Resignation: "An Act of Statesmanship"

In urging President Nixon to resign, Senator James Buckley neither denounced Nixon nor prejudged the President's role in the Watergate scandal. The New York Conservative based his call on a tough assessment of the probability that Nixon has already been so irreparably damaged by the affair that he cannot govern effectively. Excerpts:

The Watergate affair had its faint origin in what was itself a trivial and foolish incident. But from this minor incident, Watergate has expanded on a scale that has plunged our country into what historians call a "crisis of the regime." [This] is a disorder, a trauma, involving every tissue of the nation, conspicuously including its moral and spiritual dimensions.

The outward signs of the depth of the crisis are obvious: the unparalleled downfall and departure of virtually the entire staff of the head of Government; the formal initiation of impeachment proceedings; the confessions, indictments and trials.

I don't think many of us have seriously considered what an impeachment trial would be like in the era of mass electronic communications. Public opinion would compel the proceedings to be televised. For three months or more the Senate chamber would be transformed into a stage set for the greatest melodrama ever conceived.

History would come to a stop for the duration--in the country and throughout the world. The ruler of the mightiest nation on earth would be starred as the prisoner in the dock. The chamber would become a 20th century Roman Colosseum as the performers are thrown to the electronic lions.

The most sordid dregs dug up by the Watergate miners would inflame the passions of the domestic audience and provoke the guffaws, prurient curiosity or amazement of the outside world. The audience would hear those magical tapes in full. Not only the words directly relevant to charges at issue, but all the surrounding talk and epithets of tough, earthy men speaking as such men do in their supposedly private dialogue.

Can anyone imagine that such a trial could bring the nation back on an even keel and steady course, that it could fail to hurt the presidency itself? The impeachment process cannot possibly resolve the crisis. It can only exacerbate it still more, with reverberations that will be felt not only through 1976 but for many years beyond.

Suppose the House votes articles of impeachment and the Senate convicts.

That result would leave a sizable, embittered, stubborn minority convinced that the media had hounded Richard Nixon out of office in order to upset the mandate of the 1972 vote and subvert what it believes to be the foundations of the Republic. On the other hand, suppose the House fails to impeach, or the Senate, judging a House-voted impeachment, fails to convict. With equal certainty that would leave a major segment of the constituency equally embittered and unreconciled, convinced that the Congress had placed political expediency above its duty. Does either outcome hold the slightest promise of domestic tranquillity?

There is one way and one way only by which the crisis can be resolved and the country pulled out of the Watergate swamp. I propose an extraordinary act of statesmanship and courage--an act at once noble and heartbreaking; at once serving the greater interests of the nation, the institution of the presidency, and the stated goals for which he [Nixon] so successfully campaigned. That act is Richard Nixon's own voluntary resignation as President of the United States.

Inevitably, the President is the focus, the essence of the crisis of the regime, the linchpin of its entire structure. The character of a regime always reflects and expresses the character of its leader. It is he who appoints his executive staff. If he does not explicitly command what his aides do and agents do, they in any event do what they sense and believe he wants them to do. The captain is responsible for his ship, the commander for his army. And Mr. Nixon has explicitly recognized this responsibility.

If the President withdrew, this crisis would be resolved. Watergate scars would remain, of course. The debris would have to be cleaned up.

I do not in the least imply belief that the President is legally guilty of any of the hundreds of charges brought against him by those sections of the media that have appointed themselves permanent grand juries and public prosecutors. My proposal reflects no personal judgment on the matter of guilt or innocence, for I have made none.

Nor do I propose Richard Nixon's resignation as a retreat by him, or as in any way acknowledging either guilt or weakness.

He would be succeeded by a man of his own choice; and one, most importantly, who is free of any connection whatever with the entire Watergate affair. Gerald Ford upholds the policies for which the electorate overwhehningly voted in November 1972. Therefore, his installation would be in no way a repudiation of the electoral mandate. Rather, it would reaffirm those goals [and] it would offer a much more favorable chance of realizing them than is possible while the crisis continues.

I am deeply aware, of course, that in recent weeks Richard Nixon has found several occasions to I say that he must defend the office of the President, and that he should not resign because that would weaken the office. But precisely the opposite is the case. As it now stands, the office of the President is in danger of succumbing to the death of a thousand cuts. The only way to save it is for the President to resign, leaving the office free to defend itself with a new incumbent.

Mr. Nixon argues that it would be destructive of the office for a President to be hounded out of office because he happens to have a low rating in the polls.

In normal circumstances I would agree.

But we have in the present case a qualitative difference that hinges not on the fact of a low rating but on the reasons for that rating. It does not reflect a dissatisfaction with one, or two, or a dozen specific issues. Rather it reflects an accumulative loss of faith that has eroded his credibility and moral authority; a loss that, in my judgment, is beyond repair.

I do not doubt that, as he sees and judges his own conduct, Richard Nixon has acted throughout this time of troubles for what he believed to be the well-being of his country. I hope and pray he will realize that the greatest and culminating action he can now take for this country is the renunciation of the world's highest office. His countrymen and the historians of the future, I feel sure, would judge that action in terms of the courage, patriotism and self-sacrifice it would so dramatically display.

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