RICHARD NIXON: 1913-1994 : VOICES : From the Nixon Era

“I’m here to pay my respects for his accomplishments. It’s time to put aside 20 years of resentment, which is what I’m doing at this moment.”

--Spiro T. Agnew, Nixon’s vice president

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“I have a very clear conscience today. I am one of the few from the Watergate era who has never criticized or pointed a finger at President Nixon. I’ll take my lumps for what I did. Watergate was part of a broader issue--the crisis of character in American life. . . . I think today was a message of reconciliation. It was very touching that President Clinton was here. Maybe the wounds of Watergate are now, 20 some years later, finally healed. . . . I think he achieved in death something he never quite achieved in life--to bring the nation together.”

--Charles W. Colson, special counsel to Nixon for four years

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“I said to my wife (at Pat Nixon’s funeral) that Richard Nixon won’t last much longer without her. And that’s simply the way it was.”

--Alexander M. Haig, Nixon’s chief of staff

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“I really feel like I’ve lost an old friend even though we were bitter political enemies through the years. . . . Richard Nixon has been around so long, and in my case at least for a time my own career has been intertwined with his. I made my peace with him long ago. I really have the feeling that an old friend has left the scene. . . . I watched him on television three or four weeks ago when he was in Moscow. He was walking with great difficulty and was stooped over, and I must say it touched me to see this old man, 81 years of age, still trying to figure out what these Russians are all about.”

--former U.S. Sen. George S. McGovern, who lost to Nixon in the 1972 presidential election

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“I told him the day he resigned that history would treat him better than his contemporaries.”

--Henry A. Kissinger, Nixon’s secretary of state

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“I think this service was just extraordinary. Given the circular way that he has fared so far I think basically I have to say that he’s the comeback kid.”

--former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker, who sat on the panel that investigated Watergate

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“I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. He surely would have been pleased. I think Dr. Kissinger said it correctly that Nixon set the framework for the world that we now know.”

--G. Gordon Liddy, finance counsel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, convicted Watergate burglar

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“I think the Nixon family can feel very, very good about what he accomplished and who all is here. A broad cross-section of the world is recognizing him for what he did.”

--Donald Rumsfeld, President Ford’s chief of staff and secretary of defense

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“This occasion is a very sad one because of my long and very close personal friendship with President Nixon. (Pardoning him) was the right thing to do at the time. History will show it was the right thing for the country. I’m very pleased I took that affirmative action.”

--former President Gerald R. Ford, Nixon’s vice president