Tim Gracyk: President Richard Nixon's- Emotional, Historic, Powerful Farewell Speech (August, 9th 1974)

Source:Tim Gracyk- President Nixon's 1974 farewell address. 

Source:The New Democrat

Just on a personal note first and then I'll get into President Nixon's farewell speech here. I was I guess bored last night and trying to take a break from the news even as a news and political junky and it suddenly occurred to me that I have YouTube on my TV ( thank you, FIOS ) I went to that on my TV and first saw Dick Cavett's PBS documentary about Watergate which came I out originally I believe in 1979 and they did a 35th anniversary special about that documentary in 2014. So I watched that first which was very good which then lead me to the network news coverage of President Nixon's farewell speech from 1974 and saw about two hours of CBS News's coverage with Walter Cronkite. That is and probably the only reason why I'm writing this post about Richard Nixon today, because I've had this keen interest on Watergate the last few days and have YouTube on my TV.

Source: Fams Sound- President Richard Nixon's mountaintop 

Richard Nixon, gave several great speeches in his long and I would at least argue great political career even with all his criminal baggage from Watergate and his little criminal intelligence operation in the The White House. His 1968 RNC acceptance speech, was a great speech. His 1969 presidential inaugural was a great speech. His so-called silent majority speech from 1969, as well as his Vietnam War speech from that same year were also great speech. His 1972 inaugural speech was a great speech. His 1974 resignation speech was a very good speech. We're talking about a man who as brilliant at he was and I believe the smartest and most knowledgeable President we've ever had ( not the best, which is different ) and yet somehow he was underrated as a speech giver. Maybe it was his voice, presence, who knows, but the man was very good at communicating what he believed and making a great case for it and yet was able to do it in a way that most Americans should understand.

Source: IZ Quotes- One of President Richard Nixon's best quotes 

If I had to rank President Nixon's speeches or just Richard Nixon the man, I would have to go with his 1968 RNC nomination speech where he gets renominated by the Republican Party to be President in Miami. His 69 silent majority speech as President. And his farewell speech as President in 1974 and I'm not sure which of these speeches are his best. I'm not a fan of President Nixon in the sense that I believe he's one of our best President's and got a raw deal as President and should've never been forced to resign by his own party, which is exactly what would've happened at he not had resigned with the House and Senate Republican Leadership's telling him that he needs to resign or will be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate, which means Congress would remove him from office. He was as Carl Bernstein has said a criminal President who ran a criminal organization inside The White House and had to be removed either voluntarily or through force.

I'm not a fan of Richard Nixon and I believed he did a lot of bad things, but I'm a fan of a Redskins ( even though Dan Snyder tests that everyday ) and I'm not a fan of the Dallas Cowboys or New York Giants, but I respect talent when I see it and I respect Richard Nixon's abilities, talents as a politician and leader, his knowledge, intelligence, and foresight. The man was a big fan of President Theodore Roosevelt and regularly referred to him as TR and quoted Teddy Roosevelt on a regular basis. And you see that all through his farewell speech here. It was a very ironic speech and with that old saying that irony can come back and bite you in the ass fits perfectly here.

President Nixon saying and I believe this is his best line here in a speech that he personally wrote himself that, "only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." Translation: that you can only know what it's like to achieve the highest level of success when you've first started at the bottom and struggled, work hard to, started in the valley and worked your way to the top. If Nixon didn't start life in poverty in rural Southern California, you could certainly see poverty from where he grew up. He had a very modest upbringing and joined the Navy to get way from that and to get himself a college education, he was a World War II veteran in the Pacific and rose to Lieutenant Commander. We're not talking about a unaccomplished bum, but someone who achieved real success in life after starting out with almost nothing.

And then President Nixon's other great quote being, "Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself." Translation: meaning that when you let people who don't like you and even hate you, but I would add are not even worth your time and effort even thinking about them let alone your respect that is when they win because that is what they want. Which is a negative reaction from you and to know that you don't like them either and they know that you know they don't like or hate you. I would add to that, that people should spend more focus on what they already have and achieved instead of focusing on what they don't have and probably will never have or what they've lost. Which I realize is a lot harder than it sounds especially when you're talking about losing loved ones, but life will be much better for you if you do that.

The irony of President Nixon's speech is that he spoke from personal experience in both parts here. He was a man that came from practically nothing and achieved great things in life. That is the Richard Nixon speaking from positive personal experience. His negative experience that he personally spoke from was about pettiness and hate. You won't find a politician who was more hateful of the people who opposed him than Richard Nixon even though Donald Trump I believe is probably at this point a damn close second. And it's President Nixon's pettiness and hate, lust for power that destroyed his presidency and administration and why he gave a resignation speech and a farewell speech two and a half years before his second term was up.
Source:Tim Gracyk

Daniel JB Mitchell: WOR News Radio- Senator Robert J. Dole: 'Castigates Anti-War Democrats on Vietnam: 3-27-1971'

Source:Daniel JB Mitchell- U.S. Senator Robert J. Dole (Republican, Kansas) Chairman of the Republican National Committee (1971-72)

Source:The New Democrat 

"Republican Senator and Republican National Chairman Robert Dole castigated anti-war Democrats regarding the Vietnam War in this excerpt from a radio newscast. WOR, New York City, March 27, 1971. Dole was later the Republican candidate for President in 1996." 

From Daniel JB Mitchell

President Richard Nixon was very paranoid about the anti-war movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He thought these New-Left protesters were not just being influenced by the Communist Party, but that Communists were running this movement. Even though his own White House couldn’t find any evidence linking the Communist Party directly with the anti-war movement. President Nixon's own staff like Bud Krogh admitted as such. 

Senator Robert Dole who of course is better known as Bob Dole, was Chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1971-72. What he was doing here assuming the WOR radio report is correct was expressing the views of the President of the United States about the anti-war movement in the country.

Bob Dole, was one of the most partisan people in Congress back then and almost had to be as Chairman of the RNC. And was also one of the most skillful politicians that has ever served in Congress. You almost have to be to lead your party in the Senate for eleven years both as Leader and then Minority Leader. And this is well before he even came President Gerry Ford’s vice presidential nominee in 1976 and before he became Chairman of the Finance Committee in 1981 after Senate Republicans won back the Senate in 1980. 

By the time Dole is elected to the Senate in 1968 he moves up very quickly: Chairman of the RNC in 1971, reelected to the Senate in an awful Republican year in 1974, becomes Ranking Member of the Finance Committee in 1977 and just continues to climb in the Senate after that.

Frost/Nixon Interviews: Full Interview About Watergate

Source:The New Democrat

I covered this last week, but the White House coverup of Watergate was about ending a story that the Nixon White House thought could explode in their faces. Which was an attempted burglary of Democratic National Headquarters. Even though the President, Vice President or White House Chief of Staff weren’t directly involved in the operation. But they were worried that this story would play in the media as if the Nixon Campaign in 1972 was involved in the Watergate burglary. When what they should’ve done was to say, “here’s this local Washington burglary of Democratic National Headquarters, lets let the Washington Police handle it. Because we’re not involved.”

Had Richard Nixon had a sounder more sober mind, not as far as intelligence, because he was really a brilliant man and perhaps the smartest president we’ve ever had, but a more sober mind in the sense that he could see things for what they are and act accordingly, he would’ve said, “Watergate is not our problem. And even if some of our people on the campaign are involved in it, the police will find those people and act accordingly.” Now President Nixon didn’t know that his own Attorney General John Mitchell was involved in Watergate. And I and others believed he ordered the operation when he was running the reelection campaign. But again the police would’ve figured that out and the President would’ve fired him.

But that is not what President Nixon and his White House team did. They played it like they were ones who not only knew about the Watergate operation, but ordered it. They acted as if they were the criminals in this story and because of their behavior they became the criminals and defendants in this story. All of the career lawyers and some of them former prosecutors who became defendants in this case and did time in prison. Like John Erlichman, John Dean, Chuck Colson and perhaps some others. Instead of just letting the story play to its natural conclusion and moving on with the business of the country.

Frost/Nixon The Complete Interviews: Foreign Policy

Source:The New Democrat

The real genius of the Nixon Presidency was the foreign policy. President Nixon and his National Security Director, could simply see things happening twenty-years in advance. I don’t believe we’ve ever had two people that high up in the U.S. Government that knew so much about foreign policy and national security than Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. But President George H.W. Bush and his National Security Adviser, perhaps come close. Nixon/Kissinger, looked at both the world that they wanted and the world the way it was. And based on those two things tried to make the world as safe as possible.

Nixon/Kissinger, saw the Soviet Union, a country back then of around four-hundred-million people and physically the largest country in the world and the People’s Republic of China, already with a billion people back then and physically the fourth largest country in the world, just behind the United States, as trading partners. Even though we were enemies with both of them. But they believed the way you get bad guys to behave well is for their people to see what your country has to offer and how other countries govern themselves. I don’t believe the democratic awakening in the Slavic States in Eastern Europe like Poland happens in the late 1970s and 80s, without Russia being opened up in the early 1970s.

Nixon/Kissinger saw a day without the Soviet Union in the early 1970s. It happened twenty-years later, but they saw the end of the Soviet Union by the early 1970s. And wanted to open a relationship and dialogue between the two government’s and people’s before that day came and if anything to speed up that transition. While everyone else Left and Right was talking about containment of Russia in the early 1970s, President Nixon was interested in actually defeating Russian communism politically and economically. Let the Russian people know how bad their form of government and economic system is. And give them incentive to look at other systems around the world.

Ronald Reagan did not win the Cold War. No one President can win a war like that by themselves. President Reagan presided over the end of the Cold War in the 1980s and put in policies to see that happen. Like continuing with the military buildup, which actually started under President Gerald Ford and continued with President Jimmy Carter. And with the nuclear arms agreements with Russia. And with President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, putting in economic polices to move Russia passed Marxism economically.

The ending of the Cold War started under the President Nixon. And even Russia did have a military buildup in the late 1970s and were on the move in the Middle East and Central Asia, like in Afghanistan, they weren’t economically strong enough to sustain that. Their economy was already collapsing then because they were spending so much on defense and were going through economic shortages as a result. Not saying that President saw all of this happening, but opening up a country that huge and letting their people see your country, gave the Russian people a chance to see what a wealthy free country looks like. And President Nixon and Henry Kissinger deserve a lot of credit for that.

Frost/Nixon The Complete Interviews: Watergate

Source:The New Democrat

Richard Nixon being the very smart if not brilliant politician that he was, knew about the dangers of Watergate as soon as he heard about it and what the burglars were breaking in to. I mean think about it, you have Republican operatives who are at the very least connected with the Nixon reelection campaign accused of breaking in to the Democratic National Headquarters. Richard Nixon is President of the United States at the time of course and obviously a Republican, so of course the media is going to want to know what involvement did the Nixon White House have if any in the burglary.

So what President Nixon wanted to do at least early in the story, was to get the story finished and over with. So no one could make it look like someone in the White House ordered the operation, especially the President. And that the Nixon Campaign wasn’t breaking into Democratic Headquarters illegally to steal information and use it against the George McGovern Campaign. President Nixon saw Watergate as a time bomb that could blow up his reelection campaign and turn what was a runaway blowout victory, into a close election with Senator McGovern and perhaps even hurt his presidency.

So when President Nixon tells his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to tell the FBI, “not to go into Watergate any further, period”, he was trying to put an end to the story and get the country passed Watergate and back to the issues that his administration was focusing on. And his reelection campaign and back on pace to his forty-nine state victory and winning 3-5 of the popular vote in 1972. The facts are, Watergate didn’t hurt President Nixon at all in 1972. Its early 1973 when Watergate becomes a big story and when Congress gets involved in it starting in the Senate with their bipartisan investigation of the story in the summer of 1973.

The Washington Post led by Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were focused on Watergate from the beginning. And to a certain extent CBS News and The New York Times. But The Post was really where the action was in this story from the beginning. And when they started breaking stories and getting hard information about the story, the other major national news organizations, network news and the papers and Congress as well started looking into this story. And the more facts that came out about it and the fact that the White House was trying to cover it up, the worst President Nixon looked.

TNT: Nixon and Kissinger (1995)

Source:The New Democrat

I saw this movie last night in preparation for this blog and I gotta admit, I like this movie more than I did twenty-years ago when I saw it for the first time. Back then I guess I was under the impression that this movie was simply about the relationship of President Richard Nixon and his top foreign policy and national security adviser Henry Kissinger. And I guess that would’ve been interesting enough, but this movie is much deeper than that. They cover most of 1972 and the Nixon Administration trying to end the Vietnam War one way or another that year. And before Election Night 1972 if all possible.

This movie is basically about the last days of the Vietnam War. When the end of that war was declared and when both countries were officially no longer at war. And after the war was officially over in late 1972 or early 73, the last two years became about how to successfully get all American personal out of Vietnam and prepare for our next relationship with the new Communist Republic of Vietnam. And Henry Kissinger who at this point was President Nixon’s National Security Director the head of the National Security Council and not Secretary of State yet, was in charge of these negotiations.

This movie also covers the personal and professional relationship of Nixon and Kissinger. How Nixon being the paranoid man that he was and how jealous of all the good publicity that Kissinger was getting. While the American press was never a fan of Dick Nixon and him becoming President of the United States didn’t help the press in how they felt about him. According to this movie the Nixon White House wanted to use Kissinger and take advantage of what they brought to the White House, but at the same time make it look like Kissinger was just taking orders. And not actually running foreign policy. This is a very good, but unfortunately short movie about two of the most fascinating and brilliant people to ever serve in the U.S. Government.

Mark Pfister: Secrets of War, Documentary

Source:The New Democrat

Assuming that this is true that Richard Nixon was negotiating with North Vietnam, the Communist Republic of Vietnam back then, as a private citizen without the permission of the Lyndon Johnson Administration, then you can add that to the long list of charges and real felonies that any other American would’ve done at least twenty-years on in prison for. Assuming the prosecution decided to prosecute Dick Nixon on all of those charges. And if this is true, then Nixon became a criminal before he became President of the United States.

And this is two or three years before Watergate and a couple of years before the plumbers unit was installed in the Nixon White House. The plumbers and the criminal operations inside of the Nixon White House was the real crimes of the Nixon White House. What Watergate did, well actually what the Nixon coverup of Watergate did, was to blow open all the illegal operations of the Nixon White House. That would’ve gotten President Nixon impeached by the U.S. House in 1974 and most likely convicted by the U.S. Senate in the same year as well.

What the Nixon campaign did in 1968 and then of course the plumbers unit in the White House in the early 1970s, there’s no way they would’ve gotten way with that today. And probably not in the 1990s and perhaps not the 1980s as well. Because they were holding so many secrets and trying to plug so many holes. And those holes would’ve broken in the information revolution of cable news and the internet. And people in the White House quite frankly, trying to save their asses.

Richard Nixon Foundation: Nixon Tapes: 'A Nutcase Congressmen With House Minority Leader Gerald Ford'

Source:The New Democrat

President Richard Nixon and House Minority Leader Gerald Ford talking about House Majority Leader Hale Boggs in 1971 or 72. Leader Boggs was a bit out there and Boogs would probably be a good nickname for him because he was known on both sides of the isle as doing strange things. That probably came from drinking too much. And Dick Nixon being the great judge character and sanity himself as someone who had a real deficits as they related to both character and sanity could see that Hale Boggs was also a bit out there.

CBS News: Evening News: 'A Look Back at President Richard Nixon's Resignation'

Source:The New Democrat

I would feel sorry for Richard Nixon and his last few days and even weeks as President had he not of brought these things down by his own actions. With the plummers unit and the illegal break ins, his role in covering up Watergate, the taping system and without all of that President Nixon doesn't resign. Of course there were people on the Left who hated the man, but if it wasn't for President Nixon's own personal actions as President, he never gets impeached.

Richard Nixon Foundation: 'President Nixon Unveils Family Assistance Program in 1969'

Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) talking about Welfare Reform in 1969.

Source:The New Democrat 

"On August 8, 1969, President Nixon addressed the nation on his administration's domestic program proposals. The focal point of his address and domestic legislative push was the Family Assistance Plan, a plan crafted with the help of chief Urban Affairs counsel Daniel Patrick Moynihan." 

From the Richard Nixon Foundation

What President Nixon is talking about here in 1969 became what is now known as Welfare to Work. The bipartisan law that Congress passed in 1996 that was signed by President Bill Clinton. The old Welfare system was based on subsidizing low-skilled adults who didn't have the skills needed to get a good job and support themselves and their families. But essentially left them in poverty without much of an ability to move up and get off of Welfare and move to the middle class.

What President Nixon is talking about here is to continue to subsidize people in poverty. But to empower them to be able to move out of poverty with things like education and job training. But also design a system where working regardless of the job pays more than not working. I believe in that as well which is why I support increasing the minimum wage to 10-12 dollars an hour and index it for inflation so it keeps up with cost of living. And then tie today's Welfare cash payments to today's $7.25 an hour minimum wage for a forty hour a week fifty-two weeks a year job.

You want people in poverty to stay in poverty than you encourage people not to work and pay them more not to work than they could make working with their current skills. But if you want people to actually get out of poverty, than you have to empower people on Welfare to get themselves the skills that they need to move up the economic ladder and get off of Welfare all together. Which is my approach and President Nixon covered some of that in this speech.

Richard Nixon Foundation: President Richard Nixon's Farewell Address to White House Staff

Source:The New Democrat

This was the one thing that was missing from Richard Nixon's career that I believe could've made his career even better and more successful. And he did by most standards had a very successful career in public service even with the way it ended. Especially considering where he came from and how far he went and how much he accomplished. But I believe the one thing that was missing about his career was candor about himself and letting people into the personal world of Richard Nixon.

I believe he had two great lines from this speech that were lessons and advice that he gave the American people based on his own personal experience. "You'll never know what it is like to be on the highest mountain until you've been in the deepest valley". Meaning you'll never know what it is like on top until you've been at the bottom. Because success isn't given to anyone and before you achieve success there are certain steps you have to take first and even failures so you know how to improve and get to the top.

The other great line I believe from President Nixon's speech is. "Don't ever get discouraged and ever be petty. Because others may hate you, but they only win when you hate them and then you destroy yourself". Meaning people may hate or seriously dislike you, but that shouldn't bother you as long as you are doing your best and are a good person. So what if some schmuck hates you especially if you are a good productive person. What the hell they know and they may hate you for being what they are not which is a decent productive successful person.

The main problem that Dick Nixon had that I believed destroyed what otherwise would've been a great presidency what that he didn't live the advice that he gave at his farewell address. He didn't take his own advice and let people who did hate him and he had perhaps more than his share of haters from his days in Congress to being Vice President of the United States and out of office all together from 1961-69 and he let those haters destroy him by feeling the need and urge to destroy them even by using illegal means. And it cost him his presidency.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library: ‘New Federalism: Returning Power to The People’

Source:Richard Nixon Presidential Library- President Richard Nixon's OMB Director Richard Nathan.

Source:The New Democrat

“August 08, 2011: Nixon administration officials discuss RN’s national policy to transfer power from the federal government to state and local governments.

Location: Richard Nixon Presidential Library

Participants:

Edwin Harper, Nixon White House Domestic Council Assistant Director;

James Falk, Nixon White House Domesctic Council Associate Director;

Richard Nathan, Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Nixon;

Shirley Anne Warshaw (moderator), Professor of Political Science, Gettysburg College.

Organized by Nixon White House Associate Director Geoffrey C. Shepard, the forums are co-sponsored by the National Archives and the Richard Nixon Foundation.”

From the Richard Nixon Presidential Library 

"New Federalism Interviews: James Falk" 

Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- interviewing James Falk.

From the Richard Nixon Foundation

"The New Federalism investigates whether returning a variety of regulatory and police powers back to the states will yield better government. It poses the provocative question, Can the states be trusted? and emerges with a qualified yes. This book should be an invaluable resource to federal and state policymakers alike." 

Source:Amazon- The New Federalism.

From Amazon

I think to understand what Richard Nixon’s vision for what they called the New Federalism, you have to understand the political climate of the 1960s, the 1970s, and even the 1950s, when Richard Nixon was Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President. And then you also have to understand what the Republican Party was like back then as well. Otherwise the New Federalism, the concept of a public safety net coming from a Republican President, will look very alien and foreign to you. It might look like a hip-hopper at a Mississippi country music festival, or something so out of place like that.

During the 1960s, we had President John F. Kennedy’s vision for the New Frontier, where he wanted to use the Federal Government to help people in need, help themselves. Then we had President Lyndon’s B Johnson’s Great Society, where they believed so American  should have to go without and that it was the job of the Federal Government to make sure that everyone is taken care of.

When Richard Nixon becomes President in January, 1969, he didn’t come back to Washington to destroy the New Deal or Great Society. He didn’t have the power to do that with a Democratic Congress (House and Senate) with solid majorities in it. And he didn’t thinking eliminating those programs would be good politically or on policy grounds either. But he believed as a Republican that the country needed a choice and not have a Republican President that governs as a Progressive Democrat.

This might sound hard to believe with Watergate, the plumbers and all the constitutional civil liberty violations that the Nixon White House was guilty of in the early 1970s. But ideologically, Richard Nixon was a Progressive Republican. He had a lot more in common with Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, then he ever had in common with Robert Taft, or Barry Goldwater, or Ronald Reagan. Nixon believed in progress and using government to help create that progress. But he wasn’t a Socialist either or even a Democratic Socialist.

The New Federalism is the Progressive Republican vision of the public safety net in America, where you would have public programs available for people who truly need them, but they would be designed to move people out of poverty, with educational and work requirements, as well as time limits on then. And they would be run by the state and local government’s. But by the Feds, unlike with the Great Society and New Deal. 

Richard Nixon Foundation: 'President Richard Nixon's 1974 State of The Union Speech'

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.

"January 30, 1974: President Nixon gives the State of the Union address." 

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. 

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.

Richard Nixon Foundation: President Richard Nixon's 1972 State of The Union Address

Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) addressing a joint session of Congress in 1972. Vice President Spiro Agnew (Republican, Maryland) and Speaker of the House Carl Albert (Democrat, Oklahoma) in the background.

"January 20, 1972: President Nixon gives the State of the Union Address." 

From the Richard Nixon Foundation

President Richard Nixon was probably at the height of his power and popularity when he gave this speech in 1972. Election Night 1972 when he was overwhelmingly reelected with 60% of the voter and winning 499 states that year over Senator George McGovern, would be the only moment that could compete with his 1972 State of the Union. 

1971 was a very difficult year for President Richard Nixon politically. The Vietnam War was out of control, the New-Left antiwar-movement was on the march and the Nixon White House didn't seem to know how to handle that and President Nixon was paranoid about that and thinking that the Communist Party was the reason for the antiwar-movement in the country. And that's probably why The White House put together the so-called plumbers unit in The White House, as well as the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. 

But in early 1972, President Nixon was able to open up relationships with both the Soviet Union of Russia, as well as the People's Republic of China. The two Communist superpowers in the world. The economy was still strong at home and it looked like President Nixon was on his way to a strong reelection, early in 1972. 

Media Burn Archive: 'President Richard M. Nixon before Resignation & Full Speech, August 8, 1974'

Source:Media Burn Archive- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) announcing that he's resigning the presidency, in 1974.

"Moments before he goes on-air to resign as President of the United States, Richard Nixon is calm and collected, joking with staff as they set up the pool feed. "Good evening. This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this nation."

Help us caption & translate this video!" 

From Media Burn Archive

Why did President Richard Nixon resign the presidency in the summer of 1974, when he still had two and a half years left in his 2nd term? There are several reasons and to put it simply. He lost most if whatever support he had left in Congress. He would've been impeached on a bipartisan basis in the House and would've been convicted on a bipartisan basis in the Senate. The House Judiciary Committee had already voted to impeach him with a bipartisan vote and was on course for a similar vote on the House floor. The Republican Leader in the Senate, Minority Leader Hugh Scott told President Nixon, that the votes were there to convict the President which takes a 2/3 vote.

Senate Democrats had fifty five seats. Senate Republicans had forty-five seats and that there were at least twelve Republicans that would vote for the conviction of President Nixon and that Southern Democrats would vote for conviction as well. President Nixon would've been impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate, embarrassed even further in the country then he already embarrassed himself. And this scandal would've continued with the FBI or someone actually coming to the White House or someone to escort Richard Nixon out of the Oval Office so President Ford could takeover. Or however that process would've worked.

I would like to think that at least one of the reasons why Richard Nixon resigned the presidency when he didn't technically have to, you can't force a President to resign or a Member of Congress and perhaps even the Vice President, whose technically an elected official only they can make this what must be a very difficult decision, but I would like to think that why President Nixon resigned was to put an end to one if not the worst constitutional crisis's to sleep. And so the country could move on and deal with difficult challenges that were ahead.

The United States was facing energy shortages, a rising debt and deficit, rising unemployment. Similar challenges that President Carter faced in the late 1970s, that President Ford attempted to deal with them all. But it's a little difficult to deal with those challenges, when you are not sure who the President is going to be in the next few weeks. Whether it was for purely selfish reasons or looking out for the national interest in why President Nixon resigned when he did and I would like to think it was a combination of both, President Nixon made the right decision in resigning when he did. Not to make up for what he did that led up to his resignation, but to put and end to a scandal that he didn't start, but covered up.

Richard Nixon Library: ‘1969 Inauguration of Richard Nixon’

Source:Richard Nixon Library- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) being inaugurated as President, January, 1969.

Source:The FreeState 

“From the holdings of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library

From the Motion Film File

File ID: MFF 624 and MFF 625

NARA Record Group: 128.2

Produced by Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and Naval Photographic Center.

Technical production by the Senate Recording Studio and the Naval Photographic Center.

1/20/1969

For more information contact the Richard Nixon Presidential Library

nixon@nara.gov

http://www.nixonlibrary.gov

* * * * *

For more information, please visit the Nixon Library at http://www.nixonlibrary.gov or contact us at 714-983-9120 or nixon@nara.gov

* * * * *

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From the Richard Nixon Presidential Library

This film just gives you a good idea of what everyone goes through before the actual official inauguration of the new President and that ceremony takes place. As well as the last day of the outgoing President who happened to be President Lyndon B. Johnson on this day. As well as how power is transferred from one President to the new President who was Richard Nixon on this day. And the transfer of power from The White House from the Democratic Party which had it since 1961, to the Republican Party in 1969.

Mike Gardner: CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite- 'President Richard Nixon Enlists Governor's Aid In The War on Drugs (1971)'

Source:Mike Gardner- The CBS Evening News, covering President Richard M. Nixon and his failed War on Drugs, in 1971.

"Nixon enlists Governor's aid in the war on drugs. Nixon's psychedelic film experiment." 

From Mike Gardner 

I'm not sure about the exact year of this newscast, but I believe it's 1971. 

President Nixon actually seemed to have some good ideas up front when he launched the fake War on Drugs in 1971. Programs designed that were about prevention and treatment. Teaching students the dangers of using narcotics and get drug addicts into treatment instead of jail. 

Now, had President Nixon actually followed through on those policy's in his five and a half years as President, maybe the so-called War on Drugs wouldn't be the failure and joke that it is today. Where if anything narcotics are more available forty years later than they were then. And where we now have 2M people in prison today, the largest prison population in the world. And we only represent about 6% of the world's population, both China and India have four times as many people as we do and we have more prison inmates than they do. 

We have so many prison inmates, that we have overcrowded prisons and jails all across the country. Where hundreds of thousands of these people are in jail for using or possessing narcotics. You can actually go to prison or jail in America "The Land of the Free" for possession of narcotics. We now have drug addicts taking jail and prison cells that would normally be operated by violent offenders, people who belong in prison and belong there for a long time. 

Actually, one good thing about our overcrowded prisons and cells, is that some states like California (to use as an example) are now releasing non-violent offenders like drug addicts (to use as an example) shoplifters (would probably be another one) hopefully to halfway houses and drug rehab where they can get help for their issues. And help finding a job so they can be productive and saving that prison space for people who need to be there instead. California also has a debt and budget crisis as well. 

What we learned the last forty years in the fake War on Drugs or what we should've learned is how not to fight the War on Drugs. That it's not smart to treat drug dealers the same as drug addicts. Drug addicts are patients with a disease, called addiction they are not able to tell themselves that they've had enough cocaine. Or whatever they are addicted to, similar to obesity or alcoholism, 

Drug addicts should be treated like patients: send cocaine, heroin, and meth addicts to drug rehab instead of jail or prison and put them on what's called a three strikes policy to get them off of their addiction, not cure them, but get them off of whatever narcotics they are addicted to. 

Strike one, voluntary drug rehab. Strike two, involuntary drug rehab in jail. Strike three, jail time as well as more drug rehab in jail. And make them pay for all of their drug rehab as well. 

Drug dealers though should be treated like the criminals that they are because they prey off of addicts in order to make as much money from them as possible. Including blackmail and extortion and these people need to be in prison doing long sentences. And of course give them a shot at building their lives so they can get a legal job once they leave prison. 

The fake War on Drugs is about supply and demand like anything else in our economy. If people want something bad enough, there's going to be somebody to sell them what they want. So if drug dealers have less customers wanting their dope, meaning fewer drug addicts, they'll make less money. 

CBS News: CBS Evening News- President Richard Nixon vs. Senator Ted Kennedy on Health Care (1971)

Source:CBS News- Washington correspondent Daniel Schorr.

"Back in 1971 Republican President Nixon and Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy debated national health care reform. Here's a report at the time from CBS News' Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr." 

From CBS News

If you look at what President Richard Nixon proposed in health care reform in 1971 to Congress and you look at what Senator Ted Kennedy wanted to do then and perhaps his whole Congressional career, the debate then between President Nixon and Senator Kennedy is very similar to the debate that President Barack Obama had with the Democratic Socialist faction of his party in 2009-10. 

The one difference between 1971 and 2010 on health care is that President Nixon being a Republican obviously and a ProgressiveRepublican (I know that sounds strange) Someone who didn't believe in empowering the Federal Government and expanding it generally in the economy, other than to help people help themselves and serve as an economic insurance system for people who truly needed.

And Senator Ted Kennedy who I would describe as the Bernie Sanders of the 1970s, along with Senator George McGovern and perhaps a few other left-wing Democrats in Congress, who believed in social insurance programs and the welfare state. And in protecting them and even expanding them. 

Health care being a perfect example of this as Senator Kennedy was in favor of a single payer health insurance system. With Medicare being the only health insurer for the whole country. But what President Nixon offered and I give him a lot of credit especially as a Republican for taking on health care reform an issue that the Democratic Party has owned at least since the creation of Medicare in 1965.

But what the Nixon Administration offered looks very similar to what President Obama worked out with the Democratic Congress in 2010. The Nixon Administration essentially created our employer sponsored health insurance system. Where a lot of American workers get their health insurance today. And for a long time through their employer. 

What President Nixon wanted to do in health insurance was to expand it to millions of Americans who couldn't afford health insurance on their own. Or couldn't afford their employers health insurance plan. President Nixon's program was essentially private health insurance expansion through workers employers. Which is what the ACA is with a Patients Bill of Rights built into it as well and a health insurance mandate.

So to call the Affordable Care Act extreme or socialist, or anything like that is nonsense. (To be generous) It's a very mainstream approach to health insurance reform. That was started in 1971 in the Nixon Administration and then later proposed again in 1993-94 with then Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole a Republican, obviously. Along with then Senator John Chaffey a Northeastern Republican during the failed Clinton health care reform debate then. That President Clinton now admits that he regrets not taking the Senate Republican compromise in health care reform.

The Senate Republican proposal of the early 1990s, that President Clinton could've had, but would've given him a partial victory in this debate and an accomplishment. And a chance to fight round two of health care reform in his presidency and build off of the first bill. And perhaps even saving the Democratic Congress in 1994. But of course we will never know. 

Senator Kennedy clearly didn't like the Nixon health Care reform plan as this video indicates. But it's hardly an extreme proposal proposed by right-wing extremists. Because the Dole/Chaffey health care plan in 1993-94 would've build off of the employer sponsored health insurance system. And what was in the Nixon plan, a lot of it is in the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

Ray Koch: President Richard Nixon- 'Birth of The HMO'

Source:Ray Koch- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) talking to his Domestic Policy Director JohnEhrlichman, about health care reform, in 1971.

"In 1971, Edgar Kaiser, the son of the founder of Kaiser Permanente, one of the first big HMOs, went to see John Ehrlichman, a top aide to President Nixon, to lobby the Nixon White House to pass legislation that would expand the market for health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Ehrlichman reported this conversation to Nixon on February 17, 1971. The discussion, which was taped, went like this: Ehrlichman: I had Edgar Kaiser come in...talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make. President Nixon: Fine. The next day, Nixon publicly announced he would be pushing legislation that would provide Americans "the finest health care in the world." 

From Ray Koch

Whether you're a fan of HMO's (Health Maintenance Organizations) or not, there's one person as well as the Democratic Congress of 1971-72 or 92nd Congress, that you can thank: the people who brought employer based health insurance to America, President Richard M. Nixon. 

With HMO's, anyone with a good job, whether they work in the private or public sector, has health insurance partially paid for by your employer. And of course you pay the other part which is taken out of your paycheck. 

Apparently before we had HMO's we had a fairly efficient health care system as far as our costs. But not enough people were covered with health insurance. Which makes health care and health insurance more expensive for everyone else.

The main reasons why Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965, to provide government-run health insurance for senior citizens and low-income people who haven't retired yet. However you feel about President Nixon, he did make a contribution to health care reform in America. Whether you believe it's a positive contribution or not. 

I don't have a problem with HMO's as long as they are regulated properly, which they weren't before the 2010 Affordable Care Act. That included a Patient Bill of Rights in it, which essentially means that HMO's and health insurers, can't turn down people who need health insurance when get sick, or put lifetime caps on the amount that people can consume in their health care.

Basically as long as people pay for their share of their health insurance, they can't get dropped from their health coverage. If this was done back in 1971-72, maybe we don't have the most expensive health care system in the developed world right now. 

President Nixon, took a stab at health care reform, President Carter the same thing, President Clinton as well with his famous debacle. President George W. Bush and it took President Obama and a Democratic Congress with large majority's in both chambers to get it passed. All of this work and debates could've been avoided if HMO's were regulated properly from the start and we could've saved our health care system forty years of inefficiency.

If we had a Patient Bill of Rights from the start, we could have saved trillions on health care the last forty years. But perhaps President Nixon and the Democratic Congress then, couldn't predict the abuses that would've come in the future. 

Whether you're a fan of President Nixon or not and yes his main contribution and focus he gave to America was in foreign policy with Russia, China and ending the Vietnam War, he also made a contribution in environmental policy, and in health care as well. And he may of had a good idea at the time, but didn't put the right regulations in place. To prevent the abuses and the costs that came in the future.