1973 was a fever dream. If you were looking for the president of america in 1973, you’d find Richard Nixon, but you’d find him in two completely different worlds. On one hand, he was the guy who just pulled off one of the biggest landslide victories in U.S. history. On the other? He was a man watching his entire career slowly dissolve into a puddle of legal briefs and late-night testimony.
He was at the peak. Then he wasn't.
Most people today just think of Watergate as this singular "oops" moment, but 1973 was actually the year the pressure cooker really started whistling. It wasn't just the break-in. It was the gas lines. It was the end of a war. It was the vice president literally quitting because of a separate scandal. Honestly, if you wrote this as a movie script, an editor would tell you to tone it down because nobody would believe one guy could have a year this chaotic.
The Man in the Oval Office: Who Was Richard Nixon in '73?
Richard Milhous Nixon started the year with a massive mandate. He had beaten George McGovern so badly in the 1972 election that the map was almost entirely red. He felt invincible. But that's the thing about being the president of america in 1973—the shadows from the previous year were already lengthening.
In January, Nixon was busy ending the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The Paris Peace Accords were signed that month. For a moment, it looked like he was going to be the peace president. He was the strategist. He was the guy who went to China.
But then the trial of the Watergate burglars started.
James McCord, one of the guys caught at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica. He basically said, "Hey, we were pressured to plead guilty and remain silent." That was the loose thread. Once the Senate pulled it, the whole sweater came apart. Nixon spent the rest of the year trying to look like he was governing while his top aides, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, were being forced to resign.
It's kinda wild to think about. You have the leader of the free world sitting in the Lincoln Sitting Room, probably nursing a drink, while his own White House Counsel, John Dean, is telling a Senate committee that the President is neck-deep in a cover-up.
The Economy Was a Total Mess
While the political drama was peaking, regular people were just trying to fill up their cars. This is the part of being the president of america in 1973 that often gets skipped in history books for the "juicier" spy stuff.
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In October, the Yom Kippur War broke out. In response to Western support for Israel, Arab members of OPEC decided to turn off the taps. They stopped exporting oil to the U.S.
The result? Absolute mayhem.
Gas prices didn't just go up; gas actually ran out. People were waiting in lines for hours. Nixon had to ask gas stations to stop selling fuel on Saturday nights and Sundays. He even signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, which gave us the 55 mph speed limit. Imagine the frustration. You've got a president caught in a scandal, and now you can't even drive to work without a headache.
Inflation was also creeping up. It was the beginning of "stagflation"—this weird, gross economic cocktail where prices go up but the economy doesn't grow. Nixon tried price controls. They didn't really work. He was fighting a war on two fronts: the legal one in D.C. and the economic one at the kitchen table.
The Saturday Night Massacre
If there is one date you need to know about the president of america in 1973, it’s October 20th. This is the "Saturday Night Massacre."
Nixon wanted the Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, fired. Cox was digging too deep into those secret White House tapes. Nixon told his Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, to fire Cox.
Richardson said no and quit.
Nixon told the Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus, to do it.
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Ruckelshaus said no and quit.
Finally, the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, did the deed.
It was a PR disaster. It made Nixon look guilty as hell. Tens of thousands of telegrams (remember those?) flooded Western Union, demanding impeachment. The public's trust didn't just dip—it fell off a cliff.
Why the Tapes Mattered
We talk about "The Tapes" all the time, but let’s be real: why did he even have them? Nixon was paranoid. He wanted a record of everything so he could write his memoirs later and prove he was right.
Alexander Butterfield, a White House aide, dropped the bombshell during a Senate hearing in July. He admitted there was a voice-activated recording system. Suddenly, it wasn't John Dean’s word against the President’s. There was physical proof.
Nixon spent the rest of '73 fighting to keep those tapes private, claiming "executive privilege." He even tried to release edited transcripts, but that backfired because they were full of "(Expletive deleted)" and showed a side of him that was, frankly, pretty mean-spirited and cynical.
Not Just Watergate: The Spiro Agnew Problem
As if Nixon didn't have enough on his plate, his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was a walking disaster. While everyone was focused on Watergate, Agnew was being investigated for bribery and tax evasion from his time as Governor of Maryland.
In October 1973, Agnew became the first VP to resign in disgrace.
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Think about the instability of that year. The VP quits. The President is being investigated for a crime. The economy is tanking.
Nixon had to use the 25th Amendment for the first time to appoint Gerald Ford as the new VP. Ford was a "safe" choice—a guy the Republican party liked and the Democrats could tolerate. Little did anyone know, Ford would be the one sitting in the big chair less than a year later.
A Legacy of Cynicism
What did being the president of america in 1973 actually change for the rest of us?
Basically everything.
Before 1973, people generally trusted the government. After 1973? Not so much. That year created the blueprint for how we talk about politics today. It’s why every scandal now has "-gate" tacked onto the end of it. It’s why we expect our leaders to be lying to us.
Nixon did some objectively important things that year, like starting the DEA and pushing for the Endangered Species Act. He was a complex guy. But the shadow of '73 is so long that it buries most of those achievements.
He ended the year by telling a group of editors, "I am not a crook."
When you have to say that out loud to the nation, you've already lost.
Practical Takeaways for History Buffs
If you're digging into this era, don't just look at the headlines. The nuance is in the details.
- Check the primary sources: Go listen to the actual Nixon tapes available through the Nixon Library. Hearing his actual voice—the hesitation, the anger—is way different than reading a transcript.
- Look at the 1973 Energy Crisis: If you want to understand why American cars got smaller in the 80s, start here. It changed the global economy forever.
- Study the 25th Amendment: 1973 was the real-world stress test for how we replace leaders without an election. It’s incredibly relevant today.
- Follow the money: The Agnew scandal is a fascinating rabbit hole of old-school political corruption that is often overshadowed by the high-stakes drama of Watergate.
To truly understand the president of america in 1973, you have to look at the intersection of a brilliant foreign policy mind and a deeply insecure political operator. It was a year of profound transitions that moved the United States from the idealism of the post-WWII era into the gritty, skeptical reality of the late 20th century.