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| Richard M. Nixon
A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits. A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue. Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist. Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it. As far as I am concerned now, I have no enemies in the press whatsoever. As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the american people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible. By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the healing. Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. a woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do. Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects. Don't try to take on a new personality; it doesn't work. Get a good night's sleep and don't bug anybody without asking me. I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any other minority viewpoint – no matter how distasteful to the majority, provided ... I believe in the battle – whether it’s the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle. I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning. I can see clearly now ... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate ... I can take it ... The tougher it gets, the cooler I get ... I condemn any attempts to cover up in this case, no matter who is involved. I doubt if any of them would even intentionally double-park. I gave 'em a sword. and they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. and I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing. I had come so far from the little house in Yorba Linda to this great house in Washington. I had never expected that the China initiative would come to fruition in the form of a Ping-Pong team. I let the american people down. I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business. I took a look around the office ... I walked out and closed the door behind me. I knew that I would not be back there again. I want a break-in ... I want the Brookings safe cleaned out. and have it cleaned out in a way that makes somebody else look bad. I want you to stonewall it. I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes. I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them. I would have made a good Pope. I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say. I've analyzed the best I can ... and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course. I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers or magazines to read. If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything. If I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality. If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect. If we take the route of the permanent handout, the american character will itself be impoverished. If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars. In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose. It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody. It's the responsibility of the media to look at the president with a microscope, but they go too far when they use a proctoscope. It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it. Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only americans can do that. My concern today is not with the length of a person’s hair but with his conduct. My strong point is not rhetoric, it isn’t showmanship, it isn’t big promises – those things that create the glamour and the excitement that people call charisma and warmth. My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise. No event in american history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now. No one in the White House staff, no one in this administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident. Once a man has been in politics, once that’s been in his life, he will always return if the people want him. Once you’re in the stream of history you can’t get out. People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. People see me and they think, "He’s risen from the dead." Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats? Could we please investigate some of those cocksuckers? Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people. Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. So you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close you can walk without losing your balance. Solutions are not the answer. The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them. There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell–and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that … I never shoot blanks. There is a time to be timid. There is a time to be conciliatory. There is a time, even, to fly and there is a time to fight. and I’m going to fight like hell. There will be no whitewash in the White House. They say, "Gee, you look great." That means they thought you looked like hell before. This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation. This [is] a burden I shall bear for every day of the life that is left to me. Tonight – to you, the great silent majority of my fellow americans – I ask for your support. Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government. Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs. Voters quickly forget what a man says. Watergate had become the center of the media's universe, and during the remaining year of my presidency the media tried to force everything else to revolve around it. Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I? Well, I'm not a crook. What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid ... If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance. When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can't happen. When I retire I’m going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned. When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. You see these bums, you know, blowing up campuses … storming around about this issue. |
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