Re: POTUS 45.58: Admit it, those lights are making you look orange too.
I don't recall Nixon admitting to anything when pardoned. I think he wrote some tone deaf response thanking Ford but not saying that he admitted to paying people off or trying to get the CIA to lean on the FBI to back off the investigation.
EDIT: wiki has a good summary - the highlights:
"The pardon of Richard Nixon (Proclamation 4311 Wikisource has information on "Proclamation 4311") on September 8, 1974, by President Gerald Ford granted Nixon, Ford's predecessor as president,
a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while president.[1][2] In particular, the pardon covered Nixon's actions during the Watergate scandal. In a televised broadcast to the nation, Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation, explained that he felt the pardon was in the best interests of the country and that the Nixon family's situation was "a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."[3]
After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that suggests that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that acceptance carries a confession of guilt."
Ford, however, insisted on a statement of contrition; Nixon felt he had not committed any crimes and should not have to issue such a document. Ford eventually agreed, and on September 8, 1974, he granted Nixon a "full, free, and absolute pardon", which ended any possibility of an indictment. Nixon then released a statement:
I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy. No words can describe the depth of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency, a nation I so deeply love, and an institution I so greatly respect."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Richard_Nixon