OPINION — It was the summer of “Chinatown” and Elton John’s best-selling album “Caribou.” Top-rated TV shows like “All in the Family” M*A*S*H” were in rerun season. But August 1974 was not lacking in drama cut with pathos.

On Aug. 8, Richard Nixon spoke to the nation, announcing his surrender in the battle of Watergate because “I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort.”

It was a stunning defeat for Nixon’s indomitable spirit, since his theme in his 1952 “Checkers Speech” saving his spot on the GOP national ticket had been “I’m not a quitter.”

Twenty-two years later, Nixon used the same words in becoming the first president to resign his office: “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as president, I must put the interest of America first.”

Wednesday’s anniversary of the resignation will spark comparisons between today’s feckless congressional Republicans and GOP patriarchs like Barry Goldwater who forthrightly told Nixon that his Senate support had crumbled.