So it’s been thirty-five years. Well, I don’t feel that old and our wives say we don’t look that old. But let’s put things in perspective. When Mozart was our age, he’d been dead for twenty-one years.
I don’t really know why I was asked to give this speech. Maybe it’s a consolation prize. The rest of you in the class have been successful. I ran for vice-president.
In fact, I’m the only guy in the class who ran for Vice President. I’m also the only Vice-Presidential nominee who ever lost 49 states.
Forty-nine to one -- the only time I want a score like that is when Yale beats Harvard.
Actually, I always wanted to run for national office in the worst possible way -- and I sure did. I also wanted to be vice-president very badly -- but Spiro Agnew is already doing that.
But running for Vice President was really a lot like going to Yale.
First, senator McGovern kept me on the waiting list just like Yale did.
Second, I didn’t understand George McGovern’s $1,000 plan any better than I understood Fred Fairchild’s Ec 10 lectures.
Finally, I think I got the same number of votes in 1972 for Vice President of the United States that I got in 1937 for Chairman of the Yale Daily News.
In fact I checked, and the results were not as bad as they look. I got as many popular votes as Grover Cleveland did in 1884, and he won.
Actually Yale did a lot for me. I think I’ve done all right because of what I learned here and how hard I have worked. It just goes to show how much a young man with a Yale education can accomplish if he marries Eunice Kennedy.
But I’m sure all of us have noticed how much things have changed since we first came to New Haven in the 1930s.
For example, this afternoon, I was talking to one of our classmates who told me: “Of course, I’m confused. I have a daughter at Yale and a son at Vassar.”
And another classmate of ours was saying: “Well, wouldn’t you be worried if your daughter was sleeping in the room next door to where Ray Graham and Larry Dunham used to live?”
Then there’s the Whiffenpoof song which has been written -- “to the tables down at Mory’s/to the place where Louisia dwells”.
The lyrics build to a modern conclusion -- “and the magic of their perfume casts a spell.”
I’ve also seen a letter written by Mary Frankwell, class of 74, to her great-uncle Frank Merriwell. “Dear Uncle Frank: Yale is everything you said. I’ve never seen so many passes thrown as in the corridors of Silliman. By the way, my fiancée got into Skull and Bones, and I got tapped for Buttons and Bows.”
I flew up here from the Capitol this afternoon, and of course, all the talk there is about Watergate.
Incidentally, I was asked to read the class a telegram from Washington. “Congratulations on your reunion. Thirty-five years is a long time. Sincerely yours, G. Gordon Liddy.”
By the way, did you notice that there are no minorities involved in the Watergate scandal -- no blacks, no women, no one under 30, no one with long hair, no Yale men...I mean Yale persons.
On the other hand, at one point, when all that money was missing, I did think that someone at the Committee to Re-Elect the President was trying to pay his son’s way through Yale.
I also thought it was appropriate that after the Watergate scandal broke, when they had to find someone to pick up the garbage, they hired Archie Cox and Elliott Richardson...two Harvard men.
These days, Washington is filled with speculation about impeachment and resignation. But I doubt it will happen. As Will Rogers once said, “On account of us being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government for four years no matter how bad it is.”
Now I have the privilege to make a serious and important announcement. Our class officers have worked very hard and tonight, we can announce our class gift. Harvard has the Kennedy School of Government -- but we all know that’s a center of eastern establishment liberalism. So here at Yale, the Class of 1938, is establishing the Richard M. Nixon Institute of Politics.
Actually, the major donors want to remain anonymous... But Kingman Brewster can pick up the contributions at the New Haven railroad station in locker #5, where there are those black bags filled with cash.
The Nixon institute already has a curriculum and a faculty. The schedule looks like this --
- funny money -- Maurice Stands
- elementary wiretapping -- Anthony Ulasewicz
- advanced wiretapping -- James McCord
- document duplication -- John Dean
- advanced amnesia -- Sally Harmony
- simple perjury and advanced perjury -- instructors to be announced
There will also be a core course for all students taught by John Erhlichmann and H. R. Haldemann -- every thing you always wanted to know about politics but were afraid to ask.
Like the library, the Nixon Institute will be located underground. It will have two wings -- the Rebozo Wing and the Ablanalp Wing. Students will be able to enter at any time because the doors will be taped. But all Visitors will be required to wear rubber gloves. And all students will be asked to read David Halberstam’s new book about this administration, The Worst and the Dumbest.
The Nixon institute will also have its own song -- “Boodle, Boodle”.
Best of all, the president has agreed to speak at the opening of the Institute. As he enters the room, the band will strike up “Bail to the Chief.”
But Mr. Nixon did win the election. As Abraham Lincoln warned, “you can’t fool all the people all the time” -- but 61% isn’t bad.
Let me close now with a brief comment on our capacity to laugh about Watergate, and to criticize our leadership.
Watergate is a tragedy for America -- but it has also provided a testament to American greatness. For almost alone among the people of the world, we assume that something like this should not happen here -- and that if it does, we will not accept it. Even in the nations of Western Europe, citizens expect the authorities to spy on them, to wiretap them, to subvert individual liberty even while proclaiming it.
It has been said of Watergate that everybody does it. In most parts of this beleaguered, oppressed planet, that is not only true, but traditional.
But it is not our tradition. And we can draw some satisfaction in the midst of our distress from the fact that those who have abused power are losing their place, that our legal process has checked the men who sought to set themselves above the law -- and, yes, from the fact that we have not lost our right or our will to ridicule the faults and failures of government.
A tyranny will not permit it. For us, it is a sign of the essential strength of our democracy. If I were still Ambassador to France, I would not hide from questions about Watergate, I would be happy to face them. Indeed, I would not talk about anything else -- for the American reaction to this crime has demonstrated once again, despite our difficulties, how different and precious our system is.
We learned that here at Yale more than three decades ago -- not because it was in the curriculum -- but because it was in the atmosphere of the place. Yalies have often disagreed about politics -- but they have been united by a belief in the principles of tolerance, fair play, and decent conduct. Those principles are written in the bill of rights -- which is the most important part of our constitution.
And Yale men in service to the nation have sustained those principles -- men as diverse as William Howard Taft, Dean Acheson, and John Lindsay. We need their fundamental conservatism today -- not necessarily to combat the threat of big government, but surely to oppose the coming of “big brother”.
When we graduated, the world stood at the edge of the second great war in our century. We were called on for our youth and our strength. We summoned our courage and our commitment. Most of us fought; some of our classmates died; we gave of ourselves to secure our liberty from adversaries abroad.
Now we are called on anew, but this time, the gravest threat is not from another shore, but inside our borders. We are no longer so young, but we are far more influential. And hopefully we still hold the commitment we made in our youth. For now we must exercise our influence as we once spent our strength; we must give again of the talents we have and the time we have been granted; we must respond to Watergate as we once responded in war –
With that same commitment to advance the ideal of our alma mater , “lux et veritas” -- to bring light and truth to our land and the life around us.
