Orrin Hatch: “All of us who admired Richard Nixon are rightly saddened. But We should take heart from the fact that President Nixon…”

“All of us who admired Richard Nixon are rightly saddened. But We should take heart from the fact that President Nixon lived his life without compromise right up to the end. He traveled to Russia and Ukraine to press for policies to assist in the free-market and democratic transformations of those countries. He finished his 10th book, entitled Beyond Peace, that addresses the foreign and domestic issues we face after the cold war, as well as the philosophical questions the next century will present. He could not have lived more fully in the final days of his life. President Nixon had a philosophy about life and about how to live the twilight years. He expressed it with profound eloquence in the closing pages of his book, In the Arena. He wrote: I shall always remember my first visit to the Grand Canyon sixty-five years ago. I did not believe any view could be more spectacular than the one from the heights of the South Rim until I hiked seven miles down to the river below and look back up. It was only then that I fully appreciated the true majesty of one of nature's seven wonders of the world. Only when you have been in the depths can you truly appreciate the heights. . . . Life is a rollercoaster, exhilarating on the way up and breathtaking on the way down. If you take no risks, you can enjoy a life that is comfortable, trouble-free, placid-- and dull. Without risks you will suffer no defeats. But without risks you will win no victories.…”