This paper will analyze the complete text of President Richard Nixon’s surrender address made on Aug. 8. 1974. The surrender address is available at the Watergate. info’s web site at: hypertext transfer protocol: //www. Watergate. info/nixon/resignation-speech. shtml This stuff was published to supply non merely the American populace. but the remainder of the universe. what considerations the president made before make up one’s minding to bow out of his office and allow Vice President Ford take over the bid of duty.
President Nixon’s surrender address is centered on his desire to function the American populace at all costs. even if it meant giving up his place as the nation’s leader. He kept reiterating that the involvement of the nation1 must ever come foremost. That same line of idea was repeated four times in the first seven paragraphs of the president’s address. He wanted to do his issue graceful. and at the same clip. he wanted the public to cognize that whatever he did. he did them with America’s best involvement at bosom.
The address. while conveying the president’s declinations at non being able to function his 2nd term in full. managed to sound dignified and sincere. The president’s surrender came at the aftermath of the Watergate dirt. The Watergate contention was merely referenced one time. at the start of his address. He didn’t attempt to supply grounds or alibis. He merely acknowledged that Watergate has divided the state and he doesn’t want the struggle at his fatherland to decline.
By forbearing to supply an account. Nixon conveyed through words that his actions and determinations. whatever they were. were done based on strong beliefs that it would be for the greater good. He managed non to sound defensive. The _____________ 1. Nixon’s Resignation Speech ( Watergate. info. [ 1995 ] ) 2 former president merely went every bit far as stating the state that whatever incorrect determinations he may hold done. it was for the grounds that he believed were right at that clip. He wasn’t precisely apologising. merely showing sorrow at the harm those incorrect determinations may hold caused.
The president wanted his surrender to get down the healing of the lesions that the state have as a consequence of the dirt. President Nixon besides made it a point to guarantee his oppositions that since the contention is non approximately them as individuals. but instead as public retainers on the opposite sides of the rope. he’s non keeping any scores and won’t spend the remainder of his life seeking to seek exoneration. The address besides acknowledged that the issue alienated President Nixon from Congress. which he considered his “base.
” Nixon implied that the office of the president can’t carry through its responsibilities without the Congress’ undisputed support. And since he lost an built-in portion of his support system. the president said in his address that he deemed it best to allow the following highest elected official return over the leading of a great state Towards the center of the address. President Nixon gave his support to Vice President Ford and asked the populace to make the same. He implored the state to supply the following president its full support in order for him to go on the good plants Nixon’s disposal were able to accomplish.
In this portion of his address. President Nixon managed to convey his concern for the frailty president. who was to confront a batch of challenges both in the local and international sphere. He besides called on Congress to one time once more back up the office of the president now that a new individual was taking over. In this portion of the president’s surrender missive. he may hold wanted to reassure Vice President Ford that his protagonists would give him the same sort of aid that they have 3 given the vacating president.
However. it sounded merely a small patronizing. giving the feeling that his political experience and accomplishments were superior to that of Vice President Ford’s. Towards the terminal of the address. President Nixon devoted it to sum up the mileposts achieved by his disposal. He reminded the Nation non to sabotage the advancement they’ve made in befriending antecedently hostile states like China and the Middle East lands. He left the American citizens a undertaking to advance peace among the other states in the universe. and to forestall atomic warfare — a large issue at that clip — to endanger the world’s safety.
What President Nixon said in this portion can be construed as a reminder to the American populace that the good he did for the state should non be overshadowed by a contention that has yet to be resolved. He wanted to be remembered as the individual who made the universe a peaceable topographic point to populate in. and non as a president who caused disunity in the state. The address ended with President Nixon giving his pledge that despite his surrender as president of the United States. he will ne’er lose sight of his ends of advancing peace non merely for the state but for the full universe.
He reassured the state that even if he was go forthing public service. his life would still be devoted to functioning the great causes of the state. The president’s surrender address surprised me a small. for I would hold expected him to give most of it as a agency to explicate the Watergate dirt. He neatly lessened the gravitation of the issue by non brooding excessively much on grounds and alibis. Whatever is the truth behind the Watergate affair. President Nixon’s address. despite being a small patronizing. managed to sound graceful. and most significantly. compassionate. This is the original transcript.
Nixon’s Resignation Speech August 8. 1974 Good eventide. This is the thirty-seventh clip I have spoken to you from this office. where so many determinations have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each clip I have done so to discourse with you some affair that I believe affected the national involvement. In all the determinations I have made in my public life. I have ever tried to make what was best for the State. Throughout the long and hard period of Watergate. I have felt it was my responsibility to persist. to do every possible attempt to finish the term of office to which you elected me.
In the past few yearss. nevertheless. it has become apparent to me that I no longer hold a strong plenty political base in the Congress to warrant go oning that attempt. Equally long as there was such a base. I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional procedure through to its decision. that to make otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that intentionally hard procedure and a perilously destabilizing case in point for the hereafter. But with the disappearing of that base. I now believe that the constitutional intent has been served. and there is no longer a demand for the procedure to be prolonged.
I would hold preferred to transport through to the coating whatever the personal torment it would hold involved. and my household nem con urged me to make so. But the involvements of the Nation must ever come before any personal considerations. From the treatments I have had with Congressional and other leaders. I have concluded that because of the Watergate affair I might non hold the support of the Congress that I would see necessary to endorse the really hard determinations and carry out the responsibilities of this office in the manner the involvements of the Nation would necessitate.
I have ne’er been a quitter. To go forth office before my term is completed is detestable to every inherent aptitude in my organic structure. But as President. I must set the involvement of America foremost. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress. peculiarly at this clip with jobs we face at place and abroad. To go on to contend through the months in front for my personal exoneration would about wholly absorb the clip and attending of both the President and the Congress in a period when our full focal point should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without rising prices at place.
Therefore. I shall vacate the Presidency effectual at midday tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hr in this office. As I recall the high hopes for America with which we began this 2nd term. I feel a great unhappiness that I will non be here in this office working on your behalf to accomplish those hopes in the following 2 1/2 old ages. But in turning over way of the Government to Vice President Ford. I know. as I told the State when I nominated him for that office 10 months ago. that the leading of America will be in good custodies.
In go throughing this office to the Vice President. I besides do so with the profound sense of the weight of duty that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow and. hence. of the apprehension. the forbearance. the cooperation he will necessitate from all Americans. As he assumes that duty. he will merit the aid and the support of all of us. As we look to the hereafter. the first necessity is to get down mending the lesions of this Nation. to set the resentment and divisions of the recent yesteryear behind us. and to rediscover those shared ideals that prevarication at the bosom of our strength and integrity as a great and as a free people.
By taking this action. I hope that I will hold hastened the start of that procedure of mending which is so urgently needed in America. I regret profoundly any hurts that may hold been done in the class of the events that led to this determination. I would state merely that if some of my judgements were incorrect. and some were incorrect. they were made in what I believed at the clip to be the best involvement of the Nation.
To those who have stood with me during these past hard months. to my household. my friends. to many others who joined in back uping my cause because they believed it was right. I will be everlastingly thankful for your support. And to those who have non felt able to give me your support. allow me state I leave with no resentment toward those who have opposed me. because all of us. in the concluding analysis. have been concerned with the good of the state. nevertheless our judgements might differ.
So. allow us all now join together in confirming that common committedness and in assisting our new President win for the benefit of all Americans. I shall go forth this office with sorrow at non finishing my term. but with gratitude for the privilege of functioning as your President for the past 5 1/2 old ages. These old ages have been a momentous clip in the history of our State and the universe. They have been a clip of accomplishment in which we can all be proud. accomplishments that represent the shared attempts of the Administration. the Congress. and the people.
But the challenges in front are every bit great. and they. excessively. will necessitate the support and the attempts 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 procuring a permanent peace in the universe. the ends in front are even more far-reaching and more hard. We must finish a construction of peace so that it will be said of this coevals. our coevals of Americans. by the people of all states. non merely that we ended one war but that we prevented future wars.
We have unlocked the doors that for a one-fourth of a century stood between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. We must now guarantee that the one one-fourth of the world’s people who live in the People’s Republic of China will be and stay non our enemies but our friends. In the Middle East. 100 million people in the Arab states. many of whom have considered us their enemy for about 20 old ages. now look on us as their friends. We must go on to construct on that friendly relationship so that peace can settle at last over the Middle East and so that the cradle of civilisation will non go its grave.
Together with the Soviet Union we have made the important discovery that have begun the procedure of restricting atomic weaponries. But we must put as our end non merely restricting but cut downing and eventually destructing these awful arms so that they can non destruct civilisation and so that the menace of atomic war will no longer hang over the universe and the people. We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must go on to develop and spread out that new relationship so that the two strongest states of the universe will populate together in cooperation instead than confrontation.
Around the universe. in Asia. in Africa. in Latin America. in the Middle East. there are 1000000s of people who live in awful poorness. even famishment. We must maintain as our end turning off from production for war and spread outing production for peace so that people everyplace on this Earth can at last expression frontward in their children’s clip. if non in our ain clip. to holding the necessities for a nice life. Here in America. we are fortunate that most of our people have non merely the approvals of autonomy but besides the agencies to populate full and good and. by the world’s criterions. even abundant lives.
We must press on. nevertheless. toward a end of non merely more and better occupations but of full chance for every American and of what we are endeavoring so difficult right now to accomplish. prosperity without rising prices. For more than a one-fourth of a century in public life I have shared in the disruptive history of this epoch. I have fought for what I believed in. I have tried to the best of my ability to dispatch those responsibilities and run into those duties that were entrusted to me.
Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed. but ever I have taken bosom from what Theodore Roosevelt one time said about the adult male in the sphere. “whose face is marred by dust and perspiration and blood. who strives valorously. who errs and comes abruptly once more and once more because there is non attempt without mistake and defect. but who does really endeavor to make the title. who knows the great enthusiasms. the great devotednesss. who spends himself in a worthy cause. who at the best knows in the terminal the victory of high accomplishments and who at the worst. if he fails. at least fails while make bolding greatly.
” I pledge to you tonight that every bit long as I have a breath of life in my organic structure. I shall go on in that spirit. I shall go on to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my old ages as a Congressman. a Senator. a Vice President. and President. the cause of peace non merely for America but among all states. prosperity. justness. and chance for all of our people. There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall ever be devoted for every bit long as I live.
When I foremost took the curse of office as President 5 1/2 old ages ago. I made this sacred committedness. to “consecrate my office. my energies. and all the wisdom I can cite to the cause of peace among states. ” I have done my really best in all the yearss since to be true to that pledge. As a consequence of these attempts. I am confident that the universe is a safer topographic point today. non merely for the people of America but for the people of all states. and that all of our kids have a better opportunity than before of life in peace instead than deceasing in war.
This. more than anything. is what I hoped to accomplish when I sought the Presidency. This. more than anything. is what I hope will be my bequest to you. to our state. as I leave the Presidency. To hold served in this office is to hold felt a really personal sense of affinity with each and every American. In go forthing it. I do so with this supplication: May God’s grace be with you in all the yearss in front.
