Nixon delivered his second speech on Watergate just over three months after the drama of the first.
This time there were no further resignations or dismissal. Instead, Nixon road-tested the executive privilege argument about the Watergate tapes and decried the nation’s “backward-looking obsession with Watergate”.
Text of President Richard Nixon’s second speech on Watergate.
Good evening:
Now that most of the major witnesses in the Watergate phase of the Senate committee hearings on campaign practices have been heard, the time has come for me to speak out about the charges made and to provide a perspective on the issue for the American people.
For over 4 months, Watergate has dominated the news media. During the past 3 months, the three major networks have devoted an average of over 22 hours of television time each week to this subject. The Senate committee has heard over 2 million words of testimony.
This investigation began as an effort to discover the facts about the break-in and bugging of the Democratic National Headquarters and other campaign abuses. [Read more…]