Video: 'SYND 5 10 76 AGRICULTURE SECRETARY EARL BUTZ ANNOUNCES HIS RESIGNATION'

(Monday, October 4, 1976, Butz spoke at about 1:00 p.m. EDT/Ford spoke at 1:35 p.m. EDT) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigned today with an apology for the “gross indiscretion” of an obscene joke he’d made that was derogatory to blacks which had generated a growing clamor and threatened to damage President Gerald Ford’s election campaign.

Video: 'ABC News, October 4, 1976' (Butz resignation coverage at 1:03)