplishments of his five and half years in office -- his initiatives in foreign policy, which he said had gone a long way toward establishing a basis for world peace. Theodore Roosevelt Is Quoted And, at the end, he expressed his own philosophy -- that to succeed is to be involved in struggle. In this he quoted Theodore Roosevelt about the value of being "the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood" and who "spends himself in a worthy cause." After spending himself in a long political career, Mr. Nixon is scheduled to fly to his home in San Clemente, Calif., and retirement tomorrow while Mr. Ford is being sworn in the Oval Office.

A White House spokesman said tonight that Mr. and Mrs. Nixon and their family would bid farewell to Cabinet members and staff personnel at 9:30 A. M. tomorrow in the East Room. Then they will board a helicopter at 10 A. M. for the short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, where they will emplane on the Spirit of '76, a jet aircraft, for their flight to San Clemente. Ronald L. Ziegler, the Presidential adviser and press secretary, also said that Mr. Nixon's letter of resignation would be delivered to the office of Secretary of State, Kissinger in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House by noon tomorrow. Mr. Nixon's announcement came only two days after he told his Cabinet that he would not resign but would let the constitutional impeachment process run its course, even though it was evident he would be removed from office after a trial by the Senate. In the next 48 hours the pressures for him to resign and turn the reins of the Government over to Mr. Ford became overwhelming. His chances of being acquitted were almost hopeless.

Senator Barry, Goldwater, the Arizona conservative who was the Republican Presidential candidate in 1964, told him that he had no more than 15 votes in the Senate, far short of the 34 he needed to be sure of escaping conviction. Members of his own staff, including Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr., the White House chief of staff, strongly recommended that he step down in the national interest. In the end only a small minority of his former supporters were urging him to stay and pledging to give him their support. It was his friends, not his legions of enemies, that brought the crucial pressures for resignation. Seventeen months of almost constant disclosures of Watergate and related scandals brought a steady attrition of support, in the country and in Congress, for what many authorities believed was the most powerful Presidency in the history of our nation. However, a Presidential statement of last Monday and three transcripts of Presidential conversations that Mr. Nixon chose to make public ultimately precipitated the crush of events of the last week. In that statement, Mr.

Nixon admitted, as the transcript showed, that, on June 23, 1972, he ordered a halt to the investigation of the break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex here six days earlier by persons in the employ of agents of Mr. Nixon's re-election campaign. He also admitted that he had kept the evidence from both his attorneys and the House Judiciary Committee, which had recommended that the House impeach him on three general charges. Then came the avalanche. Republicans, Southern Democrats and others who had defended Mr. Nixon said that these actions constituted the evidence needed to support the article of impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee charging obstruction of justice. And it gave new support to other charges that Mr. Nixon had widely abused his office by bringing undue Presidential pressures to bear on sensitive Government agencies. As the pressures mounted and Mr. Nixon held publicly to his resolve not to resign, the capital was thrown into a turmoil. A number of Senators anxious for a resignation began publicly predicting one. At the White House yesterday, Mr. Nixon met in his White House offices with Mrs. Nixon and his two daughters, Mrs. David Eisenhower and Mrs. Edward F. Cox, and with his close aides.

Members of his staff, acting independently of the Congressmen, sent him memorandums he had requested as to their recommendations. Most called for resignation rather than taking the country through a painful impeachment debate and vote in the House and a trial in the Senate. Last night, Raymond K. Price and other speech writers were ordered to prepare a resignation statement for use tonight. Secretary of State Kissinger met with the President late in the evening and Mr. Nixon told him that he would resign in the national interest. At 11 A.M. today, as crowds for the third day gathered along Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House, President Nixon summoned Mr. Ford to his Oval Office and officially informed him that he would submit his resignation tomorrow to the Secretary of State, as provided by Federal law, and that Mr. Ford would become President. Shortly after noon, Mr. Ziegler, the President's confidant and press secretary, his face saddened and weary, appeared in the crowded White House press room and announced that the President would go on national radio and television tonight to address the American people. As with most previous such announcements, he did not say what the President would talk about. But by that time, other Presidential aides were confirming that Mr.

Nixon planned to resign, and the tensions that had been building for days subsided. At 7:30 P.M. Mr. Nixon met in his office in the Executive Office Building with a bipartisan Congressional leadership group -- James O. Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi, President pro tem of the Senate; Mike Mansfield, Democrat of Montana, the Senate majority leader, Hugh Scott, Republican of Pennsylvania, the Senate minority floor leader, Carl Albert, Democrat of Oklahoma, the Speaker of the House, and John J. Rhodes, Republican of Arizona, the minority leader. The meeting was to give them formal notice of his resignation. Among the White House staff today there was a sadness but there were no tears, according to those there. Mr. Nixon, who was described as wretched and gray yesterday while wrestling with his decision, was described today as relaxed. To some, he appeared relieved. He ordered Mr. Price to begin drafting the resignation speech yesterday, even before he made his decision to resign, aides said. Five drafts of it were written before it was turned over to Mr. Nixon to make his own changes. It was exactly six years ago last night that Mr.

Nixon was nominated on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention to be the party's nominee for President, a note of irony that did not escape members of the President's staff. That evening marked the beginning of an ascension to power that was to put the Nixon mark on an important segment of history. After a first term marked by innovations in foreign policy and a return of resources to the state and local governments in domestic policy, Mr. Nixon in 1972, won re-election with 60.7 per cent of the vote. In early 1973, as he ended American military involvement in the Vietnam war and as he moved to strengthen the powers of his office in a multitude of ways, his popularity rating in the Gallup Poll registered 68 per cent. But as the Watergate disclosures broke his rating dropped quickly and was below 30 per cent before the end of the year. Mr. Nixon made a number of counterattacks to win back his lost popularity. He campaigned from time to time across the country as if he was running for office. He disclosed information about his taxes and property. He hired a succession of lawyers to defend him in the courts and in Congress. He made television and radio appearances.

He ordered his subordinates to step up their activities to show that the Government's business was moving ahead. He made foreign trips to show he was still a world leader. Cheered in Tour of Middle East In the Middle East in June he was cheered by vast throngs, and he held a summit meeting with Soviet leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow. Yet, when he returned to the United States, the Gallup Poll showed his rating at 24 per cent and the Watergate charges broke anew as the House Judiciary Committee stepped up its impeachment inquiry. His Administration was tottering when he made his remarkable statement last Monday, apparently in an effort to put his own interpretation on information that was expected to have been made public at the Watergate trials as a result of a Supreme Court decision upholding a court order for the information. When the decision to resign came, Mr. Nixon moved to achieve an orderly transition of power to Mr. Ford. General Haig, who has had broad delegated authority in recent months, met frequently with the Vice President to brief him on policy, as did other Administration officials. Mr. Kissinger gave a number of assurances that the nation's "bipartisan foreign policy" would remain firmly in place.

The Defense Department announced that American military forces around the world would continue under normal status. And across this city thousands of Federal employees performed their chores as if nothing was happening. Richard M. Nixon | whitehouse.gov Air Force One Richard M. Nixon Richard Nixon was elected the 37th President of the United States (1969-1974) after previously serving as a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator from California. After successfully ending American fighting in Vietnam and improving international relations with the U.S.S.R. and China, he became the only President to ever resign the office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. Reconciliation was the first goal set by President Richard M. Nixon. The Nation was painfully divided, with turbulence in the cities and war overseas. During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation.

His election in 1968 had climaxed a career unusual on two counts: his early success and his comeback after being defeated for President in 1960 and for Governor of California in 1962. Born in California in 1913, Nixon had a brilliant record at Whittier College and Duke University Law School before beginning the practice of law. In 1940, he married Patricia Ryan; they had two daughters, Patricia (Tricia) and Julie. During World War II, Nixon served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific. On leaving the service, he was elected to Congress from his California district. In 1950, he won a Senate seat. Two years later, General Eisenhower selected Nixon, age 39, to be his running mate. As Vice President, Nixon took on major duties in the Eisenhower Administration. Nominated for President by acclamation in 1960, he lost by a narrow margin to John F. Kennedy. In 1968, he again won his party's nomination, and went on to defeat Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.

His accomplishments while in office included revenue sharing, the end of the draft, new anticrime laws, and a broad environmental program. As he had promised, he appointed Justices of conservative philosophy to the Supreme Court. One of the most dramatic events of his first term occurred in 1969, when American astronauts made the first moon landing. Some of his most acclaimed achievements came in his quest for world stability. During visits in 1972 to Beijing and Moscow, he reduced tensions with China and the U.S.S.R. His summit meetings with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. In January 1973, he announced an accord with North Viet Nam to end American involvement in Indochina. In 1974, his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents, Egypt and Syria. In his 1972 bid for office, Nixon defeated Democratic candidate George McGovern by one of the widest margins on record.

Within a few months, his administration was embattled over the so-called "Watergate" scandal, stemming from a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 campaign. The break-in was traced to officials of the Committee to Re-elect the President. A number of administration officials resigned; some were later convicted of offenses connected with efforts to cover up the affair. Nixon denied any personal involvement, but the courts forced him to yield tape recordings which indicated that he had, in fact, tried to divert the investigation. As a result of unrelated scandals in Maryland, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in 1973. Nixon nominated, and Congress approved, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as Vice President. Faced with what seemed almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign the next day to begin "that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." In his last years, Nixon gained praise as an elder statesman. By the time of his death on April 22, 1994, he had written numerous books on his experiences in public life and on foreign policy.

The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. For more information about President Nixon, please visit WashingtonPost.com: Nixon Resigns Nixon Resigns Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 9, 1974; Page A01 Richard Milhous Nixon announced last night that he will resign as the 37th President of the United States at noon today. Vice President Gerald R. Ford of Michigan will take the oath as the new President at noon to complete the remaining 2 1/2 years of Mr. Nixon's term. After two years of bitter public debate over the Watergate scandals, President Nixon bowed to pressures from the public and leaders of his party to become the first President in American history to resign. "By taking this action," he said in a subdued yet dramatic television address from the Oval Office, "I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." Vice President Ford, who spoke a short time later in front of his Alexandria home, announced that Secretary of State Henry A.

Kissinger will remain in his Cabinet. The President-to-be praised Mr. Nixon's sacrifice for the country and called it "one of the vary saddest incidents that I've every witnessed." Mr. Nixon said he decided he must resign when he concluded that he no longer had "a strong enough political base in the Congress" to make it possible for him to complete his term of office. Declaring that he has never been a quitter, Mr. Nixon said that to leave office before the end of his term " is abhorrent to every instinct in my body." But "as President, I must put the interests of America first," he said. While the President acknowledged that some of his judgments "were wrong," he made no confession of the "high crimes and misdemeanors" with which the House Judiciary Committee charged him in its bill of impeachment. Specifically, he did not refer to Judiciary Committee charges that in the cover-up of Watergate crimes he misused government agencies such as the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.

After the President's address, Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski issued a statement declaring that "there has been no agreement or understanding of any sort between the President or his representatives and the special prosecutor relating in any way to the President's resignation." Jaworski said that his office "was not asked for any such agreement or understanding and offered none." His office was informed yesterday afternoon of the President's decision, Jaworski said, but "my office did not participate in any way in the President's decision to resign." Mr. Nixon's brief speech was delivered in firm tones and he appeared to be complete control of his emotions. The absence of rancor contrasted sharply with the "farewell" he delivered in 1962 after being defeated for the governorship of California. An hour before the speech, however, the President broke down during a meeting with old congressional friends and had to leave the room. He had invited 20 senators and 26 representatives for a farewell meeting in the Cabinet room. Later, Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.), one of those present, said Mr. Nixon said to them very much what he said in his speech.

"He just told us that the country couldn't operate with a half-time President," Goldwater reported. "Then he broke down and cried and he had to leave the room. Then the rest of us broke down and cried." In his televised resignation, after thanking his friends for their support, the President concluded by saying he was leaving office "with this prayer: may God's grace be with you in all the days ahead." As for his sharpest critics, the President said, "I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me." He called on all Americans to "join together . . . in helping our new President succeed." The President said he had thought it was his duty to persevere in office in face of the Watergate charges and to complete his term. "In the past days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort," Mr. Nixon said. His family "unanimously urged" him to stay in office and fight the charges against him, he said. But he came to realize that he would not have the support needed to carry out the duties of his office in difficult times.

"America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress," Mr. Nixon said. The resignation came with "a great sadness that I will not be here in this office" to complete work on the programs started, he said. But praising Vice President Ford, Mr. Nixon said that "the leadership of America will be in good hands." In his admission of error, the outgoing President said: "I deeply regret any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision." He emphasized that world peace had been the overriding concern of his years in the White House. When he first took the oath, he said, he made a "sacred commitment" to "consecrate my office and wisdom to the cause of peace among nations." "I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge," he said, adding that he is now confident that the world is a safer place for all peoples. "This more than anything is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the presidency," Mr. Nixon said.

"This more than anything is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the presidency." Noting that he had lived through a turbulent period, he recalled a statement of Theodore Roosevelt about the man "in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood" and who, if he fails "at least fails while daring greatly." Mr. Nixon placed great emphasis on his successes in foreign affairs. He said his administration had "unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China." In the mideast, he said, the United States must begin to build on the peace in that area. And with the Soviet Union, he said, the administration had begun the process of ending the nuclear arms race. The goal now, he said, is to reduce and finally destroy those arms "so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world." The two countries, he added, "must live together in cooperation rather than in confrontation." Mr. Nixon has served 2,026 days as the 37th President of the United States.

He leaves office with 2 1/2 years of his second term remaining to be carried out by the man he nominated to be Vice President last year. Yesterday morning, the President conferred with his successor. He spent much of the day in his Executive Office Building hideaway working on his speech and attending to last-minute business. At 7:30 p.m., Mr. Nixon again left the White House for the short walk to the Executive Office Building. The crowd outside the gates waved U.S. flags and sang "America" as he walked slowly up the steps, his head bowed, alone. At the EOB, Mr. Nixon met for a little over 20 minutes with the leaders of Congress -- James O. Eastland (D-Miss.), president pro tem to the Senate; Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), Senate majority leader; Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), Senate minority leader; Carl Albert (D-Okla.), speaker of the House; and John Rhodes (R-Ariz.), House minority leader. It was exactly six years ago yesterday that the 55-year-old Californian accepted the Republican nomination for President for the second time and went on to a narrow victory in November over Democrat Hubert H.

Humphrey. "I was ready. I was willing. And events were such that this seemed to be the time the party was willing for me to carry the standard," Nixon said after winning first-ballot nomination in the convention at Miami Beach. In his acceptance speech on Aug. 8, 1968, the nominee appealed for victory to "make the American dream come true for millions of Americans." "To the leaders of the Communist world we say, after an era of confrontation, the time has come for an era of negotiation," Nixon said. The theme was repeated in his first inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1969, and became the basis for the foreign policy of his first administration. Largely because of his breakthroughs in negotiations with China and the Soviet Union, and partly because of divisions in the Democratic Party, Mr. Nixon won a mammoth election victory in 1972, only to be brought down by scandals that grew out of an excessive zeal to make certain he would win re-election. Mr. Nixon and his family are expected to fly to their home in San Clemente, Calif. early today. Press secretary Ronald L. Ziegler and Rose Mary Woods, Mr.

Nixon's devoted personal secretary for more than two decades, will accompany the Nixons. Alexander M. Haig Jr., the former Army vice chief of staff who was brought into the White House as staff chief following the resignation of H.R. (Bob) Haldeman on April 30, 1973, has been asked by Mr. Ford to remain in his present position. It is expected that Haig will continue in the position as staff chief to assure an orderly transfer of responsibilities but not stay indefinitely. The first firm indication yesterday that the President had reached a decision came when deputy press secretary Gerald L. Warren announced at 10:55 a.m. that the President was about to begin a meeting in the Oval Office with the Vice President. "The President asked the Vice President to come over this morning for a private meeting -- and that is all the information I have at this moment," Warren said. He promised to post "some routine information, bill actions and appointments" and to return with additional information" in an hour or so." Warren's manner and the news he had to impart made it clear at last that resignation was a certainty.

Reports already were circulating on Capitol Hill that the President would hold a reception for friends and staff members late in the day and a meeting with congressional leaders. Shortly after noon, Warren announced over the loudspeaker in the press room that the meeting between the President and the Vice President had lasted for an hour and 10 minutes. At 2:20 p.m., press secretary Ziegler walked into the press room and, struggling to control his emotions, read the following statement: "I am aware of the intense interest of the American people and of you in this room concerning developments today and over the last few days. This has, of course, been a difficult time. "The President of the United States will meet various members of the bipartisan leadership of Congress here at the White House early this evening. "Tonight, at 9 o'clock, Eastern Daylight Time, the President of the United States will address the nation on radio and television from his Oval Office." The room was packed with reporters, and Ziegler read the statement with difficulty. Although his voice shook, it did not break.

As soon as he had finished, he turned on his heel and left the room, without so much as a glance at the men and women in the room who wanted to question him. There were tears in the eyes of some of the secretaries in the press office. Others, who have been through many crises in recent years and have become used to overwork, plowed ahead with their duties, with telephones ringing incessantly. In other offices, loyal Nixon workers reacted with sadness but also with resignation and defeat. They were not surprised, and some showed a sense of relief that at last the battle was over. Some commented bitterly about former aides H.R. (Bob) Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman. The President's loyal personal aide and valet Manola Sanchez, a Spanish-born immigrant from Cuba whose independence and wit are widely admired, did not hide his feelings. Speaking bluntly to some of his old friends, he castigated aides he said had betrayed the President. One long-time official, who heard about the Sanchez remarks, commented: "They [Haldeman and Ehrlichman] tried three times to fire him because they couldn't control him.

Imagine, trying to fire someone like Manola." But why did the President always rely on Ehrlichman and Haldeman? The official was asked. "Will we ever know?" he replied. "When Mr. Nixon was Vice President," he recalled, "he demanded that we never abuse the franking privilege. If there was any doubt, we were to use stamps. Everything had to be above board. "Surely his friendship with Ehrlichman and Haldeman was one of the most expensive in history." But the President himself, said another long-time aide, must have been two persons, the one who was motivated by high ideals and another who connived and schemed with his favorite gut-fighters. One man who worked through most of the first Nixon term said he saw the President angry only once. Often he would say, "That will be tough politically, but we must do the right thing." When that official left his post after nearly four years of intimate association with the President, he told his wife: "I've never gotten to know what sort of man he is." One official, who has known Mr.

Nixon well for many years and remains a White House aide, commented: "He is obviously a bad judge of character. But a lot was accomplished. So much more could have been accomplished but for these fun and games. It was such a stupid thing to happen." The march of events that brought about the President's downfall turned its last corner Monday when Mr. Nixon released the partial transcripts of three taped conversations he held on June 23, 1972 with Haldeman. It seemed inevitable then that this would be his last week in office, yet he continued to fight back and to insist that he would not resign. On Tuesday, the President held a Cabinet meeting and told his official family that he would not resign. On Wednesday, however, the end appeared near, for his support on Capitol Hill was disappearing at dizzying speed. There were demands from some of his staunchest supporters that he should resign at once. Late Wednesday, the President met with Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), House Minority Leader John J. Rhodes (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.).

They said afterward that the President had made no decision, but it was obvious later that for all intents and purposes the decision had been made despite what the leaders said. They obviously could not make the announcement for him, but it must have been apparent to them that the end was at hand. Later Wednesday, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger twice conferred with Mr. Nixon, first in the early evening for half an hour and then from 9:30 p.m. until midnight. It was not known whether the two men were alone or accompanied by Haig and others. Yesterday, Kissinger met with principal deputies in the State Department to tell them what to expect and to assign tasks to different people. Messages will be sent to heads of state to notify them formally of the change. A White House spokesman said more than 10,000 telephone calls were received in the past two days expressing "disbelief and the hope that the President would not resign." Thursday was a wet, humid August day, but despite intermittent rain the crowds packed the sidewalks in front of the White House. It was an orderly crowd, resigned and curious, watching newsmen come and go and being a part of a dramatic moment in the life of the nation.

© Copyright 1974 The Washington Post Co. Impeachment History How is a President Nominated and Elected Ticket of admission to the U.S. Senate galleries for the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson (Source:The Granger Collection) The right to impeach public officials is secured by the U.S. Constitution in Article I, Sections 2 and 3, which discuss the procedure, and in Article II, Section 4, which indicates the grounds for impeachment: "the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Removing an official from office requires two steps: (1) a formal accusation, or impeachment, by the House of Representatives , and (2) a trial and conviction by the Senate. Impeachment requires a majority vote of the House; conviction is more difficult, requiring a two-thirds vote by the Senate. The vice president presides over the Senate proceedings in the case of all officials except the president, whose trial is presided over by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

This is because the vice president can hardly be considered a disinterested party—if his or her boss is forced out of office he or she is next in line for the top job! What Are "High Crimes and Misdemeanors?" Bribery, perjury, and treason are among the least ambiguous reasons meriting impeachment, but the ocean of wrongdoing encompassed by the Constitution's stipulation of "high crimes and misdemeanors" is vast. Abuse of power and serious misconduct in office fit this category, but one act that is definitely not grounds for impeachment is partisan discord. Several impeachment cases have confused political animosity with genuine crimes. Since Congress, the vortex of partisanship, is responsible for indicting, trying, and convicting public officials, it is necessary for the legislative branch to temporarily cast aside its factional nature and adopt a judicial role. The Infamous Sixteen Since 1797 the House of Representatives has impeached sixteen federal officials. These include two presidents, a cabinet member, a senator, a justice of the Supreme Court, and eleven federal judges. Of those, the Senate has convicted and removed seven, all of them judges.

Not included in this list are the office holders who have resigned rather than face impeachment, most notably, President Richard M. Nixon. The Small Fry The first official impeached in this country was Senator William Blount of Tennessee for a plot to help the British seize Louisiana and Florida from Spain in 1797. The Senate dismissed the charges on Jan. 14, 1799, determining that it had no jurisdiction over its own members. The Senate and the House do, however, have the right to discipline their members, and the Senate expelled Blount the day after his impeachment. Judge John Pickering of New Hampshire was the first impeached official actually convicted. He was found guilty of drunkenness and unlawful rulings, on March 12, 1804, and was believed to have been insane. Associate Justice Samuel Chase, a strong Federalist, was impeached but acquitted of judicial bias against anti-Federalists. The acquittal on March 1, 1805, established that political differences were not grounds for impeachment. Other officials impeached were implicated in bribery, cheating on income tax, perjury, and treason. The Big Fish Two U.S.

presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth chief executive, and William J. Clinton, the forty-second. Johnson, a Southern Democrat who became president after Lincoln's assassination, supported a mild policy of Reconstruction after the Civil War. The Radical Republicans in Congress were furious at his leniency toward ex-Confederates and obvious lack of concern for ex-slaves, demonstrated by his veto of civil rights bills and opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment. To protect Radical Republicans in Johnson's administration and diminish the strength of the president, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which prohibited the president from dismissing office holders without the Senate's approval. A defiant Johnson tested the constitutionality of the Act by attempting to oust Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. His violation of the Act became the basis for impeachment in 1868. But the Senate was one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and Johnson was acquitted May 26, 1868.

Senator Charles Sumner, witness to the proceedings, defined them as "political in character." Historians today generally agree with his assessment and consider the grounds for Johnson's impeachment flimsy—the Tenure of Office Act was partially repealed in 1887,and then declared unconstitutional in 1926. Bill Clinton was ultimately dragged down—though not defeated—by the character issues brought into question even before his election. An investigation into some suspect real estate dealings in which Clinton was involved prior to his presidency failed to turn up any implicating evidence. However, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr managed to unravel a tangled web of alleged sexual advances and affairs in Clinton's past. The trail led to former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky . After months of denials, including in a videotaped legal testimony, Clinton admitted in August of 1998 that he had had a sexual relationship with the young woman during the time of her internship. The infamous "Starr Report" outlining the findings of the Independent Counsel's investigation was delivered to the House of Representatives on Sept. 9, 1998, and subsequently made available to the public.

Many felt the report, filled with lurid details of Clinton's sexual encounters with Lewinsky, to be a political attack against the President rather than a legal justification for his impeachment. Of the 11 possible grounds for impeachment cited by Starr, four were eventually approved by the House Judiciary Committee: grand jury perjury, civil suit perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. On December 19, following much debate over the constitutionality of the proceedings and whether or not Clinton could be punished by censure rather than impeachment, the House of Representatives held its historic vote. Clinton was impeached on two counts, grand jury perjury (228–206) and obstruction of justice (221–212), with the votes split along party lines. The Senate Republicans, however, were unable to gather enough support to achieve the two-thirds majority required for his conviction. On Feb. 12, 1999, the Senate acquitted President Clinton on both counts. The perjury charge failed by a vote of 55–45, with 10 Republicans voting against impeachment along with all 45 Democrats.

The obstruction of justice vote was 50–50, with 5 Republicans breaking ranks to vote against impeachment. The One That Got Away Of thirty-five attempts at impeachment, only nine have come to trial. Because it cripples Congress with a lengthy trial, impeachment is infrequent. Many officials, seeing the writing on the wall, resign rather than face the ignominy of a public trial. The most famous of these cases is of course that of President Richard Nixon, a Republican. After five men hired by Nixon's reelection committee were caught burglarizing Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Complex on June 17, 1972, President Nixon's subsequent behavior—his cover-up of the burglary and refusal to turn over evidence—led the House Judiciary Committee to issue three articles of impeachment on July 30, 1974. The document also indicted Nixon for illegal wiretapping, misuse of the CIA, perjury, bribery, obstruction of justice, and other abuses of executive power. "In all of this," the Articles of Impeachment summarize, "Richard M.

Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States." Impeachment appeared inevitable, and Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. The Articles of Impeachment, which can be viewed at , leave no doubt that these charges qualify as "high crimes and misdemeanors," justifying impeachment. More from the Presidential Factfile Did you know?

Question: How many US Presidents have resigned from office?
Answer: One