190 quotes found
"Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time."
"Too often critics seem more intent on seeking new ways to alter Congress than to truly learn how it functions. They might well profit from the advice of Thomas Huxley, who said a century ago: "Sit down before facts as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion — or you shall learn nothing.""
"America now is stumbling through the darkness of hatred and divisiveness. Our values, our principles, and our determination to succeed as a free and democratic people will give us a torch to light the way. And we will survive and become the stronger — not only because of a patriotism that stands for love of country, but a patriotism that stands for love of people."
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office."
"We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us."
"In a political sense, there is one problem that currently underlies all of the others. That problem is making Government sufficiently responsive to the people. If we don't make government responsive to the people, we don't make it believable. And we must make government believable if we are to have a functioning democracy."
"He's the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party."
"I believe in friendly compromise. I said over in the Senate hearings that truth is the glue that holds government together. Compromise is the oil that makes governments go."
"We must proceed with our own energy development. Exploitation of domestic petroleum and natural gas potentialities, along with nuclear, solar, geothermal, and non-fossil fuels is vital. We will never again permit any foreign nation to have Uncle Sam over a barrel of oil."
"It's the quality of the ordinary, the straight, the square, that accounts for the great stability and success of our nation. It's a quality to be proud of. But it's a quality that many people seem to have neglected."
"The political lesson of Watergate is this: Never again must America allow an arrogant, elite guard of political adolescents to by-pass the regular party organization and dictate the terms of a national election."
"I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the opposition would seek, and the chief executive would allow, the dissemination of his most private and personal conversations with his staff, which, to be honest, do not exactly confer sainthood on anyone concerned."
"I know well the coequal role of the Congress in our constitutional process. I love the House of Representatives. I revere the traditions of the Senate despite my too-short internship in that great body. As President, within the limits of basic principles, my motto toward the Congress is communication, conciliation, compromise, and cooperation."
"All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future."
"All of us who served in one war or another know very well that all wars are the glory and the agony of the young."
"As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past."
"It is believed that a trial of Richard Nixon, if it became necessary, could not fairly begin until a year or more has elapsed. In the meantime, the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former President of the United States. The prospects of such trial will cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States. NOW, THEREFORE, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."
"I would hope that understanding and reconciliation are not limited to the 19th hole alone."
"The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right and the sympathetic nod for what wasn't are as much a part of golf as life itself."
"(Gail A. Cobb) has our lasting admiration for the cause of law enforcement and the well-being of our society, a cause for which she made the highest sacrifice."
"Let us put an end to self-inflicted wounds. Let us remember that our national unity is a most priceless asset. Let us deny our adversaries the satisfaction of using Vietnam to pit Americans against Americans."
"Obviously, it's a great privilege and pleasure to be here at the Yale Law School Sesquicentennial Convocation. And I defy anyone to say that and chew gum at the same time."
"The old question still remains: Can a free people restrain crime without sacrificing fundamental liberties and a heritage of compassion? I am confident of the American answer. Let it become a vital element on America's new agenda. Let us show that we can temper together those opposite elements of liberty and restraint into one consistent whole. Let us set an example for the world of a law-abiding America glorying in its freedom as well as its respect for law."
"I can tell you, and tell you now, that I am prepared to veto any bill that has as its purpose a Federal bailout of New York City to prevent a default.… It encourages the continuation of "politics as usual" in New York, which is precisely not the way to solve the problem."
"I am the first to admit that I am no great orator or no person that got where I have gotten by any William Jennings Bryan technique."
"I'm Gerald Ford, and you're not."
"The founding of our Nation was more than a political event; it was an act of faith, a promise to Americans and to the entire world. The Declaration of Independence declared that people can govern themselves, that they can live in freedom with equal rights, that they can respect the rights of others. In the two centuries that have passed since 1776, millions upon millions of Americans have worked and taken up arms when necessary to make that dream a reality. We can be extremely proud of what they have accomplished. Today, we are the world's oldest republic. We are at peace. Our Nation and our way of life endure. We are free."
"The Declaration was not a protest against government but against the excesses of government. It prescribed the proper role of government to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and their happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this all alone, so government is not necessarily evil but a necessary good. The framers of the Constitution feared a central government that was too strong, as many Americans rightly do today. The framers of the Constitution, after their experience under the Articles, feared a central government that was too weak, as many Americans rightly do today. They spent days studying all of the contemporary governments of Europe and concluded with Dr. Franklin that all contained the seeds of their own destruction. So the framers built something new, drawing upon their English traditions, on the Roman Republic, on the uniquely American institution of the town meeting."
"For millions of men and women, the church has been the hospital for the soul, the school for the mind and the safe depository for moral ideas."
"There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things."
"[W]e are uniquely a community of values, as distinct from a religious community, a racial community, a geographic community, or an ethnic community. This Nation was founded 200 years ago, not on ancient legends or conquests or physical likeness or language, but on a certain political value which Jefferson's pen so eloquently expressed. To be an American is to subscribe to those principles which the Declaration of Independence proclaims and the Constitution protects -- the political values of self-government, liberty and justice, equal rights, and equal opportunity. These beliefs are the secrets of America's unity from diversity -- in my judgment the most magnificent achievement of our 200 years as a nation."
"Americans are beautiful -- individually, in communities, and freely joined together by dedication to the United States of America."
"One of the most controversial issues of our time and one in which we share a keen interest is the question of abortion. I have grave concern over the serious moral questions raised by this issue. Each new life is a miracle of creation. To interfere with that creative process is a most serious act. In my view, the Government has a very special role in this regard. Specifically, the Government has a responsibility to protect life — and indeed to provide legal guarantees for the weak and unprotected. It is within this context that I have consistently opposed the 1973 decision of the Supreme Court. As President, I am sworn to uphold the laws of the land and I intend to carry out this responsibility. In my personal view, however, this court decision was unwise. I said then and I repeat today — abortion on demand is wrong."
"The veto is a President's Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a check against irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly."
"There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe — and there never will be under a Ford administration... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union."
"The exclusive right to declare war, the duty to advise and consent on the part of the Senate, the power of the purse on the part of the House are ample authority for the legislative branch and should be jealously guarded. But because we may have been too careless of these powers in the past does not justify congressional intrusion into, or obstruction of, the proper exercise of Presidential responsibilities now or in the future. There can be only one Commander in Chief. In these times crises cannot be managed and wars cannot be waged by committee, nor can peace be pursued solely by parliamentary debate. To the ears of the world, the President speaks for the Nation. While he is, of course, ultimately accountable to the Congress, the courts, and the people, he and his emissaries must not be handicapped in advance in their relations with foreign governments as has sometimes happened in the past."
"It is only as the temporary representatives and servants of the people that we meet here, we bring no hereditary status or gift of infallibility, and none follows us from this place."
"The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?"
"America needed recovery, not revenge. The hate had to be drained and the healing begun."
"I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity."
"I am a Ford, not a Lincoln. My addresses will never be as eloquent as Mr. Lincoln's. But I will do my very best to equal his brevity and his plain speaking."
"As a man of the Congress, let me reaffirm my conviction that the collective wisdom of our two great legislative bodies, while not infallible, will in the end serve the people faithfully and very, very well."
"As I look into the faces that fill this familiar room, and as I imagine those faces in other rooms across the land, I do not see members of the legislative branch or the executive branch or the judicial branch, though I am very much aware of the importance of keeping the separate but coequal branches of our Federal Government in balance. I do not see Senators or Representatives, nor do I see Republicans or Democrats, vital as the two-party system is to sustain freedom and responsible government. At this moment of visible and living unity, I see only Americans. I see Americans who love their country, Americans who work and sacrifice for their country and their children. I see Americans who pray without ceasing for peace among all nations and for harmony at home."
"The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts. Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech — just a little straight talk among friends. And I intend it to be the first of many."
"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many. If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman — my dear wife — as I begin this very difficult job."
"I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it. Those who nominated and confirmed me as Vice President were my friends and are my friends. They were of both parties, elected by all the people and acting under the Constitution in their name. It is only fitting then that I should pledge to them and to you that I will be the President of all the people."
"Even though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together."
"I believe that truth is the glue that holds government together, not only our Government but civilization itself. That bond, though strained, is unbroken at home and abroad. In all my public and private acts as your President, I expect to follow my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in the end."
"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy. As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate."
"It is good to be back in the People's House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branch — head, heart, and hand."
"I am not asking for conformity. I am dedicated to the two-party system, and you know which party I belong to. I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage. I want progress, and I want problemsolving which requires my best efforts and also your best efforts. I have no need to learn how Congress speaks for the people. As President, I intend to listen. But I also intend to listen to the people themselves — all the people — as I promised last Friday. I want to be sure that we are all tuned in to the real voice of America."
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
"I am a little late getting around to it, but confession is good for the soul. I have sometimes voted to spend more taxpayer's money for worthy Federal projects in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while I vigorously opposed wasteful spending boondoggles in Oklahoma. [Laughter] Be that as it may, Mr. Speaker, you and I have always stood together against unwarranted cuts in national defense. This is no time to change that nonpartisan policy."
"A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes détente attainable. Weakness invites war, as my generation—my generation—knows from four very bitter experiences. Just as America's will for peace is second to none, so will America's strength be second to none. We cannot rely on the forbearance of others to protect this Nation. The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security."
"On the higher plane of public morality, there is no need for me to preach tonight. We have thousands of far better preachers and millions of sacred scriptures to guide us on the path of personal right-living and exemplary official conduct. If we can make effective and earlier use of moral and ethical wisdom of the centuries in today's complex society, we will prevent more crime and more corruption than all the policemen and prosecutors governments can ever deter. If I might say so, this is a job that must begin at home, not in Washington."
"I once told you that I am not a saint, and I hope never to see the day that I cannot admit having made a mistake. So I will close with another confession. Frequently, along the tortuous road of recent months from this chamber to the President's House, I protested that I was my own man. Now I realize that I was wrong. I am your man, for it was your carefully weighed confirmation that changed my occupation. The truth is I am the people's man, for you acted in their name, and I accepted and began my new and solemn trust with a promise to serve all the people and do the best that I can for America. When I say all the people, I mean exactly that. To the limits of my strength and ability, I will be the President of black, brown, red, and white Americans, of old and young, of women's liberationists and male chauvinists — and all the rest of us in-between, of the poor and the rich, of native sons and new refugees, of those who work at lathes or at desks or in mines or in the fields, of Christians, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, and atheists, if there really are any atheists after what we have all been through. Fellow Americans, one final word: I want to be a good President. I need your help. We all need God's sure guidance. With it, nothing can stop the United States of America."
"I have come to a decision which I felt I should tell you and all of my fellow American citizens, as soon as I was certain in my own mind and in my own conscience that it is the right thing to do. I have learned already in this office that the difficult decisions always come to this desk. I must admit that many of them do not look at all the same as the hypothetical questions that I have answered freely and perhaps too fast on previous occasions. My customary policy is to try and get all the facts and to consider the opinions of my countrymen and to take counsel with my most valued friends. But these seldom agree, and in the end, the decision is mine. To procrastinate, to agonize, and to wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong as right, is itself a decision of sorts and a weak and potentially dangerous course for a President to follow. I have promised to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best that I can for America."
"I have asked your help and your prayers, not only when I became President but many times since. The Constitution is the supreme law of our land and it governs our actions as citizens. Only the laws of God, which govern our consciences, are superior to it. As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family. Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write "The End" to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."
"There are no historic or legal precedents to which I can turn in this matter, none that precisely fit the circumstances of a private citizen who has resigned the Presidency of the United States. But it is common knowledge that serious allegations and accusations hang like a sword over our former President's head, threatening his health as he tries to reshape his life, a great part of which was spent in the service of this country and by the mandate of its people. After years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate, I have been advised, and I am compelled to conclude that many months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could obtain a fair trial by jury in any jurisdiction of the United States under governing decisions of the Supreme Court."
"I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station. The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality. The facts, as I see them, are that a former President of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law, would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society. During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad."
"It is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and every compassionate person. My concern is the immediate future of this great country. In this, I dare not depend upon my personal sympathy as a long-time friend of the former President, nor my professional judgment as a lawyer, and I do not. As President, my primary concern must always be the greatest good of all the people of the United States whose servant I am. As a man, my first consideration is to be true to my own convictions and my own conscience."
"My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquillity but to use every means that I have to insure it. I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy. Finally, I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what I do, no matter what we, as a great and good nation, can do together to make his goal of peace come true."
"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the 94th Congress, and distinguished guests:"
"We came from many roots, and we have many branches."
"Government exists to create and preserve conditions in which people can translate their ideas into practical reality. In the best of times, much is lost in translation. But we try. Sometimes we have tried and failed. Always we have had the best of intentions. But in the recent past, we sometimes forgot the sound principles that guided us through most of our history. We wanted to accomplish great things and solve age-old problems. And we became overconfident of our abilities. We tried to be a policeman abroad and the indulgent parent here at home. We thought we could transform the country through massive national programs, but often the programs did not work. Too often they only made things worse. In our rush to accomplish great deeds quickly, we trampled on sound principles of restraint and endangered the rights of individuals. We unbalanced our economic system by the huge and unprecedented growth of Federal expenditures and borrowing. And we were not totally honest with ourselves about how much these programs would cost and how we would pay for them."
"We must introduce a new balance in the relationship between the individual and the government — a balance that favors greater individual freedom and self-reliance."
"History and experience tells us that moral progress cannot come in comfortable and in complacent times, but out of trial and out of confusion."
"By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation"
"In this Bicentennial Year, we are commemorating the anniversary dates of many great events in American history. An honest reckoning, however, must include a recognition of our national mistakes as well as our national achievements. Learning from our mistakes is not pleasant, but as a great philosopher once admonished, we must do so if we want to avoid repeating them."
"February 19th is the anniversary of a sad day in American history. It was on that date in 1942, in the midst of the response to the hostilities that began on December 7, 1941, that Executive Order 9066 was issued, subsequently enforced by the criminal penalties of a statute enacted March 21, 1942, resulting in the uprooting of loyal Americans. Over one hundred thousand persons of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes, detained in special camps, and eventually relocated."
"The tremendous effort by the War Relocation Authority and concerned Americans for the welfare of these Japanese-Americans may add perspective to that story, but it does not erase the setback to fundamental American principles. Fortunately, the Japanese-American community in Hawaii was spared the indignities suffered by those on our mainland."
"We now know what we should have known then--not only was that evacuation wrong, but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home, Japanese-Americans -- names like Hamada, Mitsumori, Marimoto, Noguchi, Yamasaki, Kido, Munemori and Miyamura -- have been and continue to be written in our history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and security of this, our common Nation."
"The Executive order that was issued on February 19, 1942, was for the sole purpose of prosecuting the war with the Axis Powers, and ceased to be effective with the end of those hostilities. Because there was no formal statement of its termination, however, there is concern among many Japanese-Americans that there may yet be some life in that obsolete document. I think it appropriate, in this our Bicentennial Year, to remove all doubts on that matter, and to make clear our commitment in the future."
"NOW, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim that all authority conferred by Executive Order 9066 terminated upon the issuance of Proclamation 2714, which formally proclaimed the cessation of hostilities of World War II on December 31, 1946."
"I call upon the American people to affirm with me this American Promise -- that we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American, and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated."
"IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this nineteenth day of February in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundredth."
"February 19 is the anniversary of a very, very sad day in American history. It was on that date in 1942 that Executive Order 9066 was issued resulting in the uprooting of many, many loyal Americans. Over 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes, detained in special camps, and eventually relocated."
"We now know what we should have known then -- not only was that evacuation wrong but Japanese-Americans were and are loyal Americans. On the battlefield and at home the names of Japanese-Americans have been and continue to be written in history for the sacrifices and the contributions they have made to the well-being and to the security of this, our common Nation."
"Executive Order 9066 ceased to be effective at the end of World War II. Because there was no formal statement of its termination, there remains some concern among Japanese-Americans that there yet may be some life in that obsolete document. The proclamation [4417] that I am signing here today should remove all doubt on that matter."
"I call upon the American people to affirm with me the unhyphenated American promise that we have learned from the tragedy of that long ago experience -- forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American and resolve that this kind of error shall never be made again."
"In 1949, when I arrived in Washington, President Truman was a moderate-to-liberal Democrat who had struggled with a conservative Republican Eightieth Congress. He wanted to spend, and we Republicans wanted to save. Here I was in 1974, a conservative-to-moderate Republican about to struggle with a liberal Democratic Congress. The President wanted to save, and the Congress wanted to spend. Well, Truman had won a good share of his battles on Capitol Hill. With any luck, I would too."
"Richard Nixon… was just offered $2 million by Schick to do a television commercial — for Gillette."
"I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, "I hear you spoke here tonight." "Oh, it was nothing," I replied modestly. "Yes," the little old lady nodded, "that's what I heard.""
"I have a basic philosophy: When I meet somebody, even somebody who I've been warned is not a very nice person, my approach is there must be something nice in that person. And if you get to know the nice part of the individual, then you develop a relationship and a friendship that is invaluable. And I say with great emphasis: Everybody I've ever met, you can find something good about them. And I think that is a trait we ought to embellish and appreciate rather than discard."
"The length of one's days matters less than the love of one's family and friends."
"Honesty and truth-teller were synonymous with the name Jimmy Carter. Those traits were instilled in him by his loving parents Lillian and Earl Carter and the strength of his honesty was was reinforced by his upbringing in the rural South poised on the brink of social transformation. He displayed that honesty throughout his life as a naval officer, state legislator, governor, president, and world leader. For Jimmy Carter, honesty was was not a aspirational goal — it was part of his very soul."
"Actually, I have fond feelings toward Gerald Ford, largely because of a semi-encounter I had with him in 1995, when he was in his eighties. We had both given speeches at an event in Bakersfield, California, and we were both among the passengers aboard a small, two-propeller commercial plane headed for Los Angeles, where most of us were making connections. The flight was running late, and although everybody was anxious to get going, we figured we had no choice but to sit through the safety lecture from the co-pilot. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "I'd like to take just a few minutes to..." "Let's just go!" snapped Gerald Ford, former president of the United States. "Okay, sir!" said the co-pilot, sitting down immediately. That is my kind of leadership."
"It's too early to say how most of my decisions will turn out. As president, I had the honor of eulogizing Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, once regarded as one of the worst mistakes in presidential history, is now viewed as a selfless act of leadership. And it was quite something to hear the commentators who had once denounced President Reagan as a dunce and a warmonger talk about how the Great Communicator had won the Cold War."
"For myself, and for our nation, I want to thank my predecessor for all he has done to heal our land."
"Several veterans of the Ford administration's 1976 swine flu response team warned us of the difficulties involved in getting out in front of an outbreak without overreacting or triggering a panic: Apparently President Ford, wanting to act decisively in the middle of a reelection campaign, had fast-tracked mandatory vaccinations before the severity of the pandemic had been determined, with the result that more Americans developed a neurological disorder connected to the vaccine than died from the flu."
"You know, Michael, what I really wanted was to get the presidential nomination and then win the presidency in November because I was looking forward to negotiating the SALT treaty with Brezhnev. It has been a long time since an American president has stood up to the Soviet Union. It seems that every time we get into negotiations, the Soviets are telling us what we are going to have to give up in order for us to get along with them, and we forget who we are. I wanted to become president of the United States, so I could sit down with Brezhnev. And I was going to let him pick out the size of the table, and I was going to listen to him tell me, the American president, what we were going to have to give up. And I was going to listen to him for maybe twenty minutes, and then I was going to get up from my side of the table, walk around to the other side, and lean over and whisper in his ear "Nyet.' It has been a long time since they've heard 'nyet' from an American president."
"The ultimate beneficiary of Nixon’s summitry was Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet party leader had staked his bid for outright leadership on a policy of peaceful coexistence with the United States. That made sense for economic and defense reasons, not to mention the looming threat from China. In the spring of 1972 Brezhnev let nothing, not even the American mining of North Vietnam, get in the way of a summit. The arms control agreements signed in Moscow in May silenced his critics and apparently confirmed the Soviet Union’s equality with the United States. The statement of Basic Principles also suggested that the Americans were accepting détente on Soviet terms. Had Nixon remained potent in the second term he might have held the Kremlin to account, as he believed had not been done after Yalta. Instead his crumbling presidency gave the Soviets and their allies an increasingly free hand to act as they pleased. By the middle of 1975 communist forces controlled all of Indochina. Over the next few years the Soviets extended their influence in eastern and southern Africa, in ways that fitted their understanding of détente— a world made safe for class struggle—but also undermined support for the process in the United States. In 1976 Gerald Ford, Nixon’s successor, banned the word “détente” from the official diplomatic lexicon. Nixon’s failure, in other words, relegated not merely summitry but diplomacy to the back burner. Dialogue with Moscow atrophied. And after the Brezhnev Politburo sent troops into Afghanistan at the end of 1979, Soviet-American relations degenerated into what was dubbed a “new cold war.”"
"Gerald R. Ford was the most accidental of American presidents, but when he unexpectedly appeared at the crossroads of history, he seemed to have been placed there by a deliberate act of providence. In one important respect, Ford was different from most of his predecessors and all of his successors: He did not seek the presidency... Ford became the 38th president because of the shortcomings of others and because he had earned the trust of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. When the corrupt Spiro T. Agnew was forced to resign as vice president, it was Ford's congressional colleagues who virtually forced President Richard M. Nixon to accept him as Agnew's successor. And when the embattled Nixon was finally engulfed by the Watergate scandal and forced to resign himself, it was the unimposing "gentleman from Michigan" who inherited the leadership of a deeply troubled nation."
"More than any other president of this century, Ford was chosen for his integrity and trustworthiness: his peers in Congress put him in the White House because he told the truth and kept his word."
"He didn't want to say anything bad about anyone. Ford had only one major fault — he was too nice a guy."
"Gerald Ford used every bit of his presidential incumbent power to narrowly stave off Ronald Reagan's challenge at the 1976 Republican National Convention. But Nixon's pardoner and the steward of a poor economy lost to the "untainted" and unknown former Democratic governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter."
"[A] fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass-roots and AstroTurf."
"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."
"As one of our colleagues recently put it, this Republican pledge of no new taxes is pure Bushlips. It's Bushlips when the president says 'No new taxes' and sends a budget requiring the Finance Committee to raise $20 billion in new revenues: $15 billion in taxes and $5 billion in user fees."
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
"We can't use a double standard — there’s no room for double standards in American politics — for measuring our own and other people's policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantee of those practices in our own country."
"To those who say — My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say — To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights."
"For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two billion members of the human family, our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. And I know that we can, and I know that we shall began [sic] here the fuller and richer realization of that hope — that promise of a land where all men are truly free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely well."
"I learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years at college."
"I wish to suggest that ample opportunity does exist for dissent, for protest, and for nonconformity. But I must also say that the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."
"In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be."
"The vast number of titles which are published each year—all of them are to the good, even if some of them may annoy or even repel us for a time. For none of us would trade freedom of expression and of ideas for the narrowness of the public censor. America is a free market for people who have something to say, and need not fear to say it."
"I had no money to buy books, so between classes and work, I haunted the library. I even tutored in French with a sliding scale of payment: twenty dollars for an A, fifteen for a B, ten for a C, five for a D."
"The story of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land... America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life … we ought to be proud of it!"
"The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped."
"The Senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour."
"Humphrey, in terms of his political life, had always taken very strong and firm positions on the issues that affected poor people and people from the middle class."
"Few politicians who fail to win the presidency are subsequently judged to be giants in our history. Among the select few are Robert F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater and Hubert H. Humphrey in the 20th century; Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun in the 19th century; and William Jennings Bryan, who straddled the two. There would certainly be lively debate about other political figures who deserve inclusion on such a list, and many non-politicians have earned places in our national story far more exalted than those of middling presidents and elected officials. As John McCain's contemporaries, we may be ill-positioned to insist with certainty that he will join the likes of Kennedy, Bryan and Clay as figures who were profoundly consequential though the White House eluded them."
"On Sunday the convention began and Hubert Humphrey arrived in town. Humphrey had a progressive record on social issues, but he was associated with Johnson’s Vietnam policy and refused to break away from it. Even without the Vietnam issue, Humphrey, at fifty-seven, would have been a victim of the generation gap. He seemed almost cartoonish with his vibratoed, tinny voice, his corny midwestern wholesomeness, and his halfhearted good cheer; with the way he could in all seriousness use expressions like “Good grief”; and with his perpetual smile that looked as if he had just bitten something. This is how his biographer, Carl Solberg, described the politician nicknamed the Happy Warrior as he left for the Chicago convention: "On the elevator to the street he kissed his wife, danced a little two step, and punched his friend Dr. Berman on the arm. 'Off we go into battle—and I can hardly wait,' he said." This was not a candidate whom McCarthy and Robert Kennedy supporters could turn to, not a personality to calm the young demonstrators who had come to Chicago. The Happy Warrior frowned, and not for the last time, when his plane landed in Chicago. Daley had sent a bagpipe band to meet him. There is no lonelier sound than bagpipes without a crowd. Few supporters were there to greet him, and even more upsetting, the mayor himself wasn’t there. McCarthy had been met by an energized crowd. “Five thousand supporters,” according to Humphrey, who was muttering about the contrast. An even bigger disappointment was that Daley was holding off on endorsing Humphrey. Daley found it hard to believe that Humphrey was a man who would attract all the voters who had gone for Robert Kennedy in California. Daley and a few other party bosses were last-minute shopping for another candidate, especially the last brother, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. Humphrey was as terrified of taking on a Kennedy as was Nixon."
"Humphrey was hardly the first presidential candidate to win the nomination without competing in primaries. He would, however, be the last. The events that unfolded in Chicago—displayed on television screens across America—mortally wounded the party-insider presidential selection system. Even before the convention began, the crushing blow of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, the escalating conflict over Vietnam, and the energy of the antiwar protesters in Chicago’s Grant Park sapped any remaining public faith in the old system. On August 28, the protesters turned to march on the convention: Blue-helmeted police attacked protesters and bystanders, and bloodied men, women, and children sought refuge in nearby hotels. The so-called Battle of Michigan Avenue then spilled over into the convention hall itself. Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut, in his nomination speech for antiwar candidate George McGovern, decried “the gestapo tactics” of the Chicago police, looking—on live television—directly at Mayor Daley. As confrontations exploded on the convention floor, uniformed police officers dragged several delegates from the auditorium. Watching in shock, NBC anchor Chet Huntley observed, “This surely is the first time policemen have ever entered the floor of a convention.” His coanchor, David Brinkley, wryly added, “In the United States.”"
"This is a quality that has appeared often enough in American history — and outside America as well. Senators like Ted Kennedy have been prominent before, bearing names like Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey. Governors like New York Republican Nelson Rockefeller or Alabama Democrat George Wallace. A Congressman like Jack Kemp. Non-office holders like Martin Luther King in the United States or Mohandas Gandhi in India or Nelson Mandela in South Africa (who later became president of his country) can, through sheer force of personality, come to dominate the political scene of the day without ever bearing a single official title."
"I love everything he stands for; I just wish he didn't love it so much. He needs a director to tell him when he's made his point. I think he'd have been a good President."
"He taught us how to live, and finally he taught us how to die."
"Why does the Air Force need expensive new bombers? Have the people we've been bombing over the years been complaining?"
"If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of."
"If I can't forgive him, the Lord won’t forgive me."
"I was young and brash."
"We shall continue to maintain segregation in Alabama completely and absolutely without violence or ill-will. … I advocate hatred of no man, because hate will only compound the problems facing the South. … We ask for patience and tolerance and make an earnest request that we be allowed to handle state and local affairs without outside interference."
"I want to tell the good people of this state as a judge of the 3rd Judicial Circuit, if I didn’t have what it took to treat a man fair regardless of his color, then I don’t have what it takes to be the governor of your great state."
"I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again."
"As your governor, I shall resist any illegal federal court order, even to the point of standing at the schoolhouse door in person, if necessary."
"It is very appropriate that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us time and again down through history. Let us rise to the call for freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever."
"I stand here today, as Governor of this sovereign state, and refuse to willingly submit to illegal usurpation of power by the Central Government."
"The unwelcomed, unwanted, unwarranted, and force-induced intrusion upon the campus of the University of Alabama today of the might of the central government offers frightful example of the oppression of the rights, privileges and sovereignty of this state by officers of the federal government."
"You’ve got some folks out here who know a lot of four letter words. But there are two four-letter words they don’t know. W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P, you don’t know those two letter words I’ll tell you that much."
"I am a conservative. I intend to give the American people a clear choice. I welcome a fight between our philosophy and the liberal left-wing dogma which now threatens to engulf every man, woman, and child in the United States. I am in this race because I believe the American people have been pushed around long enough and that they, like you and I, are fed up with the continuing trend toward a socialist state which now subjects the individual to the dictates of an all-powerful central government."
"There is no need for him to call on me. I am not about to be a party to anything having to do with the law that is going to destroy individual freedom and liberty in this country. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy our free enterprise system. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy neighborhood schools. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that will destroy the rights of private property. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys your right --and my right -- to choose my neighbors -- or to sell my house to whomever I choose. I am having nothing to do with enforcing a law that destroys the labor seniority system. I am having nothing to do with this so-called civil rights bill. The liberal left-wingers have passed it. Now let them employ some pinknik social engineers in Washington, D.C., to figure out what to do with it."
"Being governor don't mean a thing anymore in this country. We're nothing. Just high-paid ornaments is all. I'm thinking of running for president myself."
"I have learned what suffering means. In a way that was impossible, I think I can understand something of the pain black people have come to endure. I know I contributed to that pain, and I can only ask your forgiveness."
"I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over."
"I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."
"I'm not about to accept another kind of cultural dictatorship. I won't accept it from Governor Wallace, and I won't accept it from anybody else, either. I am an artist. No one will tell me what to do. You can shoot me and throw me off a tower, but you cannot tell me what to write or how to write it. Because I won't go."
"Everyone overlooks the impact on the black population of our country of the present Administration, and that is very sinister. It's an insult to every black American that the President of the United States should be in competition with the governor of Alabama for votes. The civil rights laws? Bullshit."
"But no one who knew Wallace well ever took seriously his earnest profession, uttered a thousand times after 1963, that he [had been] a segregationist, not a racist..."
"Wallace, like most white southerners of his generation, genuinely believed blacks to be a separate, inferior race."
"Shooting segregationist dinosaurs wasn't as bad as harming mainstream politicians."
"During her failed presidential bid, Mrs. Chisholm went to the hospital to visit George C. Wallace, her rival candidate and ideological opposite, after he had been shot -- an act that appalled her followers. "He said, 'What are your people going to say?' I said: 'I know what they're going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.' He cried and cried," she recalled."
""Governor Wallace" is a song that came out of the response to the violence against nonviolent marches on the Pettus Bridge. And it’s addressed to Governor Wallace. It says, “You cannot put all of us, who are going to pour into Alabama, in jail. You cannot jail us all.”"
"A decade later, Alabama governor George Wallace’s defiant segregationist stance vaulted him to national prominence, leading to surprisingly vigorous bids for the presidency in 1968 and 1972. Wallace engaged in what journalist Arthur Hadley called the “old and honorable American tradition of hate the powerful.” He was, Hadley wrote, a master at exploiting “plain old American rage.” Wallace often encouraged violence and displayed a casual disregard for constitutional norms, declaring: "There is one thing more powerful than the Constitution….That’s the will of the people. What is a Constitution anyway? They’re the products of the people, the people are the first source of power, and the people can abolish a Constitution if they want to." Wallace’s message, which mixed racism with populist appeals to working-class whites’ sense of victimhood and economic anger, helped him make inroads into the Democrats’ traditional blue-collar base. Polls showed that roughly 40 percent of Americans approved of Wallace in his third-party run in 1968, and in 1972 he shocked the establishment by emerging as a serious contender in the Democratic primaries. When Wallace’s campaign was derailed by an assassination attempt in May 1972, he was leading George McGovern by more than a million votes in the primaries."
"I came away from these Wallace [supporter] interviews with two basic feelings. First, that democracy in America (in any sense of the word) just might not make it. My mind flashed to scenes of Germany in the late 1920's. Confusion, rebellion, frustration, economic instability, a wounded national pride, ineffectual political leadership — and the desire for a strong man who would do something, who would bring order out of the chaos. Could it happen here? With the inability of the national leadership to solve the real problems facing this country, could the the blacks, long-hairs, "welfare chiselers", and political dissidents become the Jews and Communists of the Nazi experience? Could it happen here? I see no reason why it couldn't."
"Four-time Alabama Democratic governor George Wallace lost his first gubernatorial race when he ran as an economic populist against a candidate with a segregationist platform and famously vowed never to be "outniggered again" and he never was. He declared, "Segregation now, segregation forever!" as he took the oath of office in 1963. He stood in a schoolhouse's door in Tuscaloosa to prevent black students from integrating it. He was responsible for the vicious beating of voting-rights activists in Selma. By 1984, however, Wallace's memory of his own actions, like Stephens's, had changed. "It was not an antagonism towards black people, and that's what some people can't understand," Wallace explained to a reporter from PBS for the documentary Eyes on the Prize. "White Southerners did not believe it was discrimination. They thought it was in the best interest of both the races. "I love black people. I love white people. I love yellow people," Wallace said. "I'm a Christian and, therefore, I don't have any ill feeling toward anybody because of the race, 'cause our black people are some of our finest citizens." In remarkable symmetry with Stephens's defense of treason in defense of slavery, Wallace recalled his defense of racial apartheid as resistance to tyranny. "I spoke vehemently against the federal government, not against people. I talked about the, the government of the, the United States and the Supreme Court. I never expressed in any language that would upset anyone about a person's race. I talked about the Supreme Court usurpation of power. I talked about the big central government," Wallace said. "Isn't that what everybody talks about now? Isn't that what Reagan got elected on? Isn't that what all the legislators, electors, members of Congress, and the Senate and House both say?""
"The day after Moore's body was found on the road near Attalla, Alabama, a poll was made by telephone of the SNCC Executive Committee, and they agreed to continue his walk to Jackson, Mississippi. The following day, April 25, 1963, SNCC sent a wire to Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, informing him of the walk, and asking him: "Will the State of Alabama provide protection for our walkers?" Wallace had denounced the murder and even offered a reward for apprehension of the killer, but he replied: "Your proposed actions, calculated to cause unrest, disorder, and a breach of the peace in the state of Alabama, will not be condoned or tolerated. Laws of the State of Alabama will be strictly enforced.""
"Everything has been said but not everyone has said it."
"Let's turn inflation over to the post office. That'll slow it down."
"The voters have spoken — the bastards."
"Presidential ambition is a disease which can only be cured by embalming fluid."
"The idea that government has some omnipotence or omniscience is completely absurd and counter to all the thinking that went into our country."
"There is an overblown rhetoric and overblown expectation that if there is a problem there must be program to solve it."
"Many regulations primarily protect the past, prop up privilege or prevent sensible economic choices."
"The mistrust of our public institutions and mere anxiety about our future economy are more the order than the exception. Three quarters of the people do not trust their government. More than half of the eligible citizens in California again decided not to vote in the last election. Why? Why the anti-government mood? I asked this same question four years ago and now I believe I understand. Simply put, the citizens are revolting against a decade of political leaders who righteously spoke against inflation and excessive government spending but who in practice pursued the opposite course."
"In this decade government at all levels has increased spending faster than the true rate of economic growth… The cure for inflation has been administered with a vengeance. Yet most people feel worse, not better, about their government benefactor. The elderly find their fixed income eroding in half; those about to retire fear their future pensions will never keep pace. Ten million California workers see their wages rise but not as fast as prices. Those on welfare obtain larger grants but find more expensive groceries."
"Government, no less than the individual, must live within limits. It is time to bring our accounts into balance. Government, as exemplar and teacher, must manifest a self-discipline that spreads across the other institutions in our society, so that we can begin to work for the future, not just consume the present."
"There's nothing wrong with being an anarchist."
"We are in a degenerate state of self-government. In fact, even to use the words self-government, is not only an exaggeration, it's a lie. It's a big lie!"
"I'd shrink government in a minute, if I could shrink GM, Bank of America, and all these immoral corporations that operate by an undemocratic code, with no soul and no conscience."
"The U.S. incarceration binge is not tied to crime. It's a strategy to control the surplus population in a capitalist system that is breaking down."
"I've been in office and I've been out of office. And if I were to choose, I'd rather be in office."
"The Democrats are a big tent with many different points of view. Having said all of that, I think there will be a tendency to passing too many laws and spend too much money. And I would say that the [new] governor is going to have to correct that. But he wouldn’t be able to correct it all because in order to govern he’s got to please some of these groups enough of the time to still be viable as a political leader."
"When Proposition 13 passed overwhelmingly in California, Californians were very pleased. And they felt no pinch at all, not knowing that, thanks to Jerry Brown, there was an incredible surplus in the coffers. So life went on as it always had, with the sunshine, and orange trees, and smog-and everything sort of went on. And about a year ago, the truth had to be revealed, that the surplus had been used up. And now the cuts are taking place in services that people took for granted. That's the California way of life. And people are having to come to grips with what that means for the handicapped, the aged, the poor, the children, and the minorities."
"That man [Jerry] is like 500 pounds of Jello."
"[Jerry Brown] is the most self-serving, inept politician that I have ever met in my 35 years in politics."
"Jerry Brown was just a nut."
"I don't think you can take much of what he says seriously."
"[Jerry Brown is] a desperate man."
"He is by an order of magnitude the most self-absorbed politician I have ever dealt with."
"I do not believe he believes what he is saying."
"I listened, and I've come to the conclusion I just don't trust him."
"Jerry has given hypocrisy a bad name."
"Jerry has no political or ideological anchor."
"Oftentimes Jerry will run for an office and not want to do the things that are part of that office."
"He's totally into power."
"Jerry is perceived by most legislators as very selfish."
"The governor is the worst administrator ever to come down the pike."
"He's very ambitious and will do anything to be in power."
"I don't know who Jerry Brown is anymore. There's been so many evolvements."
"I don't like to talk about Jerry Brown. I don't like him."
"I don't think Jerry Brown is committed to anything but Jerry Brown."
"Admit it-the world is mighty wacky. Dan Quayle is a heartbeat away from bravely leading us into the New World Order. Our intelligentsia are running around declaring that we have reached both the End of History and the apex of political evolution-we're the kings of the global jungle. At the same time, sensing new opportunities, the forces of reptilian nationalism-from Pat Robertson to militant mullahs, from David Duke to the ancient reactionary movements of Eastern Europe-are crawling out from under their rocks, getting facelifts, and learning how to use teleprompters and Stinger missiles. Meanwhile, back in the cradle of democracy, the "opposition" response to all this is to offer a choice between Jerry Brown and None of the Above."
"In matters of national security, the best politics is no politics."
"We all want to put the brakes on the arms race...we all want to achieve arms control...but to those who say we must take risks for peace by cutting the meat from our military muscle, I say you are unwittingly risking war."
"When we have something we feel strongly about — and in this case it is civil liberties and freedom and what this nation was founded upon, that we should do something to implement international law — and it is international law now, the right to leave a country freely and return freely — that we should put that issue of principle on the table knowing that the Russians are not going to agree to it."
"I believe that international terrorism is a modern form of warfare against liberal democracies. I believe that the ultimate but seldom stated goal of these terrorists is to destroy the very fabric of democracy. I believe that it is both wrong and foolhardy for any democratic state to consider international terrorism to be 'someone else's' problem.... Liberal democracies must acknowledge that international terrorism is a 'collective problem.'"
"The danger of Americans being killed, the danger of divisiveness that would accrue from those developments ... are all too real. A superpower should not play that kind of role in a cauldron of trouble, because sooner or later we are going to get hurt."
"At the same time, Kissinger, Carter and détente were condemned as weakening the West by a group of conservative Democrats led by Henry (Scoop) Jackson, a critic of SALT, as well as by key Republicans who were influential in the Ford administration (1974–7), notably his Chief of Staff, Richard (Dick) Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. They drew on advice from commentators such as Richard Perle, Richard Pipes and Paul Wolfowitz who warned about Soviet intentions. The continuity of this group, through 1990s’ opposition to Clintonian liberal internationalism, to the neo-conservative activism of the early 2000s, especially against Iraq, is notable."
"Senator Henry Jackson, a wise and revered statesman and one who probably understood the Soviets as well as any American in history, warned us, "the greatest threat the United States now faces is posed by the Soviet Union." But Senator Jackson said, "If America maintains a strong deterrent—and only if it does—this nation will continue to be a leader in the crucial quest for enduring peace among nations." The late Senator made those statements in July on the Senate floor, speaking in behalf of the MX missile program he considered vital to restore America's strategic parity with the Soviets."