Word: ordeal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...This house has been like a grave," Betty Ford, the new First Lady, remarked to TIME Correspondent Bonnie Angelo in an interview soon after her initial tour of her new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The comment was made not in criticism but compassion for the Nixons' long ordeal there. "I want it to sing," Mrs. Ford said of the White House, adding that while she greatly admires Pat Nixon, she is going to be a different kind of First Lady. "I expect to be very active. Pat Nixon did many, many things with groups inside the White House...
Throughout the ordeal of Watergate, Pat was the firm standard around whom the rest of the family rallied. "I don't know how she does it," said one member of her staff. "There are times when it must be unbearable. But she does not let down. She is the most self-disciplined woman I have ever seen." Said her son-in-law, David Eisenhower: "Mrs. Nixon is always there with a shoulder to lean on. But whose shoulder does she have to lean on?" It is a perhaps unanswerable question. The only reply may well...
Among Democratic leaders, none gloated over their old adversary. Hubert Humphrey described the Nixon address as "possibly the best speech the President has ever made." George McGovern expressed sympathy "for the trials [the Nixons] have suffered and for the ordeal still ahead." Edward Kennedy rejoiced that "the night of Watergate is over, the Constitution is safe, and Amer ica can become whole again...
After the resignation, the predominant themes were relief that the ordeal was over and reflection on the trauma. "Maybe too much has already been written," said the Washington Post, "about the marvels of the system and how it 'worked.' But it did. And it is important to be precise about how it worked . . . in the end and most importantly, it was the conscience and pride and responsibility of innumerable people and numerous institutions that combined to assert that 1) there was (and is) a norm of official behavior that is recognized and respected by all Americans...
...people of Beaver Falls, Pa. (pop. 14,000), a steel-fabricating town north of Pittsburgh, slowly retreated from their support of Richard Nixon with each Watergate shock (TIME, Nov. 12). Now they are glad that the long ordeal is over, but they bear him no ill will...