Bill Clinton: “To the Congress of the United States: It is my sad duty to inform you officially of the death of Richard Milhous Nixon…”

“To the Congress of the United States: It is my sad duty to inform you officially of the death of Richard Milhous Nixon, the thirty-seventh President of the United States. Born in 1913, he was first elected to the Congress in 1946, a member of that historic freshman class of World War II veterans that also included John F. Kennedy. He was elected to the Senate in 1950, and served two terms as Vice President of the United States between 1953 and 1961. His career in the Congress coincided with the great expansion of the American middle class, when men and women from backgrounds as humble as his own secured the triumph of freedom abroad and the promise of economic growth at home. He remained a visible presence in American public life for over half a century. Yet through all those years of service to his country, in the military, in the Congress, in the Presidency, and beyond, he cherished his life as a private man, a family man. He was lovingly devoted to his wife, Pat, to their daughters Patricia Cox and Julie Eisenhower, and to his four grandchildren. His lifetime and public career were intertwined with America's rise as a world power. His faith in America never wavered, from his famous ``kitchen debate'' with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev through all of the debates that followed.…”