Scene VII. Washington, D.C. a newsroom.

[Enter Eric Severied.]
Severied. Ladies and Gentlemen, you have seen history.
President Richard M. Nixon, with
the anguish of his guilt upon his face,
resigned tonight. Tomorrow at noon,
Gerald R. Ford will be sworn in as 5
the thirty-eighth president. We have
a report from Chicago that the streets
are quiet and there is no trouble.
Other parts of the country are
reported calm. It was learned moments ago 10
that military leaders at the
Pentagon had formulated a course
of action if Richard Nixon had tried
to seize control of the military.
The final chapter in Watergate 15
is all but over with the resignation
of Mr. Nixon. It all started one
innocuous night in June and leaves behind
it the charred corpses of almost
every politician who tried to 20
contain it. Watergate has destroyed
the most powerful man in America,
the most powerful man in the world. It is
proof that our democracy exists, not
only on paper, but in the minds of 25
our citizens and in one essential
element, the Press. For without the
medium of mass communication,
this whole thing might never have come about.
[Exit.]