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 Richard Nixon
"The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of
peacemaker." - Richard M. Nixon, 1969
Richard
Milhous Nixon -
January 9, 1913
–
April 22, 1994
Sourced
- This administration has proved that it is utterly
incapable of cleaning out the corruption which has
completely eroded it and reestablishing the confidence and
faith of the American people in the morality and honesty of
their government employees.
- Nixon as Senator, speaking of the Truman
administration in 1951,
as quoted in Isaac
Asimov's Book of Facts (1992), p. 338
- Isn't it better to talk about the relative merits of
washing machines than the relative strength of rockets?
Isn't this the kind of competition you want?
- Remarks to Soviet premier Nikita
Krushchev during the Kitchen
Debate (24 July 1959)
- Now, some may ask why we don't get rid of the bases, since
the Soviet Government declares today that it has only
peaceful intentions. The answer is that whenever the fear
and suspicions that caused us and our Allies to take
measures for collective self-defense are removed, the reason
for our maintaining bases will be removed. In other words,
the only possible solution of this problem lies in mutual,
rather than unilateral action leading toward disarmament.
- Quoted in "1959
Year In Review: Death of John Foster Dulles," UPI.com
(1959)
- Spoken during a radio address in Moscow
- I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will
interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want
you to know — just think how much you're going to be
missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more,
because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it
will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test
wits with you.
- Press conference after losing the election for
Governor of California, (7 November 1962);
"Transcript of Nixon's News Conference on His
Defeat by Brown in Race for Governor of
California", New York Times (8 November
1962), p. 18.
- Sock it to me?
- Cameo appearance on Rowan
& Martin's Laugh-In (16 September 1968)
- The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of
peacemaker.
- Inaugural address (20 January 1969); later used as
Nixon's epitaph.
- This certainly has to be the most historic telephone call
ever made. For every American this has to be the proudest
day of our lives. And for people all over the world I am
sure they, too, join with Americans in recognizing what a
feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens
have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from
the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our
efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one
priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the
people on this Earth are truly one.
- Telephone message from the Oval office to
Neil
Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin on the Moon. (20 July 1969)
- North
Vietnam cannot humiliate and defeat America — only
Americans can do that.
- Address
to the Nation on the War in Vietnam (3 November 1969)
- 1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile! worth spending;
not concerned; no involvement of embassy; $10,000,00
available, more if necessary; full-time job — best men we
have; game plan; make the economy scream; 48 hours for plan
of action.
- There is an international disease which feeds on the
notion that if you have a cause to defend, you can use any
means to further your cause, since the end justifies the
means. As an international community, we must oppose this
notion, whether it be in Canada, in the United States, or
anywhere else. No cause justifies violence as long as the
system provides for change by peaceful means.
- Speech on the October
Crisis (October 1970), quoted in Louis, Fournier, F.L.Q:
The Anatomy of an Underground movement (Toronto: NC
Press Limited, 1984), p. 256
- You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards
that are out for legalizing marijuana are Jewish. What the
Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob? What is the matter
with them? I suppose it is because most of them are
psychiatrists.
- Many Jews in the Communist conspiracy. ... Chambers and
Hiss were the only non-Jews. ... Many thought that Hiss was.
He could have been a half. ... Every other one was a Jew —
and it raised hell for us. But in this case, I hope to God
he's not a Jew.
- Nixon, Haldeman, and Ronald Ziegler, 2:42-3:33 P.M.
Oval Office Conversation #524-7; cassette #775 (17 June
1971)
- So few of those who engage in espionage — are Negroes.
... In fact, very few of them become Communists. If they do,
they like, they get into Angela Davis — they're more the
capitalist type. And they throw bombs and this and that. But
the Negroes. — have you ever noticed? ... Any Negro spies?
- Nixon, Haldeman, and Ziegler, 4:03 P.M., Oval Office
Conversation #537-4; cassette #876 (5 July 1971)
- The Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of
bastards.
- When you get in these people when you...get these people
in, say: 'Look, the problem is that this will open the
whole, the whole Bay
of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that' ah,
without going into the details... don't, don't lie to them
to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say
this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting
into it, 'the President believes that it is going to open
the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again.' And, ah because these
people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call
the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go
any further into this case, period!
- The 'smoking gun tape' on (23 June 1972)
- In any organization, the man at the top must bear the
responsibility. That responsibility, therefore, belongs
here, in this office. I accept it. And I pledge to you
tonight, from this office, that I will do everything in my
power to ensure that the guilty are brought to justice and
that such abuses are purged from our political processes in
the years to come, long after I have left this office.
- I want to say this to the television audience. I made my
mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have
never profited, never profited from public service. I have
earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I
have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can
say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this
kind of examination because people have got to know whether
or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.
I've earned everything I've got.
- Televised press conference with 400 Associated Press
Managing Editors at Walt Disney World, Florida. (17
November 1973)
- I don't give a shit what happens. I want you all to
stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth
Amendment, cover up or anything else, if it'll save it,
save this plan. That's the whole point. We're going to
protect our people if we can.
- And I want you to know that I have no intention whatever
of ever walking away from the job that the people elected me
to do for the people of the United States.
- I recognize that this additional material I am now
furnishing may further damage my case.
- After the court-ordered release of the White House
tapes (5 August 1974)
- To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent
to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put
the interests of America first. America needs a full-time
President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this
time with problems we face at home and abroad.
- Resignation Speech (8 August 1974)
- I have never been a quitter.
- Resignation Address to the Union (8 August 1974)
- The greatness comes not when things go always good for
you, but the greatness comes when you are really tested,
when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when
sadness comes; because only if you've been in the deepest
valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the
highest mountain... 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.
- Speech to the assembled White House staff before his
final departure (9 August 1974)
- Well, when the President does it, that means that it is
not illegal.
- I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North
Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might
do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to
them that, for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about
Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry — and he
has his hand on the nuclear button — and Ho
Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging
for peace.
- As quoted in The Ends of Power (1978) by Robert
Haldeman
- Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to
achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing
nations is to take the profit out of war.
- Any nation that decides the only way to achieve peace is
through peaceful means is a nation that will soon be a piece
of another nation.
- Nowdays, If a news report does not tie up loose ends as
neatly as 'The
A Team', it is considered a flop.
- But by God, they're exceptions. But Bob, generally
speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on us.
- But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the
bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?
- I'm not for women, frankly, in any job. I don't want any
of them around. Thank God we don't have any in the Cabinet.
- I don't think a woman should be in any government job
whatever. I mean, I really don't. The reason why I do is
mainly because they are erratic. And emotional.
- As long as I'm sitting in the chair, there's not going to
be any Jew appointed to that court. [No Jew] can be right on
the criminal-law issue.
- Nixon: I still think we ought to take the North Vietnamese
dikes out now. Will that drown people?
Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.
Nixon: No, no, no, I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you
got that, Henry?
Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.
Nixon: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you?...I just want
you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes.
- In conversation with Henry
Kissinger regarding Vietnam, as quoted in Secrets:
A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. (2002)
by Daniel
Ellsberg ISBN
0-670-03030-9
- Nixon: The only place where you and I disagree ... is with
regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about
civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care.
Kissinger: I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't
want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher.
- In conversation with Henry Kissinger regarding
Vietnam, as quoted in Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam
and the Pentagon Papers. (2002) by Daniel Ellsberg
- I can't ever say that, but I believe it.
- Responding to Rev. Billy
Graham's assertion that the Jews have a
"stranglehold" on the media that "has to
be broken or the country's going down the drain."
Quoted in The
New Yorker (15 April 2002)
- I think most Americans understood that the
My
Lai massacre was not representative of our people, of
the war we were fighting, or of our men who were fighting
it; but from the time it first became public the whole
tragic episode was used by the media and the antiwar forces
to chip away at our efforts to build public support for our
Vietnam objectives and policies.
- As quoted in Convergences (2005) [second
edition] by Robert Atwan, [Bedford/St. Martin's.
p. 403]
First
Inaugural Address (1969)
- Full
text online
- Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and
unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which
courses are set that shape decades or centuries.
This can be such a moment.
Forces now are converging that make possible, for the first
time, the hope that many of man's deepest aspirations can at
last be realized. The spiraling pace of change allows us to
contemplate, within our own lifetime, advances that once
would have taken centuries.
In throwing wide the horizons of space, we have discovered
new horizons on earth.
For the first time, because the people of the world want
peace, and the leaders of the world are afraid of war, the
times are on the side of peace.
- The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.
- What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will
live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our
hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.
The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of
peacemaker. This honor now beckons America — the chance to
help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil,
and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of
since the dawn of civilization.
If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living
that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world
safe for mankind.
This is our summons to greatness.
Tape
transcripts (1971)
- We're going to [put] more of these little Negro bastards
on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family — let people like
Pat Moynihan and [special consultant] Leonard Garment and
others believe in all that crap. But I don't believe in it.
Work, work — throw 'em off the rolls. That's the key.
- I have the greatest affection for them but I know they're
not going to make it for 500 years. They aren't. You know
it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have
a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're
dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life.
They don't live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do
live like.
- "Archie's
Guys." Archie is sitting here with his hippie
son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The
son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy. He's
obviously queer — wears an ascot — but not offensively
so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his
parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best
friend, who used to play professional football. Virile,
strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar.
I don't mind the homosexuality. I understand it.
Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on
public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify
whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what
do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to
the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle
was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.
- You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman
emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what
happened to the popes? They were layin' the nuns; that's
been goin' on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church
went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual,
and it had to be cleaned out. That's what's happened to
Britain. It happened earlier to France.
Let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn,
they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't
know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think
the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality,
are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the
Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another.
They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree
with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and
Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.
- But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class
in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I
attend from time to time — it is the most faggy goddamned
thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd.
I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco.
Decorators. They got to do something. But we don't have to
glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made
women look so terrible is because the goddamned designers
hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now
they're trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.
- Tapes from 1971 as presented in "All the
Philosopher King's Men" by James Warren in Harper's
Magazine (February 2000)
Tape
transcripts (1972)
- Screw State!
State's always on the side of the blacks. The hell with
them!
Tape
transcripts (1973)
- There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know
that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape.
Second
Inaugural Address (1973)
- Full
text online
- The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace
which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which
can endure for generations to come.
It is important that we understand both the necessity and
the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace.
Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will
be no peace.
Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be
no freedom.
- We shall support vigorously the principle that no country
has the right to impose its will or rule on another by
force.
We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for
the limitation of nuclear arms, and to reduce the danger of
confrontation between the great powers.
We shall do our share in defending peace and freedom in the
world. But we shall expect others to do their share.
The time has passed when America will make every other
nation's conflict our own, or make every other nation's
future our responsibility, or presume to tell the people of
other nations how to manage their own affairs.
- Just as we respect the right of each nation to determine
its own future, we also recognize the responsibility of each
nation to secure its own future.
Just as America's role is indispensable in preserving the
world's peace, so is each nation's role indispensable in
preserving its own peace.
Together with the rest of the world, let us resolve to move
forward from the beginnings we have made. Let us continue to
bring down the walls of hostility which have divided the
world for too long, and to build in their place bridges of
understanding — so that despite profound differences
between systems of government, the people of the world can
be friends.
- Let us build a structure of peace in the world in which
the weak are as safe as the strong — in which each
respects the right of the other to live by a different
system — in which those who would influence others will do
so by the strength of their ideas, and not by the force of
their arms.
Let us accept that high responsibility not as a burden, but
gladly — gladly because the chance to build such a peace
is the noblest endeavor in which a nation can engage;
gladly, also, because only if we act greatly in meeting our
responsibilities abroad will we remain a great Nation, and
only if we remain a great Nation will we act greatly in
meeting our challenges at home.
Quotes about
Nixon
- He was the most dishonest individual I ever met in my
life. President Nixon lied to his wife, his family, his
friends, longtime colleagues in the US Congress, lifetime
members of his own political party, lifetime members of his
own political party, the American people and the world.
- Barry
Goldwater in his memoirs, Goldwater (1988)
- In his memoirs Nixon declared that to achieve his ends the
"institutions" of government had to be
"reformed, replaced or circumvented. In my second term
I was prepared to adopt whichever of these three methods —
or whichever combination of them — was necessary."
- I may not know much, but I do know the difference between
chicken shit and chicken salad.
- Lyndon
B. Johnson, when asked why he had not replied to a
speech by then-Vice President Nixon. Quoted in Merle
Miller, Lyndon, An Oral Biography (1980), p. 542
- Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only
person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.
- John
F. Kennedy, during the 1960 presidential campaign.[citation
needed]
- Nixon's comments about Jews were sort of — there was a
huge disparity between the comments he made about Jews and
the large number of Jews he had in his administration. And
it is hard to believe in one sense. I don't really think
Nixon was anti-Semitic. He had sort of standard phrases.
- Henry
Kissinger as quoted at MSNBC
(9 June 2005)
- He was captured by TV, that was how he tried to connect
with the American people. One of the few times I've met him
was at Pompidou's funeral, right before the end. There was a
TV in the church. He [Nixon] had a half-centimetre-thick
layer of pancake, or make-up, because there could be
TV-cameras around. It looked completely macabre, you could
barely see the face. I was conversing with him, and it was
like speaking to a mask.
- Former Swedish Prime Minister Olof
Palme.[citation
needed]
- The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a
monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not
subject to the processes of any court in the land except the
court of impeachment.
- James
D. St. Clair, Richard Nixon's counsel, arguing
before the Supreme Court[1]
- Nixon has the audacity to tell me to do nothing in the
interest of my country until he dictactes where that
interest lies. At the same time he threatens me that failure
to follow his so-called advice will be to jeopardize the
special relations between our two countries. I say to hell
with such special relations.
- Muhammad
Reza Pahlavi, as quoted in Alam, Asadollah (1991), The
Shah and I, I. B. Tauris, page 278
- If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral,
his casket would have been launched into one of those
open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of
Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of
a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to
help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral
was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body
should have been burned in a trash bin.
- Hunter
S Thompson.[citation
needed]
- The kind of guy that could shake your hand and stab you in
the back at the same time.
- Hunter
S Thompson.[citation
needed]
- I've been called worse things by better people.
- Canadian
Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau in 1971, on hearing that he had been called
"that asshole" by Nixon.
- Widely reported by the Canadian press, the incident is
also recounted in Pierre Trudeau, Memoirs (1993)
- Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out
of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever
caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his
hand in.
- Harry
S. Truman Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of
Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 179
- Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddamn liar. He's one of the few
in the history of this country to run for high office
talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and
lying out of both sides.
- Harry S. Truman Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of
Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 179
- "Doesn't {Leon Panetta} understand Nixon promised the
Southern delegates he would stop enforcing the Civil Rights
and Voting Rights Acts?" [2]
- It struck me from time to time that Nixon, as a character,
would have been so easy to fix, in the sense of removing
these rather petty flaws. And yet, I think it's also true
that if you did this, you would probably have removed that
very inner core of insecurity that led to his drive. A
secure Nixon almost surely, in my view, would never have
been president of the United States at all.
- ELLIOT RICHARDSON, Nixon Cabinet Member[citation
needed]
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