WASHINGTON -- Twenty-five years ago tonight, a small army of reporters was camped on the front lawn of the home of Vice President Gerald R. Ford Jr. in Alexandria, Va., where he was secluded with his wife, Betty, glued to a television set. On the lawn, the reporters stood around another television set, watching Ford's personal history, and the history of the nation, being made.

Onto the screen came the weary image of Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, seated at his desk in the Oval Office. In somber tones, he told the American people that the next morning, for the first time in the history of the republic, a president was going to resign his office.

He cast his decision, as was characteristic of him, in the noblest of terms. "All the decisions I have made in my public life," said the man who was being driven out in the face of five articles of impeachment against him, "I have always tried to do what was best for the nation."

He made only a glancing reference to the scandal that had brought him down -- the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee by burglars in the hire of his presidential re-election committee in the summer of 1972, and the subsequent cover-up of blame within his White House. "Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate," he said, "I have felt it was my duty to persevere; to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me."

Nixon went on: "In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion; that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process, and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future. But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served. And there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged."

Nixon had, indeed, lost his base in Congress. On the previous day, Senate Republican leader Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, still known as "Mr. Republican," and House Republican leader John Rhodes had gone to the president and informed him that he could count on no more than 15 senators of the 34 required to avert conviction on the impeachment charges against him.

"I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved," Nixon continued, "and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interests of the nation must always come before any personal considerations." He said again that the congressional leaders had told him "that because of the Watergate matter, I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions" he would face. But "might not" was a gross understatement. He was finished, and he knew it.

Nixon pressed on: "I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first."

The country needed a full-time president and Congress, he said, and "to continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and the attention of both the president and the Congress," when "our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home."

Notably, the president continued to talk in terms of vindication, as if it were only a matter of time for him to achieve it. There was no confession of guilt or even of error, and no expression of apology. He allowed himself only an admission of "a great sadness that I will not be here in this office working on your behalf" and deep regret for "any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision."

Of Ford, who would succeed him the next day, the first unelected vice president to become the first unelected president under the 25th Amendment, Nixon said he knew "that the leadership of America will be in good hands."

He then proceeded to chronicle at great length his achievements in office -- ending "America's longest war" (Vietnam, where the war continued without U.S. troops); his historic opening to China; "critical breakthroughs" with the Soviet Union in nuclear arms control; the quest for "prosperity without inflation" at home. Most of all, he said, he had labored so that "all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy."

When the speech was over, Ford came out onto his lawn, floodlighted for the host of cameras that had been set up, and briefly commended the president. He said that he would strive for continuity, maintaining the Nixon foreign policy and asking Henry Kissinger to remain as his secretary of state. Then he turned and went inside.

Late the next morning, Nixon executed the letter that officially ended his presidency of 2,027 days. It was addressed to Kissinger and said, simply, "I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States." Then he walked into the East Room of the White House, to the strains of "Hail to the Chief" a last time, to bid goodbye to his staff and friends.

It was a bizarre farewell, at times touching, at times maudlin, at times defiant. It drew tears from loyalists, astonishment from all and, from some of the assembled reporters in the rear, snickers. He tried to remain in control but did not always succeed. He offered some weak jokes, as if to keep up the spirits of his supporters and of his family, who stood stoically behind him.

He held his famous head high as he boasted that in his administration "no man or no woman ever profited at the public expense or the public will," though he authorized the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars for his residence in San Clemente.

He retold the story of his humble beginnings in Whittier, Calif., and the tribulations of his father and his mother, describing her as "a saint" about whom no books would be written.

He talked of his idol, Theodore Roosevelt, whom he often quoted as one who lauded being "in the arena" doing battle for his ideas, and read from TR's diary, recalling how he had pressed on from the loss of his wife, not only as president "but as an ex-president."

Nixon ended with a bit of advice that was remarkable coming from a man who had remembered small slights all his life and harbored deep bitterness and animosity toward his political foes, as demonstrated repeatedly in the White House tapes that were his undoing. "Never be petty," he said. "Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

Afterward, accompanied by the Fords, Nixon with his family behind him strode out along a red carpet to the White House helicopter waiting to whisk him to nearby Andrews Air Force Base for the jet that would take him to his home in California. When his family was seated inside, he turned at the doorway to the helicopter, thrust both hands over his head, waved and with a trace of defiance gave a final victory salute, then disappeared within.

The helicopter revved up and swiftly lifted off and away, over the South Lawn, past the Washington Monument and on into his personal oblivion.

In the days, weeks, months and years that followed until death took him on April 22, 1994, the "long nightmare" that Ford declared over for the country continued for Nixon.

Though Ford pardoned him only 30 days weeks after taking office, Nixon endured emotional humiliation and physical and psychological pain for years afterward. Yet in time he regained at least some of his old spirit and his determination to rehabilitate himself and his reputation.

He turned to writing books about foreign policy and ventured out to an occasional party function, but he never was invited to another Republican National Convention. His resignation in disgrace made him too risky a political burden. But he was called upon by succeeding presidents for his advice and became regarded by many as a senior world statesman.

In 1981, when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated, President Ronald Reagan asked the three living former presidents, Nixon, Ford and Jimmy Carter, to represent the United States at the funeral. It was, in a way, a final tribute to the resigned president.

But, even in this, the recollection of the Richard Nixon who had been forced from office for dark deeds in the Oval Office was remembered. At the next Gridiron dinner, Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, known for his cutting wit, told the audience that the three former presidents together reminded him of the three monkeys: "See no evil, hear no evil -- and evil."

Twenty-five years after Richard M. Nixon's resignation is too soon to say how history will remember him. Surely it will be on a much more serious note, and surely that resignation will be in the first paragraph of every reference.

But any historical account will be incomplete if it fails to note the fierce grit of the man who had reached the summit and then hit rock-bottom, to climb up again.

Jules Witcover of The Sun's Washington bureau traveled extensively with Gerald R. Ford in the final weeks of his vice presidency and was present at President Nixon's farewell speech in the White House.