Nixon with Mills

Forty years ago today, Richard M. Nixon resigned as the President of the United States.  Five months earlier, in a press conference in Little Rock, Congressman Wilbur Mills predicted that Nixon would resign.  Mills, still chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, predicted that the resignation might be prompted by errors in his tax returns.  As part of investigations into Nixon resulting from Watergate, the President’s taxes were being reviewed by Congress.

Nixon had been the first Republican President since the Reconstruction era to win Arkansas and gain the state’s electoral votes in 1972.  The 1968 election cycle had seen third-party candidate George Wallace win the state’s votes though Nixon handily won that election too.

Little Rock weighed prominently in Nixon’s earlier career.  He was Vice President when Eisenhower sent the troops into Little Rock to ensure the Little Rock Nine would desegregate Central High School.  In a 1960 Presidential debate, he and Senator Kennedy were asked whether they would have sent in the troops.  Kennedy begrudgingly said that he would have, though he would have wished the situation were different.  Nixon did not really answer the question, but instead used it as an opportunity to point out that Senator Johnson, as Kennedy’s running mate, had actively opposed civil rights legislation at the time.

There are many other connections between Nixon and Little Rock.  During his Presidency he both relied up and clashed with Arkansas’ legislative giants: Mills, Senator J. William Fulbright and Senator John L. McClellan.  Hillary Clinton served on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee as it investigated Nixon.  It would be during Bill Clinton’s presidency that Nixon died.