Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 7/1974 In the first quarter of 1974, the US GNP declined by 5.8%, and by July it was clear the US was in a recession.
  
• 7/1974 Nixon stated, "The President is not going to leave the White House until January 20, 1977." (Don't Quote Me, Atyeo & Green)
  
• 7/1/1974 Time magazine reported that 29 of the 38 members of the House Judiciary Committee favored impeachment.
  
• 7/1/1974 Kalmbach surrendered to a US marshal to begin serving a prison term.
  
• 7/2/1974 St. Clair wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court that the President is constitutionally entitled to immunity from judicial orders because of the separation of powers.
  
• 7/2/1974 David Young, former co-director of the Plumbers, testified that he talked with Ehrlichman about a "covert operation" against Ellsberg before the break-in at the office of his psychiatrist.
  
• 7/2/1974 Robert Bennett testified before the Nedzi committee: "I have told Woodward everything I know about the Watergate case, except the Mullen Company's tie to the CIA. I never mentioned that to him. It has never appeared in any Washington Post story."
  
• 7/2/1974 Alexander Butterfield told the House Judiciary Committee that Nixon kept a close watch on everything that went on in the White House.
  
• 7/2/1974 Washington Post story by Laurence Stern about Sen. Baker's dissent: "Baker to Say CIA Helped Hunt Get Job."
  
• 7/3/1974 Nixon left Moscow to return to the US.
  
• 7/3/1974 Sen. Baker announced that Howard Hunt had asked former superiors at the CIA for agents skilled in burglary before the break-in at the Watergate, and that the CIA concealed what it knew about the Watergate and Ellsberg break-ins than it told the FBI. Baker also said the CIA had refused to make many documents and witnesses available.
  
• 7/3/1974 Egil Krogh testified at Ehrlichman's trial that Ehrlichman had given the go-ahead on the eve of the Ellsberg break-in.
  
• 7/3/1974 Colson testified that Kissinger in 1971 had urged dissemination of material against Ellsberg.
  
• 7/3/1974 Haldeman told the Judiciary Committee he would take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before its impeachment inquiry.
  
• 7/3/1974 Former CREEP lawyer Paul L. O'Brien stated that Hunt had not explicitly made a blackmail threat against Nixon.
  
• 7/4/1974 Nixon spends the weekend at Key Biscayne. Nixon's physician, Dr. Walter R. Tkach, said he warned Nixon before the his trip to the Middle East that the phlebitis in his left leg could be fatal. He confirmed for the first time that a blood clot had formed.
  
• 7/4/1974 At a Texas luncheon, Jaworski called Watergate a "calamitous burden" for the country.
  
• 7/6/1974 Prosecution concluded its case in Ehrlichman's trial.
  
• 7/6/1974 Kissinger's attorneys moved unsuccessfully to keep him from testifying at the trial.
  
• 7/6/1974 Ford spoke at the Dallas World Trade Center. He made no reference to an incident involving his motorcade; a shattered police window in a patrol car led to police reports - later reversed - that a sniper had fired on the motorcade as it moved from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to the downtown area. (The Breaking of a President 401) "FORD IN DALLAS Vice President Gerald Ford is shown at press conference in the World Trade Center Building in Dallas Tex Saturday The Vice President is here to dedicate the new facility. Texas Department of Safety said the windshield of a patrol car in the Vice President's motorcade had a window shattered by sniper fire but they later said the window was damaged by heat expansion." (Winona Daily News 7/7/74)
  
• 7/6/1974 Ford told the press that the odds against impeachment "have fallen considerably" and that the case against Nixon "has fallen flat...I have detected a movement in the House that is favorable to the President. No impeachable offense has been found..."
  
• 7/7/1974 Nixon talked with St. Clair.
  
• 7/8/1974 Colson began serving his prison sentence. Colson was quoted in Time magazine: "I don't say this to my people. They'd think I'm nuts. I think the CIA killed Dorothy Hunt."
  
• 7/8/1974 Ehrlichman denied having foreknowledge of the Ellsberg break-in.
  
• 7/8/1974 Supreme Court heard arguments on whether Nixon can be forced to surrender tapes for the Watergate trial.
  
• 7/8/1974 Haldeman has approached at least four NY publishers to offer them his memoirs for $1 million.
  
• 7/9/1974 Earl Warren died at the age of 83 of heart disease.
  
• 7/9/1974 Washington lawyer William Treadwell testified at the Plumbers trial that Krogh and David Young once said that Ehrlichman didn't authorize the Ellsberg break-in or know of it in advance.
  
• 7/9/1974 House Judiciary Committee issued its own transcripts of some of the Watergate tapes, and found considerable differences between theirs and the Nixon transcripts.
  
• 7/10/1974 Reg Murphy, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, headlined his column, "Jimmy Carter's Running for WHAT?"
  
• 7/10/1974 In a written affidavit, Nixon again stated he didn't authorize the Ellsberg break-in.
  
• 7/10/1974 In testimony lasting less than 2 minutes, Kissinger swore he never ordered a psychological profile of Ellsberg.
  
• 7/12/1974 Earl Warren was buried at Arlington National Cemetary.
  
• 7/12/1974 The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act was enacted. Created the Congressional Budget Office.
  
• 7/12/1974 Ehrlichman was found guilty by a Washington jury of conspiring to break in to Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.
  
• 7/15/1974 Jack Anderson column about Charles Colson being secretly recorded by private eye Richard Bast a few days before he went to prison: "Unaware of the turning reels, Colson speculated that the CIA planned a Seven Days in May' takeover of the government. He also asserted that the Pentagon practiced extortion to keep President Nixon from arresting military men who stole his secrets…[He and Nixon] discussed how Mr. Nixon could rid himself of CIA and military spying on the White House."
  
• 7/15/1974 Christine Chubbuck, an American television news reporter, committed suicide during a live television broadcast.
  
• 7/20/1974 Turkey invades Cyprus in dispute with Greece.
  
• 7/22/1974 William Greider commented in the Washington Post: "Even the most bullish Democrats conceded that their investigation did not produce a thunderous concensus that Mr. Nixon should be removed from office, the kind of compelling bipartisan agreement which would remove all doubt about the outcome."
  
• 7/23/1974 In secret testimony before the Senate, Kissinger blamed the wiretap program entirely on Hoover.
  
• 7/23/1974 Nixon noted that Haig was "not ready to give up...it would not only look like an admission of guilt, but...would mean a dangerously easy victory for the radicals - not just over me but over the system." (RN)
  
• 7/24/1974 11:20am (EST) Supreme Court rules 8-0 that Nixon must turn over the 64 tapes sought by Jaworski; Rehnquist had disqualified himself from hearing this case.
  
• 7/24/1974 4pm (PST) St. Clair told the press that Nixon would "comply with the decision."
  
• 7/24/1974 Meeting between Buzhardt, Garment, Dean Burch (coordinator of Nixon's political defense) and William Timmons, Nixon's liaison chief. Timmons and Burch felt that the Court's ruling meant that Nixon should give up and resign. Buzhardt had told Nixon early that morning that the Court's ruling would probably not be in their favor. Haig, in California with Nixon, then called Washington and told them to begin transcribing the tapes - from duplicates so as not to risk damaging the originals. (Breach of Faith)
  
• 7/24/1974 Nixon kept himself busy this day working on a major speech on inflation. Haig and Ray Price both reported him as being cool and collected.
  
• 7/24/1974 Buzhardt later revealed that on this day he suggested to Nixon by a call to Haig and St. Clair that Nixon could pardon himself and all of the Watergate defendants, and then resign. (1/1976 Washington Post)
  
• 7/27/1974 House Judiciary Committee passed first article of impeachment - Obstruction of Justice. Nixon would recall that Haig and Ziegler continued to urge Nixon to hold out at this point. (RN)
  
• 7/27/1974 Hours after the first article of impeachment was passed, Haig told 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace that the charges against Nixon were "a grab bag of generalities...the case for impeachment is not there."
  
• 7/28/1974 Nixon, Haig and Ziegler returned to Washington.
  
• 7/29/1974 Bribery and perjury indictments were returned against John Connally and Texas lawyer Jake Jacobsen.
  
• 7/29/1974 The first 20 of the 64 subpoenaed conversations were delivered to Sirica's office.
  
• 7/29/1974 Four bishops ordain 11 women as Episcopal priests in defiance of church law.
  
• 7/29/1974 House Judiciary Committee passed second article of impeachment, on Abuse of Power.
  
• 7/29/1974 "Mama" Cass Elliot, the "Earth Mother" of Laurel Canyon whose circle of friends included musicians, Mansonites, young Hollywood stars, the wealthy son of a State Department official, singer/songwriters, assorted drug dealers, and some particularly unsavory characters the LAPD once described as "some kind of hit squad," died in the London home of Harry Nilsson on July 29, 1974 (Nilsson had been a frequent drinking buddy of John Lennon in Laurel Canyon and on the Sunset Strip). At thirty-two, Cass had lived a long and productive life, by Laurel Canyon standards. Four years later, in the very same room of the very same London flat, still owned by Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon of The Who also died at thirty-two (on September 7, 1978). Though initial press reports held that Cass had choked to death on a ham sandwich, the official cause of death was listed as heart failure. Her actual cause of death could likely be filed under "knowing where too many of the bodies were buried.".
  
• 7/30/1974 House Judiciary Committee passed third article of impeachment, on contempt of Congress and Defiance of Committee Subpoenas; article IV was voted down. It dealt with waging a secret, illegal war in Cambodia.
  
• 7/30/1974 Nixon again listened to the 6/23/1972 tape and angrily disagreed with Buzhardt that it marked the end of the fight. (Breach of Faith 10) Buzhardt told Haig precisely what lay on the tapes; Haig decided he had to read the transcript for himself. (Breach of Faith 11)
  
• 7/31/1974 Haig read the transcript of the 6/23/1972 tape and realized that Nixon had to resign because what was left of his political support would disappear; Haig would later act as though he had never heard of that tape before, calling it "new evidence." "If Haig could get the facts before the President clearly, he was certain that the President would act beyond himself in the national interest and resign...Yet, with too much pressure, something might trigger the combat instinct in Richard Nixon...Haig was dealing with a time-bomb which, if not defused in just the right way, might blow the course of all American history apart." (Ted White, Breach of Faith)
  
• Summer 1974 Sears, Roebuck and Company was accused of bait-and-switch selling tactics by the Chicago regional office of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) during the summer of 1974. Sears was accused of systematically engaging in bait-and-switch selling tactics -- advertising low priced products, then making them unattractive or unavailable and pushing higher priced items on the baited customer. Sears emphatically denied the allegations. Douglas Collins documented the lack of mass media coverage given to the charges against Sears. Only one of 38 major newspapers gave the story front page coverage. Only one of the three TV networks even mentioned the story on its evening news. Then, nearly two years later, in February, 1976, the trial began before an FTC administrative law judge in Chicago. After 11 days of hearings, Sears abandoned its emphatic denial and sought to negotiate a consent order. This time, Michael Hirsh, told the story of how "The Sins of Sears Are Not News in Chicago" in the Columbia Journalism Review. One might think the story of how the world's largest retailer used illegal bait-and-switch tactics to deceive its customers would be a major story for the mass media. After all, 30 percent of all households in the United States have an account at Sears. However, Sears is also the nation's third most lavish advertiser. The lack of public knowledge about Sears' illegal selling tactics qualifies this story for nomination as one of the "best censored" stories of 1976. SOURCES: "How They Covered the Story" by Douglas Collins, Media and Consumer, September 1974, p 9. "The Sins of Sears Are Not News in Chicago" by Michael Hirsh, Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 1976, p 29.
  
• 8/1974 In the past year, the US Wholesale Price Index rose almost 18%.
  
• 8/1974 George Wallace described himself as "a victim of Watergate."
  
• 8/1974 Jack Anderson disclosed that Colson had met with Gordon Novel 3/1974 to discuss how Nixon's White House tapes could be destroyed by a magnetic erasure technique that wouldn't require them to handle the tapes in any way. Novel recalled that Colson had also talked of using the erasing machine to destroy some secret CIA recordings. Novel then went to Texas to see an associate about the erasure plan; Colson claimed the whole erasing discussion was just a "joke." (Coincidence or Conspiracy 522-3)
  
• 8/1/1974 (Thur) This morning, Nixon told Haig he had decided to resign. (RN)
  
• 8/1/1974 Haig met with Ford and advised him to be ready assume the presidency at any moment, and gave him various options on the possibility of pardoning Nixon; one of these options included the idea that Nixon might be able to pardon himself. Ford described himself as "shocked and stunned" about the seriousness of the newly released evidence and needed time to think about the possibility of a pardon.
  
• 8/1/1974 Haig talked with Nixon loyalist Sen. Eastland, who told him that the Senate would convict Nixon based on the new evidence. (Breach of Faith)
  
• 8/1/1974 Tonight, Nixon dined with Rebozo, telling him of his decision to resign. (RN)
  
• 8/2/1974 (Fri) James St. Clair repeated to Ford the seriousness of the evidence against Nixon. Ford told Haig that he was not going to recommend to Nixon whether or not to resign.
  
• 8/2/1974 Haig met with staunch Nixon loyalist Rep. Charles Wiggins; Haig let Wiggins in on the seriousness of the new evidence, who now became convinced that Nixon had to resign. Haig also called Nixon defender Sen. Robert Griffin and made him aware of the evidence. (Breach of Faith)
  
• 8/2/1974 John Dean is sentenced to one to four years in prison.
  
• 8/2/1974 Tonight, Ray Price and Pat Buchanan were given the transcripts to read and both were angry at having been lied to; both felt Nixon should resign. (Breach of Faith)
  
• 8/3/1974 (Sat) St. Clair now leaned toward a Senate trial, and Haig seemed to hesitate as well. (With Nixon)
  
• 8/3/1974 Today and the 4th, Raymond Price prepared two draft speeches, one a resignation speech, and the other a defiant declaration that he had done nothing "that justifies removing a duly elected president from office...We must not let this office be destroyed - or let it fall such easy prey to those who would exult in the breaking of the president that the game becomes a national habit." The latter was never delivered. Haig recalled that Nixon was torn between wanting to fight and wanting to give up. (AP 12/16/1996)
  
• 8/3/1974 Pat Buchanan met with Rebozo and Nixon's daughters, who wanted him to urge Nixon to fight; Buchanan told them to be practical and face the reality that he would either have to resign or be impeached. That afternoon, Ziegler was spreading the word that Nixon was going to fight. (Breach of Faith)
  
• 8/4/1974 (Sun) Nixon decided to simply release the tape transcripts the next day with an explanatory statement.
  
• 8/4/1974 NY Times reports that an unpublished Senate Watergate committee staff report theorizes that the break-in was prompted by fear of the Hughes-Rebozo contribution being made public.
  
• 8/5/1974 (Mon) Nixon signs a bill authorizing $22.2 billion for weapons research and procurement for FY 1975.
  
• 8/5/1974 4pm The White House released a transcript of 6/23/1972 tape that revealed that he had approved the cover-up only 6 days after the Watergate break-in. His remaining Congressional support vanishes; staunch supporter Charles Wiggins announces he will vote for impeachment. Sen. Robert Griffin urges Nixon to resign.
  
• 8/5/1974 Saturday, Sunday and today, Ford had been stating in speeches in the South that he saw no reason why Nixon should be impeached. He said he had not read the transcripts released so far.
  
• 8/5/1974 Asst Senate minority leader Robert P. Griffin (R-Michigan) said he thought Nixon should resign.
  
• 8/5/1974 Senate Foreign Relations committee released a report charging that US ambassador to Vietnam Graham Martin had held back or altered reports to Washington that made the situation in that country look bad.
  
• 8/5/1974 Haig called Jaworski to assure him that Nixon hadn't told him about the contents of the 6/23 tape until just recently. (The Right and the Power)
  
• 8/5/1974 Haig met with the White House staff and urged them to "all keep going for the good of the nation. And I also hope you would do it for the President too."
  
• 8/6/1974 (Tues) Republicans in Congress announced that most of them now favored impeachment of Nixon. House Minority Leader John Rhodes (R-Arizona) announced he and all members of the House Judiciary Committee would vote to impeach. The GOP Senators felt that Nixon was not aware how dire his situation was. Nixon supporters felt they had been deceived by Nixon's 8/5 admission of a coverup.
  
• 8/6/1974 Gov. Ronald Reagan said that he felt there was enough evidence for impeachment, and urged that the process "go forward" swiftly. But Reagan refused to call for Nixon's resignation; he felt it was "imperative" that all questions be answered during impeachment proceedings. Goldwater remarked in a Senate lunchroom, "Nixon should get his ass out of the White House - today!" (Nightmare)
  
• 8/6/1974 Nixon urged his cabinet to stick with him through the impeachment trial; he told Ford and George Bush that he would not resign. Kissinger and Haig saw this as phony bravado on Nixon's part, but others would leak stories that Nixon was losing touch with reality. Ford refused to take part in urging Nixon to resign. That afternoon, James Schlesigner gave secret orders that no military unit was to accept an order from "the White House" without Schlesinger's okay. Schlesinger would soon leak this act to the press in a background interview.
  
• 8/6/1974 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted unanimously to clear Kissinger on charges he had misled them about his role in the 1969-71 wiretapping; A Kissinger spokesman announces he is "gratified" and "no longer sees any reason for resignation."
  
• 8/6/1974 Julie Nixon wrote her father, urging him to "go through the fire just a little bit longer."
  
• 8/6/1974 Bill Clinton on Nixon, quoted in the Arkansas Democrat: "There's not any point now in his putting the country through an impeachment since he isn't making any pretense of innocence now...I think it's plain that the president should resign and spare the country the agony of this impeachment and removal proceeding. I think the country could be spared a lot of agony and the government could worry about inflation and a lot of other problems if he'd go on and resign." Clinton, a law professor at the University of Arkansas, said there was "no question that an admission of making false statements to government officials and interfering with the FBI and the CIA is an impeachable offense."
  
• 8/7/1974 (Wed) 5pm (EST) Republican leaders Hugh Scott, John Rhodes and Goldwater tell Nixon that "the situation is very gloomy on Capitol Hill." Goldwater tells the press that Nixon has no more than 15 votes in the Senate.
  
• 8/7/1974 A Gallup poll showed that 64% of the American people thought there should be an impeachment trial in the Senate, and 55% thought Nixon should be removed from office.
  
• 8/7/1974 Haldeman called the White House and reached Al Haig; according to Haig, Haldeman told him that Nixon had to be pardoned or he could "send Nixon to jail."
  
• 8/7/1974 St. Clair told Sirica he can't find any tapes of nine of the 64 subpoenaed conversations.
  
• 8/7/1974 Nixon spent the day meeting with family and top aides. Haig urged him to resign. Ed Cox and David Eisenhower urged Pat Buchanan to get Nixon to go through an impeachment fight; Buchanan disagreed with them. (Breach of Faith)
  
• 8/7/1974 A letter from RNC chairman George Bush to Nixon urged him to resign: "If you do leave office history will properly record your achievements with a lasting respect."
  
• 8/7/1974 Tonight, Nixon told Haig and Kissinger he planned to resign in the interest of the country.
  
• 8/8/1974 (Thur) Kissinger agrees to stay on as Secretary of State.
  
• 8/8/1974 11am Ford met with Nixon.
  
• 8/8/1974 Right-wing congressman Earl Landgrebe (R-Indiana) told reporters, "Don't confuse me with the facts. I've got a closed mind. I will not vote for impeachment. I'm going to stick with my president even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot."
  
• 8/8/1974 9pm In a televised address Nixon announces he will resign at noon the next day.
  
• 8/8/1974 Jaworski announces he has made no deal with Nixon for immunity.
  
• 8/8/1974 Ford praises Nixon's action as "one of the greatest personal sacrifices for the country and one of the finest personal decisions on behalf of all of us as Americans."
  
• 8/9/1974 (Fri) Nixon resigns in "the interests of the nation," saying he no longer had "a strong enough political base in Congress." He and Pat flew to California. His resignation letter is delivered to Kissinger at 11:35am.
  
• 8/9/1974 12:03pm Ford is sworn in and tells the nation, "our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men." He pledged to run an "open and candid administration...I believe that the truth is the glue that holds government together..."
  
• 8/9/1974 This evening, Al Haig was busy burning documents in an office fireplace. When Haig left the White House that night, he told a Kissinger aide, "We'll be back. Believe me, we'll be back." (The General's Progress; Palace Politics)
  
• 8/9/1974 Columnist Marquis Childs wrote that Lyndon Johnson "was on a public payroll all his life until he left the presidency...Yet after his death in 1973, his estate was estimated at $35 to $40 million...The bulk of the estate was in valuable television and radio properties and in large landholdings...the Wall Street Journal did an in-depth investigation of how the President and Mrs Johnson acquired the TV stations...I was at the [LBJ] ranch as the Journal articles appeared and the President vented his wrath in typical Johnsonian fashion. Power and money were the two poles of attraction for Connally and his mentor."
  
• 8/9/1974 Gov. Reagan states that he felt Nixon's resignation would help Republican candidates in the November elections. Reagan also urged that Ford appoint Barry Goldwater as vice-president.
  
• 8/10/1974 Haig described to Ford how the White House worked using a "fat black briefing book," but when Ford asked him for a copy, Haig refused. (A Ford Not a Lincoln)
  
• 8/11/1974 The NYT's Stephen Farber writes about movies that deal with assassinations: "Alan J. Pakula's "The Parallax View" is probably the most mindless and irresponsible of the lot…There is a germ of a satiric idea herethe notion that America is so completely capitalistic that even assassination becomes a business proposition: maybe this solemn, ponderous movie would have worked better as a wicked black comedy…One thing we should have learned from Watergate is that while conspiracies do indeed affect the lives of all Americans, they are not quite so efficient or omnipotent as even the conspirators themselves would like to believe…Hollywood's new conspiratorial fantasies promote cynicism, self-righteousness, and complacencyan unhealthy combination."
  
• 8/12/1974 Ford appears before a joint session of Congress. He urged Congress to cooperate in fighting inflation (which he called "our domestic public enemy No.1"), and to use restraint in wage and price action. He admonished General Motors on price hike.
  
• 8/12/1974 Ford made his first veto - of a bill to upgrade deputy U.S. Marshals because it would create serious pay inequities with other Federal law enforcement personnel.
  
• 8/13/1974 Ford pledged to have "an open, honest government." The next day columnist Jack Anderson called him "an intensely human President, basically decent, inherently honest, without guile."
  
• 8/13/1974 Conservative Republican Congressman H.R. Gross told Clark Mollenhoff that Ford was an untrustworthy compromiser and deal-maker, "and don't you forget it." (The Man Who Pardoned Nixon 84)
  
• 8/15/1974 Clay Shaw was pronounced dead at the Ochsner Foundation Hospital at 1pm; no autopsy was performed. Clay Shaw, implicated in JFK conspiracy by Jim Garrison, his finances depleted after the years of defending himself and despondent over revelations of his homosexual connections dies of cancer in New Orleans. The circumstances of his death are extremely odd. One of Shaw's neighbors witnesses unidentified men carrying a stretcher, which holds a sheet-covered body, into Shaw's carriage house, through the front door. The neighbor, thinking this unusual, calls the coroner. Investigators are immediately dispatched to Shaw's home. When they arrive, the men and the body have vanished. Inquires a day later will reveal that Shaw has already been buried in his home town of Kentwood.
  
• 8/15/1974 Sen. Fulbright opened hearings on Kissinger's policies and detente; Fulbright stated, "The heart and core of the policy of detente...is the lessening of the danger of nuclear war...There is no rational alternative."
  
• 8/15/1974 Buzhardt resigned.
  
• 8/15-18/1974 Ford received a visit from King Hussein of Jordan.
  
• 8/15/1974 Park Chung Hee, president of South Korea, was the target of a failed attempt on his life by assassins who fatally shot his wife instead.
  
• 8/17/1974 Ford signed the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Act.
  
• 8/17/1974 Los Angeles Times quoted Billy Graham on the profanity and thuggery revealed on the Nixon White House Tapes: "Those tapes revealed a man I never knew. I never saw that side of him."
  
• 8/19/1974 Rodger P. Davies, U.S. ambassador to Cyprus, was shot to death in Nicosia.
  
• 8/19/1974 Ford announced that he favored "leniency" for Vietnam draft evaders and deserters.
  
• 8/20/1974 Congress cuts aid to Saigon from $1 billion to $700 million.
  
• 8/20/1974 Ford announced he would nominate Nelson Rockefeller for VP. The move was viewed with suspicion by conservatives. Ford had up to this point indicated he would retire from politics in 1976; now he said he would run for the presidential nomination that year.
  
• 8/21/1974 Ford signs a bill providing $25 billion to support primary and secondary schools over the next four years; it includes a restriction on busing.
  
• 8/22/1974 Ford signed "with great pleasure" an $11.1 billion bill "of perhaps historic significance" substituting a single block grant for community development for seven categorical programs such as urban renewal and model cities.
  
• 8/22/1974 Ford proclaimed August 26 as Women's Equality Day, declaring that "Americans must deal with those inequities that still linger as barriers to the full participation of women in the Nation's life."
  
• 8/22/1974 House Judiciary Committee issued its final report on Watergate.
  
• 8/23/1974 John Lennon walked out on to the balcony of his New York apartment, and witnessed what he later described as a "Flying Saucer" hovering closely, just above his window. This article includes an interview with Lennon's assistant/girlfriend May Pang, who also witnessed the event, which completely describes the encounter. "It looked like a flattened cone with a brilliant light on top." -May Pang, assistant to John Lennon, describing the object they allegedly saw from Lennon's balcony in NY City. The fact that Lennon was so famous and controversial at that time makes his apparent UFO sighting all the stranger. On August 23rd, 1974 Lennon walked out on to the balcony of his New York apartment, and witnessed what he later described as a "Flying Saucer" hovering closely, just above his window. Lennon became so completely fascinated by the event, that he talked incessantly about the incident, and even included the encounter within two different songs on different albums.
  
• 8/28/1974 Ford gave his first presidential press conference and avoided questions about a pardon of Nixon: "I had hoped that our former President, who brought peace to millions, would find it for himself." He seemed to indicate that he had not made up his mind about a pardon, and he would wait until the Special Prosecutor took some action in the courts. He announced that "The code of ethics that will be followed will be the example I set."