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| Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) addressing a joint session of Congress in 1974. Vice President Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan) and Speaker of the House (Democrat, Oklahoma) in the background. |
From the Richard Nixon Foundation
I'll give President Nixon credit for one thing here. Similar to his White House farewell address, it must have taken a lot of personal strength and courage to give this speech, with all the pressure that he was under at this point where he knew that this could be the very last time he addressed Congress about anything, even though he still had 3 years left on his 2nd term.
President Nixon's 1974 State of The Union sounds to me more like a closing argument that he was trying to make to the American people in why he should remain President and not be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, essentially fired by Congress.
What President Nixon is telling Americans is where the country was when he gave his first State of The Union address in 1969 and where the country was five years later. And what he would wanted to do as President if he were allowed to remain as President. It was the old don't give up or surrender until you've thrown all of your punches and have shot all of your bullets approach.
But I think as smart as a politician as Richard Nixon was, he probably knew that his days as President were numbered, even though he still had things on his agenda that he wanted to accomplish, At this point he still had three years to go on his 2nd term and still had health care reform, what later became known as Welfare to Work, energy independence and negotiating a peace deal between Israel and Egypt that actually started under the Nixon Administration in the early 1970s. But with all of the evidence that was about to come out as it related to the Watergate scandal, that was not going to happen.
President Nixon was trying to make the case that now it's not the time to remove the President, with all of that he's accomplished. And everything that he still wanted to accomplish for the country. That instead we should come together as a country and get together to finish the work of the country, instead of firing the current President and once again starting over and trying again. But that was not going to happen.
But I think as smart as a politician as Richard Nixon was, he probably knew that his days as President were numbered, even though he still had things on his agenda that he wanted to accomplish, At this point he still had three years to go on his 2nd term and still had health care reform, what later became known as Welfare to Work, energy independence and negotiating a peace deal between Israel and Egypt that actually started under the Nixon Administration in the early 1970s. But with all of the evidence that was about to come out as it related to the Watergate scandal, that was not going to happen.
President Nixon was trying to make the case that now it's not the time to remove the President, with all of that he's accomplished. And everything that he still wanted to accomplish for the country. That instead we should come together as a country and get together to finish the work of the country, instead of firing the current President and once again starting over and trying again. But that was not going to happen.
By early 74, the President was fighting not just Congress, but now the U.S. Supreme Court, that ordered him to give up tapes that proved his involvement in the Watergate coverup. So his days as President were certainly numbered at this point.
