John Rhodes; legislator played key role in Nixon resignation

By Bart Barnes, Washington Post, 8/26/2003

WASHINGTON -- John J. Rhodes, an Arizona Republican who as minority leader of the House of Representatives played a critical role in the events leading to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, died Sunday at his home in Mesa, Ariz. Mr. Rhodes, who had cancer, was 86.

On Aug. 7, two days before Nixon quit the presidency, Representative Rhodes was one of a Republican triumvirate who called on the president at the White House to tell him in the bluntest of terms that his struggle to remain in office was lost.

His Republican support on Capitol Hill had all but evaporated, Representative Rhodes, Senate minority leader Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, informed the president. It was virtually certain, they said, that the House would vote to impeach him and the Senate would convict him on charges related to the 1972 break-in at the national Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate hotel.

That night Nixon told his family and his chief of staff he would resign. He announced his plans to the nation on national television the next evening and at noon on Aug. 9 his resignation became effective.

A loyal Republican and a friend and longstanding supporter of Nixon, Representative Rhodes had not decided until Aug. 6 that he would vote to impeach the chief executive. He reached this decision following the release (by order of the Supreme Court) of transcripts of tape-recorded White House conversations in which the president tried to get the Central Intelligence Agency to halt an FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in.

"For me, this is a sad day. I admire Richard Nixon, for the many great things he has done for the people of America and the people of the world," Representative Rhodes said in announcing his decision. "But the most important aspect of our entire system of government is equal justice under the law -- the principle that no person -- whether he be rich or poor, black or white, ordinary citizen or president -- is above the law. Cover-up of criminal activity and misuse of federal agencies can neither be condoned nor tolerated.

"When the roll is called in the House of Representatives, I will vote `aye' on impeachment."

On Capitol Hill, this announcement by the House leader of the president's own party was widely interpreted as the coup de grace for the Nixon presidency. By that afternoon, all 10 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who earlier had voted against impeachment, had reconsidered. They would now vote to impeach, they said. House Speaker Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts predicted there would be no more than 75 votes against impeachment in the full House of Representatives.

Years later, Mr. Rhodes would say that his trip up Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with Nixon at the White House the next day was the most trying ordeal of his 30 years in Congress. "It was a very difficult thing to do," he said. "But I think he (Nixon) felt he needed to get the word directly from us."

John Jacob Rhodes II was born in Council Grove, Kan. He graduated from Kansas State University and Harvard Law School. During World War II he was an administrative officer with the Army Air Forces stationed in Arizona. After the war he settled in Mesa, where he opened a law practice and founded an insurance business.

In 1952 he ran for the House of Representatives. Never before had Arizona elected a Republican to the House, but Mr. Rhodes was swept into office in the landslide for Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.

His first term was the only one of the 15 he would serve in which the Republicans were the majority party in the House. His congressional career included service on the appropriations committee, where he developed a specialty in defense appropriations. In 1965 he became chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, where his job was to develop conservative alternatives to legislative proposals of a Democratic administration under Johnson.

In 1964 he helped launch the presidential bid of Goldwater. He shared many of Goldwater's conservative political positions but for much of his career had operated in the shadow of his colorful and outspoken fellow Arizonan.

Never a backslapper, Representative Rhodes had a reputation on Capitol Hill as a Republican team player who generally shunned the media spotlight, did his homework, and knew how to count votes.

He was elected minority leader in 1973, replacing Gerald R. Ford whom Nixon had nominated as vice president to replace Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned after pleading no contest to a charge of income tax fraud. For seven years, Representative Rhodes was minority leader in the House, but they were not good years for the Republican Party, which had to live down the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. Syndicated columnist George F. Will wrote of him in 1974: "God had a congressman in mind when He made John Rhodes. And he is just what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they designed the House of Representatives, the body intended to be closest to the common man. "His name is not a household word, and probably never will be. To his credit, he probably doesn't mind a bit."