AmericanRhetoric.com

Richard M. Nixon

Resignation
Address

 

delivered
8 August
1974

AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED:
Text
version below
transcribed
directly
from
audio

Good evening:

This is the 37th time I have spoken to
you from
this office, where so many decisions have
been made
that shape the history of this nation. Each
time I
have done so
to discuss with you
some matter that I believe affected the national
interest. In all
the decisions I
have made
in
my public life I have always tried to do what was best for the nation.

Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate,
I
have felt it was my duty to persevere
to
make every possible effort
to complete the term of office to which
you elected me. In
the
past
few days, however, it has become evident
to me that
I
no longer have a strong enough
political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As
long as there was such a
base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through
to its
conclusion. that
to do otherwise would be unfaithful
to
the spirit of that deliberately difficult
process, and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future. But with
the disappearance
of that base,
I
now believe that
the constitutional purpose has been served. And there is no
longer a need for the process to be prolonged.

I would have preferred to carry through
to
the finish whatever the personal agony it would
have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But
the interests of the nation
must always come before any personal considerations.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
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AmericanRhetoric.com

From the discussions I
have had with Congressional and other leaders I have concluded that
because of the Watergate matter I
might
not
have the support of the Congress that I would
consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out
the duties of this office in
the way the interests of the nation will require.

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 interests of America first.

America needs a fulltime
President and a fulltime
Congress, particularly at this time with
problems we face at
home and abroad. To
continue to
fight
through the months ahead
for my
personal vindication would almost
totally absorb the time and attention of both the President
and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on
the great
issues of peace
abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

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

Vice President Ford will be sworn
in as President at
that
hour in this office.

As
I recall
the high
hopes for America with which we began this second term, I feel a great
sadness that
I will
not be here in
this office working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in
the next two and a half years. But in turning over direction of the Government
to Vice
President Ford I
know, as I
told the nation when I
nominated him for that office ten months
ago, that
the leadership of America would be in good hands.

In passing this office to
the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight
of responsibility that will fall on
his shoulders tomorrow, and therefore of the understanding,
the patience, the cooperation
he will
need from all
Americans. As he assumes that
responsibility he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to
the future,
the first essential is to begin
healing the wounds of this nation. To put the bitterness and
divisions of the recent past behind us and to rediscover those shared
ideals that lie at
the
heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people.

By
taking this action, I
hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing
which
is so desperately needed in America. I
regret deeply any injuries that may have been
done in
the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that
if some of my
judgments were wrong and
some were wrong they
were made in what I believed at
the
time to be the best interests of the nation.

To those who
have stood with
me during these
past difficult months, to my family, my friends,
the many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will
be eternally grateful for your support. And to
those who
have not felt able to give me your
support, let
me say I
leave with
no bitterness toward those who
have opposed me, because all
of us in the final analysis have been
concerned with
the good of the country, however our
judgments might differ.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
2

AmericanRhetoric.com

So let
us all
now join together in affirming that
common commitment and in helping our new
President succeed for the benefit of all
Americans. I
shall leave this office with regret at
not
completing my term but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your President for the
past
five and a half years. These years have been a momentous time in the history of our
nation and the world. They have been a time of
achievement
in which we can all be proud,
achievements that represent the shared efforts of the administration, the Congress and the
people. But
the challenges ahead are equally great. And they, too, will require the support and
the efforts of the Congress and the people, working in cooperation with
the new
Administration.

We have ended
America's longest war. But in the work of securing a lasting peace in the
world, the goals ahead are even more farreaching
and more difficult. We must complete a
structure of peace,
so that it will be said of this generation our
generation of Americans by
the people of all
nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented future
wars.

We have unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between
the United States
and the People's Republic of China.
We must now insure that
the onequarter
of the world's
people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain, not our enemies, but our
friends.

In
the Middle East, 100
million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered
us their enemy for nearly 20 years, now
look on us as their friends.
We must continue to build
on that friendship so
that peace can settle at
last over the Middle East and so
that the cradle
of civilization will
not become its grave. Together with the Soviet Union we have made the
crucial breakthroughs that
have begun
the process of limiting nuclear arms. But, we must set
as our goal, not just limiting, but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons, so
that
they cannot destroy civilization. And so that the threat of nuclear war will
no
longer hang
over the world and the people.
We have opened a new relation with the Soviet Union. We
must
continue to develop and expand that new relationship, so
that the two strongest nations
of the world will
live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.

Around the world in
Asia,
in Africa,
in Latin America, in the Middle East
there
are millions
of people who live in terrible poverty, even starvation. We must
keep as our goal turning away
from production for war and expanding production for peace so that people everywhere on
this earth
can at last
look forward, in their children's time, if not in our own
time, to having
the necessities for a decent
life. Here, in America, we are fortunate that most of our people
have not only the blessings of liberty but also
the means to
live full and good, and by the
world's standards even abundant
lives.

We must press on, however, toward a goal not
only of more and better jobs but of full
opportunity for every American, and of what we are striving so hard right
now
to achieve prosperity
without inflation.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
3

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For more than a quarter of a century in public life, I
have shared
in
the turbulent
history of
this evening.
I
have fought for what I believe in. I
have tried,
to
the best of my ability, to
discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that were entrusted to
me. Sometimes
I have succeeded. And sometimes I
have failed.
But always I
have taken heart from what
Theodore Roosevelt once said about
the man
in
the arena, whose face is marred by dust and
sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who
errs and comes short again and again because
there is not effort without
error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed,
who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy
cause, who at
the best
knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and with
the
worst
if he fails, at
least
fails while daring greatly.

I pledge to you
tonight
that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I
shall continue in
that spirit. I
shall continue to work for the great
causes to which
I
have been dedicated
throughout my years as a Congressman, a
Senator, Vice President and President, the cause of
peace not
just
for America but among all
nations prosperity,
justice and opportunity for
all of our people.

There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be
devoted for as long as I
live.

When I
first took the oath of office as President
five and a half years ago, I
made
this sacred
commitment: to consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon to
the
cause of peace among nations. I've done my very best
in all
the days since to be true to
that
pledge.
As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not
only for the people of America but for the people of all
nations, and that all of our children
have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.

This, more than anything, is what I
hoped
to achieve when I sought
the Presidency.

This, more than anything, is what I
hope will be
my legacy to you, to our country, as I
leave
the Presidency.

To have served in this office is to
have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and
every American.

In
leaving it, I do
so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you
in all
the days ahead.

Transcription by
Michael
E. Eidenmuller. Property
of AmericanRhetoric.com. . Copyright 2006. All rights reserved.
Page
4