1974年8月8日，时任美国总统的理查德·尼克松在位于华盛顿哥伦比亚特区白宫的椭圆形办公室向美国民众发表了全国电视讲话。在电视讲话中，尼克松总统表示由于“水门事件”所造成的政治丑闻而在次日（8月9日）辞去美国总统职务。
尼克松的辞职是他演讲中所提及“漫长而艰难的水门事件”的高潮。水门事件是美国1970年代所发生的联邦层级的政治丑闻，起因是在1972年美国总统选举期间，有五人因闯入民主党全国委员会位于水门大厦的总部办公室而被捕，尼克松政府随后试图掩盖他们参与这次罪行的证据。由于水门事件，尼克松总统失去了大部分的民众和政治支持。而在次日辞职时，他几乎肯定将面临美国国会的弹劾和免职。[1]
根据他的演讲内容，尼克松总统说他的辞职是因为“我已经得出结论，由于水门事件而使得我可能得不到国会的必要支持；我认为国会将无法支持我做出非常困难的决定，也无法以国家利益所需要的方式来履行总统职责。”尼克松也表示，他希望通过辞职，“我将加速美国迫切需要的愈合过程开始”。尼克松承认他的一些判断是“错误的”并表示忏悔，他说“我对导致这一决定的事件过程中可能造成的任何伤害深感遗憾。”不过他并没有在他的辞职演说中明确提及针对他的弹劾案。[2]
8月9日造成，尼克松向时任美国国务卿的亨利·基辛格递交了一封由他签名的辞职信，这使得他成为美国历史上迄今唯一一位主动辞职的美国总统。尼克松辞职后，时任美国副总统的杰拉尔德·福特立即继任美国总统。[3]
演讲背景
1974年8月5日，时任美国总统的理查德·尼克松在白宫椭圆形办公室的几段录音被公开。其中一份被称为“铁证”，因为该录音带于水门事件发生后不久录制，该录音带表明尼克松总统在那时就被告知了白宫与该事件的联系并批准了一项旨在阻止调查的计划。录音带被公布后，尼克松的民众和政治支持率大幅度下降。[4]
录音带公开两天后，也就是8月7日，尼克松在白宫会见了美国国会的共和党领袖。他被告知他在众议院必将被弹劾，随后他将被参议院解职。当晚，尼克松在得知自己的总统任期在实际上已经结束，他最后决定宣布辞职。[5][6]
总统的演讲稿撰稿人雷·普莱斯负责撰写这份辞职演讲。[5]它于1974年8月8日从椭圆形办公室发出并通过广播电台和电视台直播。[6]
影响评论
《洛杉矶时报》的杰克·尼尔森写道，尼克松的演讲“选择展望未来”而不是专注于他自己的任期。[7]尼克松演讲的属性与约翰·波拉科斯在其论文《论修辞学的诡辩定义（Towards a Sophistic Definition of Rhetoric）》中对诡辩的修辞学定义不谋而合，即尼克松的演讲符合“（寻求）捕捉可能”的标准，[8]而并不是反思他的任期。
英国的《泰晤士报》刊登了弗雷德·埃默里所撰文的《这一日，尼克松先生辞去总统职务（Mr. Nixon resigns as President; On this day）》；他在文章中对尼克松的演讲持更消极的批评的态度。他将尼克松的道歉描述为“草率”，同时抨击他对总统任期的定义。埃默里表示尼克松将总统的任期定义为“直至总统失去国会支持”；这意味着尼克松已经知道他无法再接下来的弹劾审判中获得胜利，因此他正在利用这个定义好加速逃离他的办公室。[9]
斯蒂芬·安布罗斯在其著作《尼克松：1973年—1990年的毁灭与复兴（Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 1973–1990）》中发现当时的大部分美国媒体对于尼克松的辞职演讲是持积极态度的。安布罗斯在书中引用了CBS新闻罗杰·穆德的评论，而他刚好是美国媒体中不喜欢尼克松辞职演讲的人之一。穆德指出，尼克松重新设计了他的辞职演讲，以强调他的成就而不是为水门丑闻道歉。[10]
1999年，137名美国演讲学者被要求以“社会和政治影响以及修辞艺术”为标准推荐入选“20世纪美国100篇最佳政治演讲”的名单，而尼克松的辞职演讲列为第39名。[11]
全文内容
Good evening.
This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the national interest.
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.
In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.
But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.
I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations.
From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.
I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.
To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.
Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.
As I recall the high hopes for America with which we began this second term, I feel a great sadness that I will not be here in this office working on your behalf to achieve those hopes in the next 21/2 years. But in turning over direction of the Government to Vice President Ford, I know, as I told the Nation when I nominated him for that office 10 months ago, that the leadership of America will be in good hands.
In passing this office to the Vice President, I also do so with the profound sense of the weight of responsibility that will fall on his shoulders tomorrow and, therefore, of the understanding, the patience, the cooperation he will need from all Americans.
As he assumes that responsibility, he will deserve the help and the support of all of us. As we look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing the wounds of this Nation, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free people.
By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.
I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my Judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the Nation.
To those who have stood with me during these past difficult months, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support.
And to those who have not felt able to give me your support, let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of the country, however our judgments might differ.
So, let us all now join together in affirming that common commitment and in helping our new President succeed for the benefit of all Americans.
I shall leave this office with regret at not completing my term, but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your President for the past 51/2 years. These years have been a momentous time in the history of our Nation and the world. They have been a time of achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that represent the shared efforts of the Administration, the Congress, and the people.
But the challenges ahead are equally great, and they, too, will require the support and the efforts of the Congress and the people working in cooperation with the new Administration.
We have ended America's longest war, but in the work of securing a lasting peace in the world, the goals ahead are even more far-reaching and more difficult. We must complete a structure of peace so that it will be said of this generation, our generation of Americans, by the people of all nations, not only that we ended one war but that we prevented future wars.
We have unlocked the doors that for a quarter of a century stood between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
We must now ensure that the one quarter of the world's people who live in the People's Republic of China will be and remain not our enemies but our friends.
In the Middle East, 100 million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us their enemy for nearly 20 years, now look on us as their friends. We must continue to build on that friendship so that peace can settle at last over the Middle East and so that the cradle of civilization will not become its grave.
Together with the Soviet Union we have made the crucial breakthroughs that have begun the process of limiting nuclear arms. But we must set as our goal not just limiting but reducing and finally destroying these terrible weapons so that they cannot destroy civilization and so that the threat of nuclear war will no longer hang over the world and the people.
We have opened the new relation with the Soviet Union. We must continue to develop and expand that new relationship so that the two strongest nations of the world will live together in cooperation rather than confrontation.
Around the world, in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, there are millions of people who live in terrible poverty, even starvation. We must keep as our goal turning away from production for war and expanding production for peace so that people everywhere on this earth can at last look forward in their children's time, if not in our own time, to having the necessities for a decent life.
Here in America, we are fortunate that most of our people have not only the blessings of liberty but also the means to live full and good and, by the world's standards, even abundant lives. We must press on, however, toward a goal of not only more and better jobs but of full opportunity for every American and of what we are striving so hard right now to achieve, prosperity without inflation.
For more than a quarter of a century in public life I have shared in the turbulent history of this era. I have fought for what I believed in. I have tried to the best of my ability to discharge those duties and meet those responsibilities that were entrusted to me.
Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
I pledge to you tonight that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue in that spirit. I shall continue to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a Congressman, a Senator, a Vice President, and President, the cause of peace not just for America but among all nations, prosperity, justice, and opportunity for all of our people.
There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted for as long as I live.
When I first took the oath of office as President 51/2 years ago, I made this sacred commitment, to "consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon to the cause of peace among nations."
I have done my very best in all the days since to be true to that pledge. As a result of these efforts, I am confident that the world is a safer place today, not only for the people of America but for the people of all nations, and that all of our children have a better chance than before of living in peace rather than dying in war.
This, more than anything, is what I hoped to achieve when I sought the Presidency. This, more than anything, is what I hope will be my legacy to you, to our country, as I leave the Presidency.
To have served in this office is to have felt a very personal sense of kinship with each and every American. In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.
后续发展
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