It is August 9, 1974. The humid D.C. air feels heavy, almost suffocating. Richard Nixon stands at the door of Army One, the helicopter waiting to whisk him away from the White House lawn for the last time. He turns. He faces the crowd of staffers, reporters, and a world watching through graining television sets. Then, he does it. He thrusts both arms into the sky, fingers splayed into "V" shapes.
The double richard nixon peace signs became the definitive image of his downfall.
It’s weird. Honestly, it’s one of the most contradictory gestures in American history. A man leaving in disgrace, forced out by the Watergate scandal, using a symbol popularized by the very hippies and anti-war protesters he spent years loathing. But if you think he was just trying to be "peaceful," you've got the wrong guy. To Nixon, those fingers didn't mean "flower power." They meant "Victory." That was the original meaning of the V-sign, popularized by Winston Churchill during World War II, and Nixon was a man of that era. He was clinging to a version of himself that refused to admit defeat, even as he boarded a flight to exile in San Clemente.
The Evolution of the V-Sign
Most people today see the two-finger gesture and think of 1960s counterculture. They think of Woodstock, bell-bottoms, and "Make Love, Not War." But Nixon was a product of the 1940s and 50s. For him, the V-sign was a militant, aggressive symbol of triumph.
When he used it, he wasn't asking for a truce. He was declaring that he had won, or at least, that he hadn't been beaten. You can see him doing it as far back as his vice presidency under Eisenhower. He did it on the campaign trail in 1960 against JFK. He did it in 1968. It was his signature move. It was shorthand for "Nixon's the One."
The irony, of course, is that by 1974, the meaning of the gesture had shifted under his feet. The public saw "peace," but they also saw a man who was deeply out of touch with how that symbol was being interpreted by the youth. When he stood on those helicopter steps, the gesture looked like a bizarre, defiant twitch. It was a visual "screw you" to his enemies, wrapped in the guise of a campaign victory pose.
That Final Helicopter Departure
The day he resigned, Nixon was a mess of emotions. According to memoirs from his daughter, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, and his Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, the President was oscillating between tears and a strange, manic energy. He had just given a rambling, emotional farewell speech to his staff in the East Room, famously mentioning his mother was a "saint" and talking about the "valley of the shadow."
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Then he walked out.
The red carpet was rolled out on the South Lawn. He reached the stairs of the helicopter. He didn't just give a small wave. He went for the full, double-arm extension.
Why?
Historians like Douglas Brinkley have noted that Nixon was obsessed with his "place in history." He didn't want the last photo of him to be a man slumping away in shame. He wanted to look like a commander. He wanted to look like a fighter. By throwing up those richard nixon peace signs, he was trying to signal to his "Silent Majority" that he was still their leader. He was unbowed.
It didn't work. The image became a caricature. It was immediately parodied by everyone from Hunter S. Thompson to Saturday Night Live. It became the visual shorthand for political hypocrisy.
The Cultural Impact and the "Nixon Pose"
You've probably seen the photo a thousand times. It’s in every history textbook. It’s on T-shirts. It’s in movies like Frost/Nixon and Watchmen.
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What’s fascinating is how the gesture has been reclaimed and recycled. In the decades following his resignation, Nixon himself tried to rehabilitate his image as an "elder statesman." He wrote books. He traveled. He gave interviews. But he could never escape the V-sign. It followed him to the grave. Even today, if a politician makes that gesture, they are instantly compared to Nixon. It is the universal sign of "the disgraced leader pretending everything is fine."
Think about the mechanics of it. Most people do a peace sign with one hand, usually held near the face. Nixon used both. He extended his arms fully, almost like he was trying to touch the rotors of the helicopter. It was awkward. It was stiff. It was perfectly Nixon.
Why the Gesture Still Matters
We live in an era of political theater. Everything is a "photo op." But Nixon’s peace signs were perhaps the first time a single gesture was used to try and rewrite the narrative of a total systemic collapse.
- Defiance: It showed a man who refused to apologize. Nixon never truly admitted to the crimes of Watergate in the way the public wanted. The signs were a physical manifestation of that denial.
- Confusion: It highlighted the massive generational gap. The "Peace" generation saw a warmonger using their symbol; Nixon saw a "Victory" sign from a war they didn't understand.
- Iconography: It proved that a single image can be more powerful than a 2,000-page transcript of the Senate Watergate Committee.
Misconceptions About the Sign
A common mistake people make is thinking Nixon was "trolling" the protesters. While Nixon certainly had a mean streak and loved to stick it to his "enemies list," the V-sign wasn't a joke to him. He genuinely viewed it as his trademark. He wasn't trying to be funny or ironic.
Another misconception? That he only did it once.
Actually, Nixon did the V-sign constantly. He did it after the "Checkers Speech." He did it when he landed in China in 1972—a genuinely historic moment that changed global geopolitics. But because the 1974 photo is so high-stakes, it has effectively erased all the other times he used it. The "peace sign" became the "resignation sign."
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Learning from the Nixon Image
If you're looking at this from a communication or branding perspective, the richard nixon peace signs are a masterclass in how not to read the room. You cannot force a symbol to mean what you want it to mean if the rest of the world has already decided it means something else.
Context is everything.
In the 1940s, it was Churchill and the end of the Nazis. In the 1960s, it was Lennon and the end of Vietnam. In 1974, for Richard Nixon, it was the end of a presidency.
Next Steps for History Buffs and Researchers:
To truly understand the weight of this moment, you should look beyond the single still photo. Watch the actual video footage of Nixon’s departure. Notice the way he holds the pose for a few seconds too long. It’s the duration that makes it feel desperate.
If you want to dive deeper, I recommend reading The Wars of Watergate by Stanley Kutler for the political context, or checking out the Nixon Presidential Library's digital archives to see his earlier use of the gesture during the 1960 campaign. Comparing those early, hopeful "V" signs to the 1974 version is a stark lesson in how power and scandal can warp a person's public identity.
Also, take a look at the editorial cartoons from the week following August 9, 1974. Cartoonists like Herblock (Herbert Block) used the peace sign motif to highlight the gap between Nixon's rhetoric and the reality of the tapes. It's a fascinating look at how visual media can turn a leader's own signature move against them.