Clinton Praises Predecessor’s ‘Wise Counsel, Intelligence’

Following is the text of President Clinton’s remarks on the death of former President Richard Nixon:

It is my sad duty to report to the people of the United States that Richard M. Nixon, who served as our 37th President, died this evening in New York City at 9:08 p.m. with his family at his side.

Hillary and I send our deepest condolences to the entire Nixon family. We hope that Tricia and Edward Cox, and their son, Christopher; Julie and David Eisenhower and their children, Jenny, Alex and Melanie, know that the best wishes of all their fellow Americans are with them during their moment of sorrow.

It’s impossible to be in this job without feeling a special bond with the people who have gone before. And I was deeply grateful to President Nixon for his wise counsel on so many occasions on many issues over the last year.

His service to me and to our country during this period was like the rest of his service to the nation for nearly a half-century: He gave of himself with intelligence and devotion to duty and his country owes him a debt of gratitude for that service.

We face today a world of increasingly uncertain and difficult challenges. But it is a world of great opportunity in no small part because of the vision of Richard Nixon during a particularly difficult period of the Cold War.

He understood the threat of communism, but he also had the wisdom to know when it was time to reach out to the Soviet Union and to China. All Americans, indeed all people throughout the world, owe him what he regarded as the ultimate compliment: He was a statesman who sought to build a lasting structure of peace.

To be sure, he experienced his fair share of adversity and controversy, but his resilience and his diligent desire to give something back to this country and to the world provide a lesson for all of us about maintaining our faith in the future.

In spite of everything, that faith led President Nixon to leave his mark on his times as few national figures have done in our history, and led him to continue to serve right up to the end of his life. Indeed, no less than a month before his passing he was still in touch with me about the great issues of this day.

Again I say, the sorrow and the best wishes of the American people are with President Nixon’s family. We thank them and our prayers are with them.