Reagan's Farewell Address

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"I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts."

Ronald Reagan
Jan. 11, 1989

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Twenty–five years ago tonight, Ronald Reagan delivered his farewell address to the nation, a little more than a week before he was to hand over the presidency to his successor, Vice President George H.W. Bush.

As I have mentioned here before, I was not a Reagan fan during his presidency — or at any time in his lifetime. We rarely saw eye to eye on anything, and I never voted for him, but it is beyond historical dispute that he was popular with other voters. In the last 30 years, only Reagan has received the overwhelming endorsement of the American people in a presidential election. No other victorious nominee — in either party — has ever come close.

(In fact, few have ever exceeded the 58% of the popular vote Reagan received in 1984 — and none have matched it since he did it. Richard Nixon got nearly 61% in 1972; so, too, did FDR in 1936 and Warren Harding in 1920, and Lyndon Johnson got slightly more than 61% in 1964. Herbert Hoover nearly matched Reagan's share of the popular vote in 1928.)

Historically, presidential farewell addresses are rather rare. Typically, they are made by two–term presidents, at least in modern times — Bill Clinton gave one and so did George W. Bush. One–term presidents usually don't give farewell addresses (although Jimmy Carter did give a farewell address in 1981), nor do presidents who die in office — for at least one very obvious reason.

Unless one counts Nixon's address announcing to the nation that he would resign the next day (or his speech to the White House staff before his departure for California the next day), Reagan's farewell address was the first by a two–term American president in nearly 30 years. Nixon, after all, was elected to two terms as president; he just didn't complete his second term.

Next to a president's memoirs, I guess a farewell address is a president's best — and, officially, last — opportunity to justify his actions in office. Unfortunately, most outgoing presidents can't resist the temptation to indulge in some last–minute self–promotion.

The farewell addresses that I have found to be the most memorable are the ones in which the president focused on the nation's achievements more than his own or spoke of the challenges the nation still faced and tried to impart some wisdom.

George Washington may have delivered the finest of the presidential farewell addresses, which was appropriate, given that he set the standard for so many facets of the presidency. Washington spoke of the presidency's "arduous trust."

Dwight Eisenhower, the last two–term president to give a farewell address before Reagan, memorably warned of the influence of the "military–industrial complex" on public policy.

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In his "aw, shucks" way, Reagan spoke in his farewell address of the nickname "The Great Communicator" that had been given to him.

"I wasn't a great communicator," he insisted, "but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow; they came from the heart of a great nation — from our experience, our wisdom and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries."

He said he was willing to accept the label "Reagan Revolution" for what had occurred on his watch, but he gave credit for his presidency's achievements to the American people.

"I've had my share of victories in the Congress," Reagan said, "but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Reagan's regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action."

Before closing, Reagan spoke of "the men and women of the Reagan Revolution."

"My friends: We did it," Reagan said. "We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all."

A Unique Day in American History

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I guess there is not much to be said of Richard Nixon's farewell to his White House staff 36 years ago today.

I didn't have anything to say about it last year, on the 35th anniversary, which was probably a more appropriate time to do it.

I mean, I wrote about his address to the nation the night before in which he announced his intention to resign. And then, a year ago today, I wrote about the inauguration of his successor, Gerald Ford — and the national sense of relief that followed and persisted for a month, until Ford announced his pardon of Nixon.

But I wrote nothing about his farewell address. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake because, whether he realized it or not, I think Nixon, who may have been the most private of presidents, revealed a lot about himself that day.

After Ford announced that pardon in September 1974, there was plenty of speculation that a deal had been cut between Nixon and Ford before Nixon would agree to resign, but no evidence has ever been presented that could elevate such talk to a specific charge.

A month earlier, though, on Aug. 9, 1974, I recall hearing no talk of a pardon. I do recall watching Nixon's farewell speech to his White House staff — and wondering, at times, if Nixon was going to come unglued on national television.

He certainly appeared to be tottering along on the edge of mental collapse — and who could blame him? He made his reputation as a fighter who had risen above a series of crises in his life to become president of the United States — and then, after a landslide re–election, his second term had been consumed by the scandal that ultimately consumed him.

Nixon always tried to present a facade in public, very seldom letting his true emotions show. But he had a bitter relationship with the press that sometimes slipped through.

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Such was the case in 1962, on Election Night, when Nixon lost the gubernatorial campaign in California, and told the reporters, in an impromptu news conference, that they wouldn't have him to "kick around" anymore.

That was his last press conference, he told them.

But it wasn't. Six years later, Nixon was running for president again. The outcome was another close one, like Nixon's loss to John F. Kennedy in 1960 — but this time Nixon was the winner.

I've heard it said that Nixon became increasingly secretive because of his experiences — the charges that almost forced him to withdraw from Dwight Eisenhower's ticket in 1952; his perceived mistreatment by the press in 1960 and 1962 and the 1968 presidential campaign; the hostility he believed was directed at him by opponents of his policies in Vietnam. Those experiences, I have been told, contributed significantly to the atmosphere that led Nixon and his loyalists into the quagmire of Watergate.

And, given the constantly growing adversarial relationship that existed between Nixon and the press, it was probably only a matter of time before Nixon lashed out following the famed "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973.

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And then, a few weeks later, when the heckles of "Crook!" from the ever–present protesters outside the White House had reached a crescendo, Nixon held a press conference and asserted, to a stunned nation, that he wasn't a crook.

It was an astonishing moment in American history, the kind of moment I had never experienced prior to that time and don't expect to experience again. I was quite young at the time, but I had learned enough to know that, even if one disagreed with the president, even if one thought the president was deceitful, one would never suggest he was a "crook." One might as well question the honesty of the pope.

But Nixon was an exception to the rule. Even many of those who voted for him weren't sure about his integrity. As a result, he didn't come into office — or take the oath a second time four years later — with the national sense of good will that usually follows an election.

He was a narcissist, paranoid. Writer Richard Reeves said that Nixon "assumed the worst in people, and he brought out the worst in them." He seemed to win elections, even landslides, by default — because he wasn't as bad (in the voters' eyes) as his opponent.

As I say, I was young at the time, but it seems to me that Nixon's presidency may well have been ground zero in the emergence of dirty politics. Those tactics really began to evolve into what we see today when Lee Atwater ran George H.W. Bush's campaign in 1988 — and gave American politics the Willie Horton ad.

By comparison, Nixon's campaign tactics — indeed, the whole ham–handed attempt to burglarize the Democrats' national committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel — seem amateurish, even primitive.

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Anyway less than a year being re–elected by a landslide, Nixon resigned the presidency and returned to California in disgrace.

On the day that happened — 36 years ago today — Nixon delivered a farewell address that has been largely overlooked in the histories I have read of that time. He spoke of disappointment and sadness and loss. He spoke of resiliency, and he urged his listeners to remember that "Others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself."

I've heard many things about Nixon — that he had been drinking heavily in the days leading up to his resignation, that he didn't get any sleep in his last night in the White House — but, if that was true, he didn't appear to be drunk or unusually tired (by that time, most people had grown accustomed to seeing a hollow, worn–out look in his eyes and his famous jowls sagging more than ever).

As time passed and I had occasion to reflect on Nixon's farewell address, it seemed to me that he may have had an epiphany because he finally seemed to understand, in a blinding moment of clarity, what had brought his presidency down.

It hadn't been the press. It hadn't been his "enemies." It had been Nixon himself, driven by the hatred he felt for those he believed hated him.

You can debate whether that was true, whether that was really what destroyed the Nixon presidency. But I believe Nixon lived the rest of his days convinced of it.

When you think of all the things he said and wrote in his post–presidential years, what other conclusion can one reach?

Bush's Self-Defense

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When George W. Bush goes on TV tonight to give his farewell address to the nation, it will be primarily to interpret his administration's record. He has made it clear that he believes history will judge his presidency for its intentions and will wait as long as necessary for the results.

Naysayers may scoff, but Bush believes he has been a staunch defender of his principles and has done nothing wrong. He only grudgingly admits to making "cosmetic" mistakes or tactical missteps (see video above) but does not concede having made errors of judgment.

"There's no such thing as short-term history," Bush declared in his final presidential press conference on Monday. "I don't think you can possibly get the full breadth of an administration until time has passed."

That may be true, but it is clear, from what George and Laura Bush have said and done in the last few months, that they both care — deeply — what is thought of this president now, not 100 years from now.

Personally, I find it interesting — if not downright amusing — that Bush seems to believe his greatest error was pressing for privatizing Social Security instead of taking on immigration reform after being re-elected in 2004. As "The Young Turk" points out, the Social Security issue was virtually the only Bush proposal with which the Republican-controlled Congress ever refused to go along. It's a good thing the Republicans didn't let him have his way on that one. Can you imagine how much worse the economic meltdown would have been if people had actually invested their Social Security funds in the stock market?

In defense of the Bush record, the White House has posted, at its website, "100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record."

Most Americans, however, appear to know all they need to know about this administration's achievements in the last eight years.

Tonight's speech will not change that record.