Richards Nixon’s resignation speech was spoken on August 4, 1974. This speech was transcribed and put out to the public shortly after. Composed by Chief speechwriter Ray Price, the speech was written for one main purpose: Let the nation know that Richard Nixon was resigning. This resignation speech also encompassed many other topics. When Nixon spoke to the public, he apologized for some of his actions, reassured the country that they were in good hands, and tried to clear his name and restore his broken reputation. At the time the document was written, the country was very torn apart. The Vietnam war had just ended and Americans were still bitter about the government and the prolonging of the what seemed to be a neverending war. In Nixon’s …show more content…
speech, he tried to be very positive and optimistic about the war saying, “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 far-reaching and more difficult”. Nixon referred to it as a work to secure peace amongst the world. Many Americans would very much disagree with the statement he made about securing the peace because very little peace was actually made throughout the whole war in Vietnam. Although Vietnam was not a success, Nixon reminds the people of the success he made with Chinese, and Soviet relations. Communism was a key component of President Nixon’s foreign policy.
In his speech, he talks about the great successes he had trying to normalize relations with both The People’s Republic of China and The Soviet Union. He states, “We have opened the 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”. This positive and uplifting statement tries to show the people that he was successful in his efforts and that continuing progress must be made. While many still did not believe much improvement had been made, Nixon insisted there had …show more content…
been. One historical event that directly ties into his speech of resignation is The Watergate Scandal. This scandal is what Nixon is infamous for and what forced him to put in his resignation because he was going to get impeached anyway. The possible ordering of a break-in and mass lying to cover up the White House involvement led him trying to regain a good reputation in this speech. He does this by saying, “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”. This quote both tries to change the public's view of him and gives the basis for why he is resigning. Another quote addresses this more, “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 interest of the Nation:”. This quote seems more apologetic than the first one about his actions relating to Watergate, but then goes again and states that he did it for the best interest of the nation. Even with this apology to the people and justification for doing it, his reputation is still very much tarnished because of The Watergate Scandal This document was written and spoken to inform the nation of the happenings of Richard Nixon’s resignation, but also tried to justify and provide reasoning for his actions. Another big thing this document attempted to do was remind people of all the good things he did as President. While this did not convince the people of much, and many still viewed him with the clouded judgment that Watergate created, it still shed some light on a broad overview of his successes. Until the end, Richard Nixon always tried to uphold his reputation and to not be known for the crook many people thought he was. This document tries to make the points that he was a good, successful president by constantly repeating his successes and his justifications.
Eight times, the speech refers to justifying his actions and also refers to his successes as President eight times. These references repetitively try to convince the people of the “good” man that they should view him as and not by the mistakes he made. This reassurance was not only for the good of Nixon, but also for the good of the government. The time in which Nixon resigned, severe unrest and distrust of the government was present. The speech delivered by President Nixon tried to reassure the people of what good the government can do and tried to get the people to trust in the government again. It states, “ 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 10 months ago, that the leadership of America will be in good hands”. This confidence in the person taking over to lead the country tries to give hope and confidence to the people. He attempts to let America know that they can trust the government
again. While much of Nixon’s efforts fail, this speech did help a lot of people forgive him of his wrongdoing. It shows that he was sorry for the actions he committed and that he was remorseful when he resigned. On the flip side this speech also contains a lack of true justification, but mentions that he thought it was good for the country. Overall, the resignation speech delivered
Nixon’s hamartia, a fatal flaw that leads to the character’s downfall, was his hunger for power and insecurity. Many people have reported that he would lash out at his enemies. The cause of the Watergate Scandal, the incident when burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee’s office and tried to wiretap phones and steal documents, was Nixon’s insecurity. He didn’t think he was going to be reelected and resorted to unethical actions. This event forced Nixon to resign from office, thus displaying that his insecurity led to his downfall.
The "Checkers Speech" saved Nixon's career, what was left of it.. Eisenhower kept him on the ticket just because of his looks and he went on to serve eight years as Vice President. He wanted to win by a lot. In 1960 Nixon ran for President, losing a close race to John F. Kennedy. The smell of hope. He was paranoid. Two years later he lost a bitter race for Governor of California to Pat Brown and retired from politics, telling the press, "There is always next year. He was paranoid.
Ronald Reagan was one of the most liked Presidents. When being elected for his second term, he won by a landslide—winning all the states minus Minnesota and Washington D.C. Reagan addresses the people of the United States of America. He wants the American people to reflect on his presidency, and as all presidents do in their farewell addresses, he wants to say goodbye to the nation that he's led for the past eight years. Ronald Reagan uses repetition, parallel structure, and allusion to reflect on his presidency and to say farewell to the American people.
The supporting argument is that Nixon made awful choices, but that should not change the people’s opinion of government. Nixon supporters were disgraced, and his opponents just shook their heads. His supporters trusted him to do the right things, but in the end he just hurt them. While this was a major issue in history, the American people should not look at this one bad apple. If the whole United States thought that everyone in the government was corrupt, then we would have a huge problem.
It takes a smart man to learn from his mistakes, and Nixon did that. That is why he deserved to be President of the United States.
On April 30, 1970, when Nixon gave a speech announcing his invasion of Cambodia, anti-war factions rose up across the United States. In the speech he stated that, “If, when the chips are down…the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and institutions around the world. I would rather be a one term president and do what I believe is right than to be a two term president at the cost of seeing America become a second rate power.” Students did not agree with Nixon and protests cropped up on university campuses in the days that followed his speech. Amongst these protesters were students of Kent State University, “The Cambodian invasion defined a watershed in the attitude of Kent students toward American policy in the Indochina War.” At this point, the first two days of May, the students were protesting Nixon’s actions. While the cou...
...mbodia was intentionally carried out without the consent of Congress, which also violated the articles outlined in the United States Constitution. The charged that he faced for that was Unlawful Refusal to Contempt with Congress. After all, having kept the bombing of Cambodia a secret was not a success for President Nixon, carrying out the plan wasn’t successful either. It did not stop Communism from spreading. The media would find out about the bombing and the only person to blame for all of the consequences would be the corrupted President Nixon. His own poor egotistical actions led to his downfalls including the downfall of the great Watergate Scandal. He had put this burden upon himself because he carried out actions so freely without having the issue discussed with the Congress and taking advantage of the power of the presidency and going beyond the boundary.
When people think about President Richard Nixon, they immediately associate him with the Watergate scandal, but actually “…his pre-Watergate record is a lot better than most [people] realize…” (DeGregorio 600). Nixon and his administration stepped up and exhibited goodness during his first term and part of his second term. They reduced U.S involvement in Vietnam War and brought home 518,000 soldiers from 1969 to 1972. They even made deals to get the POW’s in North Vietnam out and home (DeGregorio 595). Nixon’s administration formed the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce clean air and water laws. Nixon also signed all the Civil Rights Acts passed by Congress (DeGregorio 597). The Civil Rights Acts desegregated schools and by 1972, 90% of schools were desegregated (The Richard M. Nixon Administrations). This really helped improve the educational opportunities for black children. Nixon also started a revenue sharing program in which the federal government gave billions of dollars of taxes back to the state and local governments (DeGregorio 596). This helped local governments because they could spend the money on the things that their communities needed the most. Nixon’s specialty was foreign affairs and he visited both communist China and Soviet Union. He was the first president to go to China and he helped open up Chinese-American relationships and settle differences with the Chinese (The Richard M. Nixon Administr...
Nixon’s principle objective was to reduce U.S involvement in the war, so he began the process called Vietnamization which gave the South Vietnam the money, the weapons, and the training that they need to take over the full conduct of the war. In return, the U.S troops would gradually withdraw from Vietnam. The president proclaimed the Nixon Doctrine, declaring that in the future Asian allies would receive U.S support but without the extensive use of U.S ground forces. Nixon’s Vietnamization process reduce the number of antiwar protests, but when the president expanded the war by using U.s forces to invade Cambodia in order to destroy Vietnam’s communist base, a nationwide protest occurred. U.S senate voted to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Nixon was long associated with American politics before his fall from grace. He was along time senator before finally being elected president in 1968. During his first term, his United States went through the Vietnam War and a period of economic inflation. In 1972 he was easily re-elected over Democrat nominee George McGovern. Almost unnoticed during his campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon’s re-election committee. They had broken into the Democrats national head quarters in the Watergate apartment complex, in Washington D.C. They attempted to steal documents and place wire taps on the telephones. By March of 1973, through a federal inquiry, it had been brought to light that the burglars had connections with high government officials and Nixon’s closest aids. Despite Nixon and his lawyers best efforts, it was shown that the president had participated in the Watergate cover-up. On August 8, 1974 Nixon announced, without admitting guilt, that he would resign. He left the Oval Office the next day: an obvious fall from grace.
The years leading up to the 1972 election were filled with new political tactics. Going into the election year, President Nixon seemed like he could never lose the second term election after successfully negotiating with Vietnam, Beijing, and Russia to improve international relations (Emery 4). Raising international toughness made Nixon seem like the most worthy person to stay president. Fred Emery analyses in his novel Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon, the president was also setting up the first summit meeting in history with Soviet Union Presidents (3). There seemed to be nothing capable of holding the seemingly responsible man back. However, this assurance came with massive consequences. The absolute certainty that Nixon would be reelected fueled the lies and abuse of power by the Nixon government (Emery 195). As the outlook of landslide winnings took over the White House, the moral reasoning, “the end justifies the means” became more prevalent. Nixon was obsessed with winning and being successful. Under his command his staff did whatever possible to ...
Web. 30 Oct. 2013. "The Watergate Story: Nixon Resigns." Washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013.
In 1969 Nixon shifted his rhetoric, after taking office, and attacked the issue of making a war plan head on, this is especially evident during a speech in November of that year. In this speech, he outlines the plan and the action that has been taken to remove the US from Vietnam. He reiterates proposals made in a speech to the UN and all of which were denied by the leader, “We have offered our complete withdrawal of all outside forces within 1 year, we have proposed a cease-fire under international supervision, we have offered free elections under international supervision with the Communists participating in the organization and conduct of the elections as an organized political force. And the Saigon Government has pledged to accept the result
Failure of the Détente Between the Superpowers The French word ‘détente’, which the Oxford English Dictionary describes as “the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation” (www.oed.com), first appeared in this context when a German newspaper used it to describe the visit of a British monarch at the beginning of the 20th century (Froman, 1991). In this essay, I will attempt to explain the cold war détente between the superpowers of the USA and the USSR in the 1970’s, concentrating first on its positive developments between 1971 and 1973 and then on the events that lead to its ultimate failure, symbolised by the soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The first real steps of relaxation of tensions were taken with the Moscow summit and the signing of the SALT 1 (Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) agreement in May 1972. The SALT agreement was a staring point for attempts to control nuclear arms, to restrict the impact and spread of nuclear weapons and to secure a balance due to ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ (the notion that a nuclear attack from one side would lead to a retaliation from the other and therefore both sides would be greatly damaged) between the two superpowers and were to be followed up by further arms limitations talks within the next five years (Kent and Young, 2004). Also, agreements were reached on lowering the risk of accidental confrontation and on cooperation in science, health and environmental issues.
On a quiet night in November of 1969, the nation tuned in to what would become one of the most anticipated speeches in presidential history. President Richard Nixon would finally be answering the calls of the anti-war movement and addressing the war in Vietnam. The speech consisted of a call for national solidarity on the Vietnam War effort, as the Nixon Administration sought to gain support from the American people. At the time, the anti-war movement was in full-swing. Although war had been waged for about a year, the United States had established military presence in Vietnam since 1955. Americans were tired of conflict, seeking desperately an end to the war. In his speech, Nixon pronounced an ultimatum that would mark the end of fighting in Vietnam. In his eyes, the communists either needed to agree to peace or the South Vietnamese needed to be postured for assuming the fight themselves.