Watergate History: Richard Nixon Resignation Commemorative Cover Postmarked August 9, 1974

Richard Nixon Watergate

Ephemera

Richard Nixon Resigns as 37th President of the United States, 1974, commemorates the unprecedented resignation that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency during the Watergate crisis, providing a precisely dated artifact for the study of Watergate, presidential succession, political commemoration, and American political culture. Nixon became the first United States president to resign from office on August 9, 1974, following the investigations and constitutional confrontations arising from the Watergate break in and its cover up.

Richard Nixon Resigns as 37th President of the United States. Washington, D.C., August 9, 1974. Prestamped commemorative envelope bearing an image of Nixon and printed text concerning the Watergate era resignation, prominently reading, “Richard Nixon Resigns as 37th President of the United States.” The envelope carries a Washington, D.C. postmark reading “Aug 9, 1974 AM,” placing its postal cancellation in the nation’s capital on the morning of Nixon’s departure from office. The combination of portraiture, declarative resignation text, and same day cancellation gives the piece particular documentary specificity as political and postal ephemera associated with the transfer of presidential power.

Nixon had announced his decision to resign in a televised address on August 8; on the following morning he signed his formal resignation letter, which became effective when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger initialed it at 11:35 a.m. Gerald Ford was sworn in as the thirty eighth president at 12:05 p.m. The envelope’s “AM” cancellation therefore corresponds to the morning on which Nixon’s resignation formally took effect, giving the object a direct chronological relationship to the first presidential resignation in United States history. It offers a compact record of how a constitutional and political crisis was immediately translated into commemorative material culture and supports research into Watergate, presidential imagery, political ephemera, and the public documentation of major national events. No specific defects are reported; near fine. A closely dated piece of Watergate ephemera distinguished by its Washington cancellation on the day Nixon left the presidency.

Item #13008

Price: $75.00