WASHINGTON, April -- President Richard Nixon was guided throughout his life by his Quaker mother's philosophy: 'Never give up.'
And he never did.
His touchstone was the man in the arena, who dusts himself off and lives to fight another day.
His political life was marked by triumphs and defeats, by highs and lows, joy and sorrow. Through it all he had Pat, his devoted, loving wife, and his two daughters Tricia and Julie, who stood by him loyally through all the trials and tribulations of his tumultous political career.
When Pat died last June, it seemed that Nixon's own life began to ebb. Few will forget how emotionally distraught he was at her funeral.
With Watergate, he became the only U.S. president in history to resign from office, and his political demise was like a Greek tragedy -- inevitable and inexorable.
It appeared there was nothing Nixon could do in those final days before his heart-wrenching resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, that could save him from a fate that had befallen no other president.
The Watergate scandal and the coverup were his undoing. It all began with a break-in at Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Apartments in June 1972 during his reelection campaign.
Tapes of his conversations with top aides, revealing he knew about the political dirty tricks done by his zealous assistants, turned out to be the 'smoking gun' that forced his resignation.
But Nixon never acknowledged more of that chapter in his life other than saying it was a 'mistake.' To this day, he has never revealed the purpose of the break-in when he was certain to win the 1972 election by a landslide.
As vice president for eight years and as president, Nixon's forte was foreign policy. He loved to travel around the globe and to hobnob with world statesmen.
He reached the heights of his foreign policy success when he announced in 1971 from a television studio in Los Angeles that he had been invited to make a state visit to China, ending 20 years of political and diplomatic silence between the two nations.
After his electrifying announcement, Nixon and his close advisers celebrated at an elegant restaurant.
From the start of his political career in 1946 when he successfully ran for Congress to the end, his antipathy and suspicion toward the press rarely wavered. Sometimes it was justified, and sometimes it was not. But it was always there.
He did make a few friends in the press corps on Capitol Hill while serving as a congressman and a senator, and they remained friends long after he had climbed the heights of the political ladder.
But in Nixon's eyes, most reporters were 'the enemy' who were unsympathetic, particularly those in the White House press corps and the liberal columnists.
Part of the barrier was born of his own shyness and reserve. Unless one was a close friend, Nixon found it difficult to lighten up with the press.
When he came into the White House, he was given a clean shave by The Washington Post's cartoonist Herblock, who later drew him with a heavy beard in more sinister days.
After John F. Kennedy defeated him for the presidency in 1960, Nixon's 1968 victory over Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey was considered a major victory, and he was hailed for his stunning comeback.
The country at that time was being torn apart with protests against the Vietnam War. Nixon's triumph was predicated on his declaration that he had a plan to end the war.
Later, he and his family were subjected to the same taunts from the anti-war protesters as Lyndon B. Johnson and his family, as the public began to realize that there was no light at the end of the tunnel -- notwithstanding Henry Kissinger's statement that 'peace was at hand.'
The demonstrations against the war caused Nixon much anguish. He lashed out at the protesters, calling them 'bums,' but later visited the Lincoln Memorial to talk with students who had converged on Washington to picket against his policies.
But none of those emotional days could compare with the Watergate debacle, when it was darkness atnoon at the White House and reporters considered themselves on a death watch with Nixon's impeachment looming.
Clearly, as a man who cherished his place in history, Nixon was in total despair when he told the American people that he had lost his 'political base' with Congress and planned to step down from the highest office in the land.
After several years in exile in San Clemente, Calif., Nixon and his wife moved back to the East Coast where he wrote several books, lectured, traveled the world over and became an adviser and confidant to the presidents who succeeded him.
He was true to his philosphy that one should never give up.
