With a new President-elect Election but our nation still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we thought it might be interesting to hear

what our 37th president said about the challenges he faced in office with the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. As someone smarter than I said: “All history is prologue.”



Nixon’s 1968 acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention

When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight; when the richest nation in the world can’t manage its own economy; when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness; when a nation that has been known for century for equality of opportunity is torn by unprecedented racial violence; when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration; then it is time for new leadership for the United States of America.

As we look at America we see cities enveloped in smoke and flame. Millions of American crying out in anguish: Did we come all the way for this? Did American boys die in Normandy and Valley Forge for this? I pledge to you that the current wave of violence will not be the wave of the future.



Now let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth. A new voice is being heard across America today. It is not the voice of protesters or the shouters. It is the quiet voice of the majority of Americans who have been forgotten—the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators. They’re the good people. They work hard and they save and they pay their taxes.

And who are they? Let me tell you who they are. They’re in this audience by the thousands. They’re the white Americans and black Americans and Mexican Americans and Italian Americans. They’re the Great Silent Majority. And they have become angry finally, angry not with hate, but angry my friends because they love America and they don’t like what happened to America these last four years.
Let us understand North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States, only Americans can do that!

I say to you tonight, I say to you tonight we must have a new feeling of responsibility, of self-discipline; we must look to renew state and local government; we must have a complete reform of a big, bloated federal government. Those of us in public service know we can have full prosperity in peacetime. Yes we can cut the defense budget. We can reduce conventional forces in Europe. We can restore the natural environment. We can improve health care and make it more available to all people. And yes we can have a complete reform of this government. We can have a New American Revolution!

Nixon speaking to White House aides about plan to invade Cambodia

The same old horseshit—well, that’s not good enough. I’m sick of being pushed around by the Vietnamese like we’re some, you know, pitiful giant. No, they’re using our POWs to humiliate us. What we need now is a bold move in Cambodia. Go right after their VC base camps and make them scream and hit them in the ass…What do you think Henry… Exactly, unpredictability is our best asset. We got to take the war to them. Hit it right where it hurts—right in the nuts. More assassinations, right Al… You see, your people in the State Department Bill, they don’t understand that you got to electrify people with bold moves; I mean bold moves make history, like… a… Teddy Roosevelt… TR rushing up San Juan Hill - a
small event but dramatic. People took notice… If we sneak out of this war, another will start a mile down the road. We bite the bullet here in Cambodia. There, we bomb the hell out of these people…

Televised speech by Nixon explaining the invasion of Cambodia

Tonight American and South Vietnam units will attack the headquarters of the entire communist military operation in South Vietnam. This is not an invasion of Cambodia. We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia but for the purpose of ending the war in Vietnam…



News reports after the invasion of Cambodia

All across the nation today major student protests against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia rocked college campuses…

At Jackson State two Negro students were killed and ten were wounded…



In the streets of New York City student protesters were attacked by construction workers supporting President Nixon’s policies…



In Washington protesters have barricaded the White House and are camping out at the Lincoln Memorial



Nixon publicly calling Anti-War Demonstrators Spoiled-rotten “Bums”
I mean you see these bums, you know blowing up the campuses, burning books and so forth, and they call themselves flower children. I call them spoiled rotten. And I’ll tell what would cure them is a good old fashion trip to my Ohio father’s woodshed…

News reporting reaction to Nixon’s remarks about demonstrators

Less than twenty-four hours after President Nixon called them bums four student were shot dead at Kent State University in Ohio…

Enraged student groups across the country are calling for a general strike tomorrow to shut down the entire university system until the Vietnam War is ended…

Nixon telling aides of his Plan to end War with “Triangular Diplomacy”

I tell you the soldiers were provoked. Now stop this pussy-footing around. Jesus Christ, I mean dead kids. How the hell did we give the Democrats a weapon like this… follow the money, follow the money… These kids are being manipulated by the communists like Chambers and Hiss… What’s the matter with you…Come on, these aren’t fraternity pranks John… This is anarchy, it’s a revolution… I will not go down as the first American president to lose a war. Going into Cambodia, bombing Hanoi, bombing Laos buys us time so we can get out and give the South Vietnamese a fighting chance…

And if we keep our heads we’ll win this thing… What we can do is drive a stake through the heart of the communist alliance. Henry’s getting strong signals from the Chinese… how they fear the Vietnamese more than the Russians and they’re worried about a united Vietnam. Now, if we stick it out we’ll end up negotiating separately with both the Chinese and the Soviets and we’ll get better deals than we ever dreamed of from both… That… is triangular diplomacy gentlemen…

No, I can do this because I have spent my whole career building anti-communist credentials… This will get me a second term. Damn it, without risk there is no heroism, there is no history. Nixon was born to do this… Give history a nudge. Come on… I mean, if Cambodia doesn’t work we’ll bomb Hanoi if necessary if we have to… That’s right, and if necessary I’ll drop the big one…

News Reports of Unfolding Watergate Scandal

Judge John Sirica today sentenced the Watergate burglars to terms ranging up to 40 years. The White House continues to deny any involvement…

Presidential Counsel John Dean testified before the Senate Watergate Committee that the scandal reaches to the highest levels…

President aides Halderman and Erlickman were ordered to resign today. In a stunning announcement White House aide Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a secret taping system…

Vice President Agnew resigned today after pleading no contest to a charge of income evasion…

The President has fired the Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox provoking the gravest constitutional crisis in American history…

On Capitol Hill today eight resolutions calling for the impeachment of the President were referred to the Judiciary Committee by members of the House of Representatives…

It was disclosed to Judge Sirica that there is an eighteen and one half minute gap in a June 20th, 1972 taped conversation between the President and Bob Halderman. Reactions of shock and anger are coming from all sections of the nation…

Judge John Sirica has ordered the President to turn over his tapes to Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The tapes contain conversations between the President and his aides in the Oval Office and are believed to include discussions of the Watergate scandal. The White House has not yet responded to Judge Sirrica’s order and it is not yet known whether the President will comply…

Nixon talking to Al Haig about the Tapes

You know Al… If Hoover were alive these tapes would never have gotten out. I want the little shit back… Not like the others… Dean, McCord, the rest… We never got our side of the story out Al. People have forgotten… such violence, the tear gassing, the riots, burning the draft cards, the Black Panthers. We fixed it Al and they hate me for it. Because it is Nixon, they always hated Nixon… Hey Al, a man in your profession, give him a pistol and then leave the room. I don’t have a pistol Al…

Nixon confiding in Al Haig about the Coverup

You know Al… It’s not the crime that gets you… It’s the lie… it’s the cover up… that’s what gets you…

Nixon in televised speech Denying that he is a Crook

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 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.

Nixon announcing that he will Resign the Presidency

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. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

Nixon’s night in the White House looking at a portrait of JFK

Why is it that when people look at you they see what they want to be?
And when they look at me they see the way the are.
Nixon’s Farewell to the White House staff before his Departure

There are many fine careers. This country needs good farmers…good businessman … good plumbers…good carpenters.

I remember my old man… I think they would call him a sort of… sort of a little man… a common man. Well, he didn’t consider himself that way… You know what he was… He was a streetcar motorman first…Then he was a farmer… And then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California I can assure you. He sold it before they found oil on it…. Then he was a grocer… But he was a great man… because he did his job and every job counts up to the hilt regardless of what happens.

Nobody will ever write a book probably about my mother… Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother… My mother was a saint… And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, and seeing each of them die… And when they died… Yes, she will have no books written about her… But she was a saint…

Now, however, we look to the future. I remember something Theodore Roosevelt wrote when his first wife died in his twenties. He thought the light had gone from his life forever. But he went on and he not only to become President, but as an ex-President he served this country, always in the arena, tempestuous, strong, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. But he was a man… And as I leave, that’s an example I think all of us should remember.

You see we think sometimes when things happen that don’t go the right way. We think that when someone dear to us dies, when we lose an election, when we suffer a defeat, that all is ended. Not true. It’s only a beginning always. Because the greatest comes, not when things go always good for you, but the greatest comes when you’re really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you’ve been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is… to be on the highest mountain.

So I say to you on this occasion, we leave proud of the people who have stood by us, worked for us, and served this government and this country. We want you to continue to serve in government if that is what your wish. Remember, always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty. And always remember, others may hate you… but those who hate don’t win unless you hate them… And then you destroy yourself.

And so we leave with high hopes, good spirits, and deep humility. And I say to each and every one of you, not only will we always remember you, but always you will be in our hearts, and you will be in our prayers. Only then will find what we Quakers call “Peace at the Center”.



Epilogue

Richard Nixon was buried and honored by five presidents on April 26, 1994, less than a year after his beloved wife Pat had died. Nixon always maintained that if he had not been driven from office the North Vietnamese would not have overwhelmed the South in 1975. In a sideshow Cambodian society was destroyed and mass genocide resulted. In his absence, Russia and the United States returned to a decade of high budget military expansion and near war. Nixon who was pardoned by President Ford lived to write six books and travel the world has an elder statesman. For the remainder of his life he fought successfully to protect his tapes. The National Archives spent fourteen years indexing and cataloging them. Out of four thousand hours sixty hours have been made public.