Daily Herald opinion: Nixon's advice: A half century later, what lessons are we to take from the only presidential resignation in history?

Friday marked the half century anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation. Fifty years ago, a distance of almost a lifetime.

Those of us who witnessed it then in the flower of our youth remember it vividly now in wilting old age. Such was the enduring power of the historic moment, the resignation of a president to avoid certain impeachment. It had not happened before and has not happened since.

Those born too late to experience it likely cannot appreciate how much it was a time for tears — tears for our republic in celebration and relief but also in grief.

Celebration and relief because the institutional safeguards held — supported in no small part by the journalistic work and courage of Wheaton native Bob Woodward and with the salient footnote of an impeachment resolution brought by longtime Republican U.S. Rep. Robert McClory of Lake Bluff.

Grief because of the divisions caused by Nixon's corruption and because of the ineffable, myth-shattering tragedy of a president's fall. It marked the end of beliefs in cherry trees and presidents who cannot tell lies.

Those of us of conscious age at the time thought we never would live through such a historic event again. Now, of course, we have the unimaginable events of the past several years to remind us that history rolls on with frequent shock and awe like one relentless ticking clock waving forever and unpredictably forward.

A colleague on our Editorial Board reflects occasionally on the world his mother never knew after her death in 1988. She could not have guessed at the fall of the Berlin Wall only a year later and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union — or at Russia's attempts after a decade of fallacious peace to reconstitute it.

There are those who mock warnings that the republic could devolve into autocracy, who scoff at allusions to civil war. These are the irrational fears of political hypochondriacs, they say. And we certainly would not be comfortable in predicting either catastrophe.

But history teaches that we should not take anything for granted. History teaches that unforeseen events are common, not extraordinary. History teaches that just because it has not happened yet, we cannot assume it will not happen in the future.

As to Nixon, to those of us who came of age with him, he was an enigmatic personality and, we would say, a tragic figure. Brilliant, aspirational and dogged, on the one hand. Awkward, petulant and tormented, on the other. An introvert in an extrovert's game.

The creator of an enemies list, he was in many ways his own worst enemy. He wanted to be a great man and to do great things, but he seemed incapable of getting out of his own way.

Before heading to the helicopter on Aug. 9, 1974, Nixon stopped to say farewell to his assembled staff and cabinet. It was a rambling, personal speech and largely extemporaneous, providing in, yes, awkward fashion, poignant insight into the prideful heartbreak that he felt that day.

It also provided, at the end, this surprisingly perceptive advice that we who witnessed it still hear:

“Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

Eloquent advice. Not just then, but now too.