Nixon warned against hate then let it end his own presidency

Few lines from American political history carry as much irony as the one Richard Nixon delivered on 9 August 1974, a day after resigning as president. Speaking to his White House staff, he said: “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.” Historians note that Nixon experienced more public hostility than most presidents — and let resentment shape more of his decisions than almost any of them too.

Nixon’s rise to the presidency in 1969 followed one of the more remarkable comebacks in US political history. He had lost the 1960 election to John F Kennedy and then the 1962 California governor’s race, after which he told reporters, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” He rebuilt around the idea of a ‘silent majority’ and won the presidency in 1968, serving until 1974.

His achievements in office were substantial: the 1972 opening of diplomatic relations with China after more than two decades of isolation, détente with the Soviet Union through arms-control agreements, and domestically, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency along with reforms in environmental law, workplace safety and healthcare funding.

Despite this record, Nixon never stopped believing that powerful enemies surrounded him — in the media, among political rivals, and among elites. That belief hardened into the Watergate scandal, which began with a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s offices carried out by members of his own administration, even as Nixon headed toward a landslide re-election. Secret Oval Office recordings later revealed his role in the cover-up that followed, and it was that cover-up, not the original break-in, that ultimately destroyed public trust in him.

As Republican support collapsed and impeachment loomed, Nixon resigned on 8 August 1974, becoming the only US president to do so. The line he offered his staff the next day now reads as almost autobiographical: he was not undone by the people who hated him, but by how much of that hatred he let take hold of his own decisions.

Image: Wikimedia Commons (National Archives and Records Administration, public domain)