Nixon Resigns – 40th Anniversary

Richard Nixon

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency and returned to his home in La Casa Pacifica in
San Clemente, California, about a mile from an area I spend considerable time.

While Nixon was weak on constitutional and criminal law, he knew real estate. La Casa Pacifica has been maintained as it was when he left it in 1979. It is a magnificent home, used some as a location in the movie Frost/Nixon.

La Casa Pacifica

After a pardon from President Ford, weathering a near fatal bout of phlebitis and causing the public punishment of Republicans with a 43-member loss in November, Nixon was at the depths of his despair. It was during that dark winter and at his former Western White House that Nixon planned and staged his dogged return to prominence and some measure of respect, at least in foreign policy.

Nixon famously said: “A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.” Nixon never quit, but he also never really made it back.