The Nation: Regret and Tears in Beaver Falls

The 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.

As he watched the resignation speech, Eugene Jannuzi, 58, head of the Moltrup Steel Products Co., took some comfort in the fact that Nixon’s hands were steady, his eyes clear and his voice strong. “As he spoke,” said Jannuzi, “I felt that I could forgive him much.” Edward Sahli, 70, a General Motors dealer, also felt that Nixon “did the right thing” by resigning, but only because “the man could not have had a fair trial in the Senate.” Jannuzi still believes, as he has from the beginning, that Nixon was destroyed by his enemies. “What I would like to know,” said Sahli, “is where the impeachment thing started. I have the feeling that somebody put some money behind it.” The Rev. George Carson, 52, pastor of the Trinity United Presbyterian Church, said that some of his parishioners were “greatly sorrowed.” The minister himself is ambivalent: “In many ways the man has been misjudged, but he did make some errors.”

Karen Phillips, 24, director of Christian education at Trinity United and originally a Nixon fan, had felt betrayed by the Administration when Spiro Agnew fell in disgrace last October. But the President’s farewell address shook her. “My heart went out to him,” she said. “I really felt he was in the same room talking to me, apologizing to me.” She was alone, and she wept before the TV set. Earlier, she had thought that Nixon should be subject to prosecution like any other citizen. After the speech she decided: “I think resigning is enough. I’m willing to forgive and forget.”