Hindsight: 37 Years Ago

by Thomas Libby

On July 24, 1974, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court issued a historic decision in United States v. Nixon (418 U.S. 683 (1974)). The ruling limited executive privilege and ultimately brought down a president.

Born and raised in California, Richard Milhous Nixon practiced as a commercial litigator in La Habra before his election to California's 12th congressional district in 1946 and the U.S. Senate in 1950. The rising Republican star made a name for himself as an ardent anticommunist and referred to Democratic Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, a former actress and his opponent in the Senate race, as being "pink right down to her underwear." She retaliated by dubbing him "Tricky Dick," a withering nickname that stayed with him to the end of his life.

After burglars broke into national Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., on June 17, 1972, Washington Post and FBI investigations linked the thieves to increasingly high-ranking Nixon aides. The scandal escalated with the discovery of a secret White House recording system and possible evidence that Nixon knew about the break-in. Special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and later a Senate committee, subpoenaed the tapes, but Nixon, citing executive privilege, refused to relinquish them. The Supreme Court finally rejected the executive privilege claim and ordered the tapes released.

The so-called "smoking gun tape" revealed Nixon's knowledge of the cover-up from the beginning. With impeachment looming, Nixon--who nine months earlier had famously told America, "I am not a crook"--resigned the presidency.

Notwithstanding a pardon from his successor, President Gerald Ford, Nixon was disbarred in New York and resigned from the California bar before rumored disbarment proceedings could begin.

---