Joseph Papin drawings, “Report Card for Richard Nixon” (National Review, June 3, 1969).
The drawing above is another Papin drawing from the same article, “Report Card for Richard Nixon” (National Review, June 3, 1969). It’s interesting that this drawing was done in 1969 – a little more than five years before Nixon resigned. In light of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the two impeachments of Trump (December 2019 and January 13, 2021), the fact that Nixon chose to resign rather than be impeached has begun to seem like he at least chose to bow out with a modicum of grace.
It is also interesting that the National Review was a staunchly conservative publication while Joseph Papin was very much a liberal. However, Papin did these drawings for the National Review in the days when even profound differences in political persuasion did not prevent civil dialog or the ability to work together, as is often the unfortunate situation today.
Joseph Papin drawings from his portfolio page, above
“The presidency of Richard Nixon began on January 20, 1969, when Richard Nixon was inaugurated as the 37th president of the United States, and ended on August 9, 1974, when, in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office, he resigned the presidency (the first U.S. president ever to do so).” (Timeline of the Richard Nixon presidency, Wikipedia)
Regarding Watergate, “During the night of June 17, 1972, five burglars broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC. Investigation into the break-in exposed a trail of abuses that led to the highest levels of the Nixon administration and ultimately to the President himself.
“On the evening of August 8, 1974, President Nixon addressed the nation and announced his intention to resign. … On September 8, 1974, the new President, Gerald Ford, issued a full pardon to the former President for any offenses he ‘has committed or may have committed.’ Even before President Nixon’s resignation, speculation had swirled around the possibility that the new President might pardon him, but at the time and later in his memoirs, President Ford strongly denied that there was any ‘deal’ to trade a pardon for a Presidential resignation. In his televised address announcing the pardon, President Ford said that trying President Nixon would only further inflame political passions and prevent the country from moving forward. He also said that Nixon and his family had suffered enough, that he might not be able to receive a fair trial, and that a trial might prove inconclusive.
“The resignation and pardon mark the conclusion of the events we know as Watergate. For two years, public revelations of wrongdoing inside the White House had convulsed the nation in a series of confrontations that pitted the President against the media, executive agencies, the Congress, and the Supreme Court. The Watergate affair was a national trauma—a constitutional crisis that tested and affirmed the rule of law.” (archivesfoundation.org/documents/richard-nixon-resignation-letter-gerald-ford-pardon)
Joseph Papin Courtroom Illustration Collection, Library of Congress # PR 13 CN 2015:128.3180 Section of drawing of tapes
New York Times article, May 5, 1977:
“NIXON, CONCEDING HE LIED, SAYS ‘I LET THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DOWN,’ DENIES ANY CRIME ON WATERGATE; ‘IMPEACHED MYSELF’; In TV Interview With Frost Former President Says Motives Were Political By James M. Naughton Special to The New York Times. (https://www.nytimes.com/1977/05/05/archives/nixon-conceding-he-lied-says-i-let-the-american-people-down-denies.html)
“WASHINGTON, May 4 [1977] Former President Richard M. Nixon said tonight that he had ‘let the American people down’ by lying, disregarding his constitutional oath and abetting the Watergate cover‐up while in the White House.
“But the former President insisted, in a nationally televised interview, that he had committed no criminal or impeachable offenses because his deeds sprang, he said, from purely political and humanitarian motives.
“‘I brought myself down,’ Mr. Nixon told David Frost in the emotional peak of an interview videotaped last month. ‘I have impeached myself,’ he said, ‘by resigning.’”
“The dramatic apologia, marking Mr. Nixon’s first public comment on the Watergate scandal since it cut short his Presidency 999 days ago, nonetheless was more rueful than remorseful.
“He refused repeatedly, in long and sometimes sharp exchanges with the British interviewer, to concede that his conduct had amounted to obstruction of justice. The former President offered personal interpretation of that law that Mr. Frost immediately challenged on the basis of his own reading of the statute just before the interview was taped.
“Mr. Nixon specifically denied knowing in advance of the June 17, 1972, burglary at the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate office complex here, condoning payment of hush money to the Watergate burglars and coaching White House aides on how to avoid perjury charges.
…”In an exchange toward the end of the interview, in which Mr. Frost urged him to apologize to the nation for having put it through two years of trauma, both Mr. Nixon and Mr. Frost seemed on the verge of losing their composure. It was a scene reminiscent of Mr. Nixon’s emotional farewell speech on the day he resigned. …
“The two men seemed on the verge of tears in the climactic final moments of their encounter as they leaned toward one another. The videotape darkened briefly, reportedly to mask the excision of the minutes it took Mr. Frost, as much as Mr. Nixon, to regain composure after the former President had looked off to the side and said:
“‘My political life is over. I will never yet, and never again have an opportunity to serve in any official position. Maybe I can give a little advice from time to time.’
Moments later, Mr. Nixon offered this counsel: “It was so botched up. I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones, mistakes of the heart rather than the head, as I pointed out. But let me say a man in that top judge, top job, he’s gotta have a heart but his head must always rule his heart.” (https://www.nytimes.com/1977/05/05/archives/nixon-conceding-he-lied-says-i-let-the-american-people-down-denies.html)
Montage by Joseph Papin of his drawings for the Soho Weekly News and the New York Daily News
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