Politics – Create Problems to Seize Power

Athens was a democracy where all citizens were equal, but Pericles rose in prominence.

He pushed to have the Delian League treasury moved to Athens in 454 BC, then borrowed from it to build the Parthenon on Acropolis Hill, with its gold statue of Athena … continue reading …

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“The end excuses any evil.”

Roman poet Ovid wrote in Heroides (c.10 BC):

“The result justifies the deed” (“exitus acta probat”)

An offshoot of the phrase was a line in the English comic play The Artful Husband, 1717:

“All advantages are fair in love and war.”

Also in the play The Relapse, or Myrtle Bank (London, 1789):

“All is fair in love and war.”

But since criminals and ambitious politician define “good” as advancing their wealth, career or agenda, it gives them license to lie under oath, lie to kafir infidels, deceitfully manipulate the system, infringe on the freedoms of others, turn a blind eye to injustices, and even commit the most reprehensible atrocities.

A companion idiom is: “to make and omelette you have to crack some eggs,” meaning, it doesn’t matter how many innocent people you hurt along the way so long as you reach your political goal.

The Bible records instances of such hedonistic utilitarianism when Abimelech hired “vain and worthless persons” of Shechem to murder his half-brothers, the sons of Gideon. (Judges 9)

Another recorded use of this amoral attitude was in India.

After India repelled the invasion of Alexander the Great in 326 BC, it saw the growth of the Mauryan Empire, which became the largest empire in the world at the time, under King Chandragupta Maurya (321–297 BC).

His artful use of underhanded tactics resulted in him being described as “India’s Machiavelli.”

Chanakya wrote Arthashastra, which gives shrewd, brutal instructions on statecraft to accumulate power.

Chanakya counseled the King to use spies to create crises of rivalry, where subjects would fight among themselves, allowing him an excuse to consolidate control.

“Compared to Chanakya’s Arthashastra, Machiavelli’s The Prince is harmless.”

Roger Boesche, who wrote “Kautilya’s Arthashastra on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India” (The Journal of Military History, 2003), described its harsh political pragmatism:

“Is there any other book that talks so openly about when using violence is justified?

When assassinating an enemy is useful? When killing domestic opponents is wise?

How one uses secret agents? When one needs to sacrifice one’s own secret agent?

How the king can use women and children as spies and even assassins? When a nation should violate a treaty and invade its neighbor?

Kautilya … addresses all those questions …”

“In what cases must a king spy on his own people?

How should a king test his ministers, even his own family members, to see if they are worthy of trust?

When must a king kill a prince, his own son, who is heir to the throne?

How does one protect a king from poison?

What precautions must a king take against assassination by one’s own wife?

When is it appropriate to arrest a troublemaker on suspicion alone? When is torture justified?

At some point, every reader wonders: Is there not one question that Kautilya found immoral, too terrible to ask in a book?

No, not one … And this is what brings a frightful chill.”

Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, famous for his book The Prince, 1513, is sometimes called the father of political science.

He wrote that in politics, “one must consider the final result.”

His writings were read by monarchs across Europe, from Henry VIII of England to Charles V of Spain, being finally condemned by Pope Paul IV as heretical.

In 1756, the Catechism of the Catholic Church prohibited this:

“One may not do evil so that good may result from it.”

Machiavelli observed the powerful Medici family of Florence and the notorious behavior of Cesare Borgia (1475–1507), such as intrigue, extortion, deceit, seduction, incest, poisoning, and assassination, all done in the raw pursuit of power.

Cesare Borgia’s degeneracy resulted in the Bishop of Calahorra refusing to allow his grave inside the Church of Santa Maria, instead burying his remains under the street in front of the church to be trodden on by those passing by.

Shakespeare’s play Othello (1603) had such a character in the treacherous Iago.

As close as a Vice-President, Iago worked closely with Othello appearing to support him, but after gaining Othello’s trust, he deviously destroyed him.

During the time of Machiavelli’s writing, some 500 years ago, Italy consisted of many independent city-states:

Venice, Genoa, Naples, Florence, Sienna, Amalfi, Milan, Corsica, Pisa, San Marino, Cospaia, Gaeta, Lucca, Noli, Trani and Papal States.

These were primarily nobleman’s republics, each with their own armies and navies, and they continually fought.

The “end,” of one prince controlling all of Italy, was such a good “end,” because it would stop the in-fighting, that any “means” necessary to get could supposedly be justified.

But if the prince secretly paid agitators, rioters, and criminals to burn barns, kill cows, smash windows and set buildings on fire, creating crises and terror in the streets, the people would panic and cry out for help.

The naive citizens, unaware of the subterfuge, would praise the prince as a hero.

It is good marketing: create the need and fill it.

Go around the back of a house and set it on fire, then go around to the front door and sell them a fire extinguisher – they will pay anything for it and thank you for being there.

Machiavelli wrote:

• “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.”

• “The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”

• “A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.”

• “A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.”

• “It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.”

During the French Revolution, Jacobin anarchists used these tactics, as Yale President Timothy Dwight described in 1798:

“Adultery, assassination, poisoning, and other crimes of the like infernal nature, were taught as lawful … provided ‘the end was good.'”

More recently, community organizer Saul Alinsky advocated this in his Rules for Radicals, 1971:

“An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent …

The organizer helps to lead his forces into conflict … The real arena is corrupt and bloody…

In war the end justifies almost any means …

The question of morality would never arise … Ethics are determined by whether one is losing or winning …

In the arena of action, a threat or a crisis becomes

almost a precondition.”

Author David Horowitz explained:

“Battles over rights and other issues, according

to Alinsky, should never be seen as more than

occasions to advance the real agenda, which is

the accumulation of power.”

Karl Marx adapted Hegelian Dialectics into his “Critical Theory” of dividing a nation into groups, labeling some “victims” and others “oppressors,” “haves” and have-nots,” then pitting them against each other to create domestic problems.

In the panic and fear of the chaos, people with be willing to surrender their freedom for security.

“Klaus Schwab (founder of the World Economic Forum) and Thierry Malleret write that if ‘the past five centuries in Europe and America have taught us anything, it is that ‘acute crises contribute to boosting the power of the state.’”

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to

be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Mencken wrote in Notebooks, 1956:

“The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what

all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve.”

“The zeitgeist on the other side is ‘we are not going

to make it for another century on this planet and therefore we need to embrace a one world totalitarian state right now …’

Whatever the dangers are in the future we need to never underestimate the danger of one world totalitarian state …

1st Thessalonians 5:3, the political slogan of the antichrist is ‘peace and safety’ …

I want to suggest … we would do well to be a little more scared of the antichrist and a little a less scared of Armageddon.”

The Bible warns not to participate in this behavior, as written in the Book of Proverbs:

“My son, if sinners entice you, do not yield to them.

If they say, ‘Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause … We will find all manner of precious goods; we will fill our houses with plunder. Throw in your lot with us; let us all share one purse’—

My son, do not walk the road with them or set foot upon their path. For their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed blood … They lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives.”

In answer to liberation theology which teaches the end justifies the means, Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6:

“Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid … Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin …

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In spite of Biblical warnings, humans have yielded to the attraction of “the ends justifies the means,” resulting in scandals.

Below is a list of some political scandals.

1866 GUNS TO MEXICAN GANGS

After the Civil War, the United States secretly supplied “decommissioned” guns to Mexican gangs to cause domestic violence and insurrection in order to oust French-backed Maximillian I.

This was in line with the Monroe Doctrine, that no European country should have a political presence in the Western Hemisphere.

With American support, Benito Juárez was able to capture Maximillian and he was shot, June 19, 1867.

1868 JOHNSON REFUSED BLACK VOTING

President Andrew Johnson refused to protect the rights of freed slave to vote.

1872 CREDIT MOBILIER SCANDAL

President Grant’s Vice-President and several Congressmen received shares of stock in the Crédit Mobilier construction company, which was building the Union Pacific Railroad.

In exchange, the politicians allowed the company to fraudulently bill the government.

1875 WHISKEY RING CONSPIRACY

Government agents and whiskey distillers were involved in bribery and tax evasion.

Grant promised swift punishment, but when his personal secretary, Orville Babcock, was implicated, Grant tried protect him, which made the scandal worse. The Secretary of War was eventually impeached.

1875 BRIBES FOR LAND

Grant’s Secretary of the Interior advocated killing off the Buffalo to make way for the railroads. He took bribes in exchange for land grants and when this was uncovered he was was forced to resign.

1881 STAR POSTAL ROUTE

During President Garfield’s administration, private companies delivered mail on the Star Route in America’s west.

These companies gave low bids to postal officials, but when postal officials presented the bids to Congress, they increased the amounts and pocketed the difference.

1910-1919 GUNS TO MEXICAN GANGS

During the Border War with Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson supported one gang against the others.

He selectively ignored an arms embargo, and arranged for train cars of weapons to be left unattended at a border town so they could be taken by Pancho Villa and the anti-Catholic revolutionary Venustiano Carranza, who used against Victoriano Huerta.

Wilson then backed Carranza against Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

1921 TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL

President Warren G. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was caught selling exclusive rights to oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, in exchange for personal profit and cattle.

1922 VETERANS AFFAIRS EMBEZZLEMENT

President Harding’s Director of Veterans Affairs was Charles Forbes.

300,000 soldiers were wounded during World War One but Forbes only covered the disability claims of 47,000 veterans.

When it was discovered he embezzled $2 million, he was convicted and imprisoned.

1924 BOOTLEGGERS

During the era of prohibition, President Harding’s Attorney General Harry Daugherty let pharmacies and bootleggers obtain permits to sell alcohol for “medicinal” purposes. This, and other scandals, forced Harry Daugherty to resign.

During Prohibition, among those suspected of profiting off of illegally imported liquor was Joseph Kennedy, father of political family.

Herbert Hoover wrote of President Harding in his memoirs, 1952:

“Harding had another side which was not good.

His political associates had been men of the type of Albert B. Fall (Teapot Dome Scandal) … Harry Daugherty (bootlegging scandal) … Charles Forbes (embezzled veterans’ benefits) …

He enjoyed the company of these men (in) weekly White House poker parties … the play lasted most of the night … It irked me to see it in the White House.”

Bobby Baker was Secretary to Lyndon Johnson when Johnson was Senate Majority Leader. Baker also ran the Quorum Club in the Carroll Arms Hotel adjacent to the Senate office building. There, outside the public eye, Senators met with prostitutes. Information from this honey pot operation allowed Johnson to influence Senators’ votes.

1953 OPERATION AJAX

Though President Truman opposed it for setting a dangerous precedent, President Eisenhower gave approval to the C.I.A.’s first operation to overthrow of a foreign government.

Iran’s democratically-elected President Mohammad Mosaddegh had sought to limit the amount of control BP (British Petroleum) had over Iran’s oil reserves. He hinted he would establish ties with the Soviet Union.

In the created confusion, the government was overthrown, Mosaddegh was arrested, and the pro-West Shah Reza Pahlavi became the new leader.

The Soviet Union did the same thing.

Its Committee for State Security (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or K.G.B.) organized clandestine “liberation” groups to destabilize pro-western countries.

The K.G.B., with the help of Fidel Castro, created the National Liberation Army of Columbia (FARC) in 1964.

The K.G.B., with the help of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, created the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (ELN) in 1964.

The K.G.B., with the help of Yasir Arafat, the Egyptian-born nephew of Mufti Amin al-Husseini, created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964.

In 1968, the K.G.B. created the “liberation theology” to promote critical race theory and a progressive Marxist social justice agenda of class-warfare to destabilize western democracies.

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy hosted a party attended by six married men and six single women on Chappaquiddick near Martha’s Vineyard.

Kennedy left the party with one of the women, Mary Jo Kopechne. The next morning she was found dead in Senator Kennedy’s submerged car.

1973 AGNEW

Spiro Agnew became the second Vice President in U.S. history to resign when confronted with charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy.

The Shah of Iran reportedly refused to renew a 25-year-old exclusive oil agreement with BP. At the same time, the Cold War with the U.S.S.R. was growing tense.

“I did criticize the President because of his undermining of our stalwart ally, the Shah.”

He then held captive 52 American hostages for 444 days, and formed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

During the Cold War, as the Soviet Union was destabilizing countries around the world, spreading socialism and enslaving millions of people, plans were made to oppose them which would cost the United States taxpayer nothing.

It involved selling arms to anti-Soviet forces in Iran in exchange for them releasing more U.S. hostages, then, use the money from the sale to help Contra freedom fighters stop Soviet-backed forces from taking over Nicaragua.

Democrats in Congress labeled this a scandal.

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts starred in the movie Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), detailing Operation Cyclone, the C.I.A.’s largest covert operation of supplying arms to Taliban “mujahadeen” in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War.

1989 KEATING FIVE

Five U.S. Senators were accused of corruption:

• Alan Cranston,
• Dennis DeConcini,
• John Glenn,
• Don Riegle, and
• John McCain.

It was discovered that Charles Keating had donated to each of the Senators’ campaigns.

Then the senators intervened to end a regulatory investigation into Charles Keating’s Lincoln Savings & Loan, which had collapsed, defrauding bondholders and taxpayers of $3 billion.

1998 MONICA LEWINSKY

In 1995, preparing to run for reelection, President Clinton had an illicit sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Her friend, Linda Trip, kept audio tapes and convinced Lewinsky to keep a stained dress as protection from being added to the Clinton body count list, a statistically improbable number of former Clinton associates who had died or committed suicide under suspicious circumstances.

Though dismissed as coincidence by “fact checkers” in the main stream media, the list included:

Vince Foster, Joe Montano, Carlos Ghigliotti, Charles Wilbourne Miller, Charles Ruff, Ron Brown, Daniel Dutko, Gareth Williams, Victor Thorn, etc.

https://www.wnd.com/2016/08/clinton-death-list-33-most-intriguing-cases/

As the Lewinsky scandal spread, Clinton had the U.S. smuggle weapons to Bosnian-Muslim forces through radical Islamist and Iranian groups in Operation Deliberate Force.

In November of 1995, he signed the Dayton Agreement, then fired cruise missiles at Serbian targets.

Public attention was diverted from the Lewinsky scandal.

The movie Wag the Dog (1997), starring Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Anne Heche, and Woody Harrelson, depicted a President running for reelection caught in a sexual scandal who hired a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer to fabricate a war in Albania to divert attention from the scandal.

President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was held in Contempt of Congress after refusing to release documents regarding the “Fast and Furious” operation providing guns to Mexican drug gangs.

2010 URANIUM ONE

During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, the U.S. approved the sale of Uranium One to a state-owned Russian corporation. Around the same time, millions were donated to the Clinton Foundation.

Prior to re-election, President Obama announced the war on terror was over.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with 57 leaders of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and promised support of a U.N. Resolution abolishing free speech by enforcing the dhimmi status on non-Muslims, prohibiting insults of Islam.

This was after several European countries hurriedly abolished free speech after orchestrated 2005 outbreaks of violence in response to a Danish cartoon of Mohammed published in the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo in 2011.

Six hours into the attack, President Obama spoke via telephone with Secretary Clinton and decided no rescue would be attempted.

The next morning, Clinton’s State Department sent memos to YouTube and Google recommending censorship of speech insulting Islam.

Momentum grew to abolish free speech until it was discovered the U.S. Ambassador in Benghazi had for months warned Hillary’s State Department of the dangerous situation only to have requests for security denied.

Then, her emails surfaced revealing details of what was going on.

U.S. made Stinger missiles had made their way from Benghazi to arm the Taliban in Afghanistan, where shot down a U.S. C-130.

Afterwards, these arms were being moved in a gun-running operation through Benghazi, similar to Eric Holder’s “Fast and Furious” scandal, to arm Muslim terrorists to oust Syria’s President Assad.

When Russia came to Assad’s defense, the terrorists armed and trained by the U.S. attacked into Syria and Iraq, calling themselves ISIL or ISIS.

In just eight years, the Christian population in Syria went from 2.5 million to a just few hundred thousand.

Obama administration’s arming of Islamist militants was reported in the Los Angeles Times (3/27/16): “In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA.”

President Trump ended Obama’s secret CIA program of arming terrorists, as TIME Magazine reported (7/28/17):

“President Trump ends covert plan to arm Syrian rebels, Russia has pushed U.S. to end program.”

After President Obama met 157 times with IRS director Lois Lerner, she pleaded the 5th Amendment when asked by Congress on whether the agency was targeting conservative political groups opposed to President Obama’s re-election.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton illegally used secret email servers.

When questions arose over lack of security, and the coordination of her Secretary of State’s Department to arrange “pay to play” favorable treatment for foreigners donating to the Clinton Foundation allegedly in exchange for her husband giving speeches, suddenly 30,000 of Hillary’s emails were deleted.

On March 2, 2016, when her technology specialist, Bryan Pagliano, was question about this, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment.

The Justice Department, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch, initiated an investigation, but after an unprecedented meeting with Hillary’s husband at the Phoenix Airport, the investigation was ended.

Commentator Dick Morris explained that several of Hillary’s emails exposed nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri as an American spy, resulting in him being executed in Iran.

When WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange released 20,000 emails showing the Democrat National Committee worked to undermine Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton.

DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign, though she was quickly hired by Hillary.

Rachel Alexander of Townhall.com wrote: “Since the Democrat National Committee emails were leaked a few weeks ago, three people associated with the DNC have all been found dead under what could be questionable circumstances.”

Seth Rich, a DNC data analyst, was shot in the back July 10, 2016, though his wallet, credit cards and watch were not taken.

On July 13, 2016, Shawn Lucas, who had served the DNC with a lawsuit on July 3, 2016, was found dead on August 2, 2016.

On June 22, 2016, John Ashe, former President of the United Nations General Assembly, was found dead with a barbell across his throat just days before he was scheduled to testify that a Chinese businessman illegally funneled funds to the DNC during Bill Clinton’s term in office.

(Breitbart, 5/20/18) “During a Tuesday appearance on the View, no less than the former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper described what was done by the Obama administration to Donald’s Trump campaign as “spying.”

Peter Strok, who was in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton’s private email server, had sent thousands of text messages expressing his desire to “stop” President Trump.

Not only did he not find fault with Hillary’s actions, Robert Mueller’s team deleted the vast majority of Strok’s incriminating text messages.

2018 PAKISTANI IT STAFFERS

July 22, 2017, Pakistani IT staffers Imran Awan, his wife, Hina Alvi, and his brothers Abid, Jamal, worked at the DNC and for Democrat legislators. Concerns remain that they forwarded out of the country compromising information which could be used to blackmail politicians.

2019 JEFFERY EPSTEIN

Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein flew many prominent politicians on his private jet to his reputed pedophile Caribbean island in what was considered a sophisticated honey pot operation.

While flus and viruses, such as MERS, SARS, Avian Flu, Swine flu, etc., have been serious, the response to COVID-19 is unique, appearing to have been co-opted for political purposes.

“This is a high-stakes time, because of the pandemic. But this is also a really high-stakes election …

I can only say, ‘Amen,’ to everything you’re saying, but also to, again, enlist people – that this would be a terrible crisis to waste, as the old saying goes.”

“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

Rahm Emanuel stated in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2008:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste … It is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton addressed the European Parliament in Brussels, March 6, 2009:

“The chief of staff for President Obama is an old friend of mine and my husband’s … and he said, you know, never waste a good crisis.”

When normal people experience a crisis, they just want to help people get through it; when ambitious politicians see a crisis, they look at it as an opportunity to seize power.

As if no one expected it, crime soon increased.

This was compounded by the defunding of police and Antifa gangs roaming freely, followed by a version of sharia no-zones in some cities.

COVID responses also closed schools, releasing high school and college students indoctrinated with “hate America” views to be organized by leftist professors to participate in “indivisible” Antifa protests.

It is the psychology of a child throwing a temper-tantrum until it gets its way, only this time it is done on a societal level with rioters creating anarchy.

And whatever they are willing to do to gain political power, they would be willing to continue doing to stay in power, which is the definition of a totalitarian regime perpetrating human rights abuses.

“Sean Ono Lennon, the son of Beatles legend John Lennon and Yoko Ono, slammed some leftist protesters and the destruction they have wrought in a cogent tweet, writing,

‘I’m unsure how this “fight racism with racism” and “fight fascism with fascism” strategy is supposed to succeed in anything but destruction and chaos. But maybe I’m just a Luddite.’”

“When asked if he really wanted a recession, Bill Maher responded “I do.” Why? Well, because “one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy.”

Those who move out – pro-family and pro-business – usually belong in a higher percentage of one particular political party.

Yet the names of those who move out often remain on the voter rolls – a necessary feature in run-of-the-mill voter fraud.

In elections, whoever wins the big cities usually wins the state, and whoever wins the state gets all the electoral votes for the state, and the President is elected by electoral votes.

At the time when the Maricopa County election fraud report was due to be released, potentially raising questions as to the legitimacy of the Biden election, the Administration may a sudden decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, leaving it to the Taliban.

Demands have been made for the resignation or impeachment of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and President Joe Biden over the $85 billion dollars of arms, consisting of 600,000 weapons including Black Hawk helicopters, left for the use of the Taliban.

Lists of Afghans who had worked with the U.S were left so the Taliban could hunt them down.

President Obama threw a birthday party August 7, 2021, on the eve of Biden surrendering Kabul to the Taliban.

1972 WATERGATE

The top of the list of political scandals in U.S. history is Watergate.

It began when five low-level members of President Nixon’s re-election team, some of whom may have been FBI operatives, did a third-rate break-in of the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building.

Though Nixon was not involved, his efforts to defend a subordinate led to him being implicated in a cover up. The House Judiciary Committee staff prepared the articles of impeachment against President Nixon.

Her conduct was described by Jerry Zeifman, the Chief Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, as “dishonest,” that she “engaged in a variety of self-serving unethical practices in violation of House rules,” possibly to facilitate a future run for President by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.

Rather than go through an impeachment trial, President Nixon resigned.

This scandal overshadowed other aspects of Nixon’s Presidency, such as:

• ending racial segregation in southern schools;

• ending the draft;

• NASA’s Apollo mission to the moon;

• officially recognizing “Fathers’ Day”;

• beginning the process to end the Cold War;

• visiting Beijing and Moscow as steps to bring down the Bamboo Curtain and the Iron Curtain;

• fighting foreign oil price gouging;

• producing a balanced budget;

• supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War, with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger attempting to negotiate agreements between Israel and Egypt and Syria.

Having served as the 37th President, he stated from the Oval Office:

“Good evening. This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office …

To continue to fight … for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress …

Therefore, I shall resign … If some of my judgments were wrong … they were made in what I believed … to be the best interest of the Nation.”

Nixon continued with an almost prophetic warning:

“In the Middle East, 100 million people in the Arab countries, many of whom have considered us their enemy … now look on us as their friends.

We must continue to build on that friendship so that … the cradle of civilization will not become its grave.”

Concluding, he added:

“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 … If he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly’ …

In leaving … I do so with this prayer: May God’s grace be with you in all the days ahead.”

“Mistakes, yes … for personal gain, never …

I can only say to each … of you … we come from many faiths … but really the same God … You will be in our hearts and … in our prayers.”

—

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