Nixon says he’s ‘not a crook,’ Nov. 17, 1973
On this day in 1973, as the Watergate scandal — which less than nine months later would claim his presidency — gathered force, President Richard Nixon told newspaper editors at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., that he was “not a crook.”
Nixon flew to Orlando from his Key Biscayne, Fla., home to hold a televised Q & A session with some 400 Associated Press managing editors. They wanted to know more about his role in the 1972 burglary at Washington’s Watergate complex and about efforts to cover up the fact that his reelection committee had funded a botched attempt to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee.
Asserting that he had never profited from his public service, Nixon said, “I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. 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.”
Asked why he chose to fly on Air Force One without a backup plane, the usual protocol for presidential flights, Nixon said that by taking only one aircraft, he was saving energy, taxpayers’ money and, possibly, time spent in the impeachment process. As he put it: “If this one goes down, they don’t have to impeach [me].”
He acknowledged, however, that he had “made a mistake” in not having more closely supervised his campaign’s activities. Carroll Kilpatrick, The Washington Post’s White House correspondent, reported that “Mr. Nixon was tense and sometimes misspoke.”
In the end, as evidence of Nixon’s direct involvement in the coverup mounted, his support among Senate conservatives, including key Republicans, continued to erode. Faced with the eventual prospect of a Senate impeachment trial, on Aug. 8, 1974, he announced his intention to resign the following day.
Source: “All the President’s Men,” by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward (1974)