State of the Union AddressesNixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous)
History
State of the Union Addresses
Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous)
Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
We cannot afford to neglect progress at home while pursuing peace abroad.
But neither can we afford to neglect peace abroad while pursuing progress
at home. With a stable peace, all is possible, but without peace, nothing
is possible.
In the written message that I have just delivered to the Speaker and to the
President of the Senate, I commented that one of the continuing challenges
facing us in the legislative process is that of the timing and pacing of
our initiatives, selecting each year among many worthy projects those that
are ripe for action at that time.
What is true in terms of our domestic initiatives is true also in the
world. This period we now are in, in the world--and I say this as one who
has seen so much of the world, not only in these past 5 years but going
back over many years--we are in a period which presents a juncture of
historic forces unique in this century. They provide an opportunity we may
never have again to create a structure of peace solid enough to last a
lifetime and more, not just peace in our time but peace in our children's
time as well. It is on the way we respond to this opportunity, more than
anything else, that history will judge whether we in America have met our
responsibility. And I am confident we will meet that great historic
responsibility which is ours today.
It was 27 years ago that John F. Kennedy and I sat in this Chamber, as
freshmen Congressmen, hearing our first State of the Union address
delivered by Harry Truman. I know from my talks with him, as members of the
Labor Committee on which we both served, that neither of us then even
dreamed that either one or both might eventually be standing in this place
that I now stand in now and that he once stood in, before me. It may well
be that one of the freshmen Members of the 93d Congress, one of you out
there, will deliver his own State of the Union message 27 years from now,
in the year 2001.
Well, whichever one it is, I want you to be able to look back with pride
and to say that your first years here were great years and recall that you
were here in this 93d Congress when America ended its longest war and began
its longest peace.
Mr. Speaker, and Mr. President, and my distinguished colleagues and our
guests: I would like to add a personal word with regard to an issue that
has been of great concern to all Americans over the past year. I refer, of
course, to the investigations of the so-called Watergate affair. As you
know, I have provided to the Special Prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of
material. I believe that I have provided all the material that he needs to
conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to
clear the innocent.
I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other
investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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