Word: reliefs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...nearly two years, Watergate had divided and confused the American people. Now there was a unifying mood: relief that the doubt and turmoil were over. But the actual announcement came as an emotional anticlimax to many people. As one anti-Nixon man in Wilmington, Del., put it, "This just doesn't feel as good as I thought it would." On the other hand, many Nixon supporters quickly became resigned to abdication. "It's sort of like an inoculation," declared New Hampshire Forester Robert Breck, who had voted for tickets carrying Nixon's name in eleven elections...
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...
...fellow man. Its theme was 'Truth is the glue that holds government together.' It was truly presidential." In the Chicago Daily News, Peter Lisagor observed: "Mr. Ford has a great deal going for him. An era of good will has been ushered in almost overnight, and the relief is enormous. It is more than the usual political honeymoon; it is the hope that follows catharsis, and the former Michigan football center seems to understand it intuitively...
When Richard Nixon turned over the reins of Government to Gerald Ford last week, the U.S. business community -long filled with fervent Nixon supporters-burst into a prolonged round of applause. It was a reaction of relief rather than celebration. A long-threatening cloud of uncertainty had been suddenly and dramatically blown away. Executives were infused with hope that public faith in White House leadership, and thus Government management of a sorely troubled economy, now stood at least a chance of being rekindled. "This is the best thing that could happen at the present time," says George Strichman, chairman...
Persistent Problems. But the relief was tempered by a realization that the transfer of power by itself would do little to solve the economy's persistent problems of rampant inflation, sky-high interest rates and declining output. Both sides of the mood were successively illustrated on Wall Street, where the Nixon years have been mostly bearish; though the Dow Jones industrial average hit its alltime high of 1052 in January 1973, at the beginning of last week it stood 180 points below its level on Nixon's Inauguration Day in 1969. In the first three days of last...