by Forty years ago today, President Richard Nixon resigned.
Today today, you can watch comedian, actor and satirist Harry Shearer faithfully and comedically re-enacted this tragic moment in American political history.
Here is the relevant excerpt from Shearer’s TV series, Nixon’s The One, which aired earlier this year on Sky Arts in the U.K. and should launch in the United States this fall. Shearer and co-writer Stanley Kutler researched the thousands of hours of the infamous Nixon White House audio tapes for moments, which they then re-enacted as if also filmed by hidden cameras.
“Nixon was one of the great comic characters of the 20th century,” Shearer says. “When I first began listening to his secret tapes, the revelation to me was the crazy conversations that went on in this place on the public dime. Stanley and I aimed to be as accurate as humanly possible in the way these lines are spoken, in the intonations, in the pauses, in the way people interact. Our job was to be faithful transmitters of this incredible record of craziness.”
Roll the clip! (via My Damn Channel)
The transcript of Nixon’s actual resignation address to the American public, broadcast Aug. 8, 1974.
And even more actual video from 1974, courtesy of CBS News.
