[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 17 (Monday, May 2, 1994)]
[Page 897]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Message to the Congress on the Death of President Richard Nixon

April 22, 1994

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. We Americans and our neighbors abroad will 
always owe him a special debt for opening diplomatic doors to Beijing 
and Moscow during his Presidency, and his influence in world affairs 
will be felt for years to come.
    Richard Milhous Nixon lived the ``American Dream.'' Now, he rests in 
peace.
                                            William J. Clinton
The White House,
April 22, 1994.

Note: This message was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on 
April 23.