Let me just say this

On November 17, 1973 the Associated Press Managing Editors were holding their annual meeting. This annual conference just so happened to be taking place at Walt Disney World, more specifically at the spectacular Contemporary Resort. Then President Richard Nixon, embroiled in scandal from taping recordings to personal finances, addressed the group and opened up for questions on these and a myriad of other topics in front of the editors and on broadcast television.

It was during these questions when Nixon uttered the now immortal words, “I am not a crook.” As a reporter prepared to ask a question, President Nixon felt compelled to continue his response to the previous question. The longer version of the quote included a bit more information, but is not as easy to remember as those five simple words, “Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the television audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service. I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.”

Of course, it would be less than a year after that fateful night when Nixon would resign the presidency.

During the event, Walt Disney World snapped this picture of Ted Natt from the Longview, Washing News awaiting to ask Nixon a question that may or may not have been interrupted as Nixon continued with a response that would go down in infamy. Either way, there is a lot of history in this one small glimpse into that night, a night that happened to take place in the ballroom of the Contemporary Resort.