ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 16, 1996 TAG: 9612160146
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
A week before Richard Nixon resigned, a defiant speech was prepared for him declaring he had done nothing ``that justifies removing a duly elected president from office'' and pledging to fight to keep his presidency.
The speech was never delivered. Instead, Nixon put out a written statement revealing the existence of the famous ``smoking gun'' tape - showing his complicity in the Watergate cover-up - and waited to judge how the nation reacted.
In the ensuing national rage, Nixon saw that his presidency was doomed and gave up the fight.
The refusal-to-resign draft, a footnote to one of the most dramatic weeks of America's history, has come to light among the 40 million pages of Nixon documents at the National Archives.
Raymond Price, Nixon's chief speechwriter, prepared two drafts on Aug. 3 and 4, 1974 - the undelivered text and a resignation speech, marked ``Option B.''
``Option B'' became the basis of the speech Nixon delivered on Thursday, Aug. 8, in which he told the nation he would resign because ``I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress.''
In a telephone interview last week, Price, 66, said he ``vaguely'' recalled writing the drafts for Nixon ``so he could have something on paper that he could look at.''
Price did not mention them in his 1977 memoir, ``With Nixon.''
Alexander Haig, who was Nixon's chief of staff, said Friday that he ordered the drafts prepared at an ``agonizing and wrenching'' time.
``One day he was going to resign, the next day he wasn't,'' Haig said. ``That weekend was about the third time as I recall that he was going to and he wasn't going to.''
The refusal-to-resign speech has Nixon conceding that he made ``a serious mistake'' in withholding knowledge of the damaging Watergate tape after listening to it the previous May. He gave it up only when the Supreme Court ordered him to.
In his actual resignation speech - similar to the Price draft only in terms of themes - his mea culpa was softer: He said 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 interests of the nation.''
The undelivered speech of defiance has Nixon say that, whatever his mistakes, ``I firmly believe that I have not committed any act of commission or omission that justifies removing a duly elected president from office. If I did believe that I had committed such an act, I would have resigned long ago.''
In that text, Nixon says he would fight for the sake of the presidency.
``We must not let this office be destroyed - or let it fall such easy prey to those who would exult in the breaking of the president that the game becomes a national habit,'' the draft speech says.
``Therefore, I shall see the constitutional process through - whatever its outcome. I shall appear before the Senate and answer under oath before the Senate any and all questions put to me there.''
In another section, the text argues that a resignation would invite resignation pressures ``on every future president who might, for whatever reason, fall into a period of unpopularity.''
Nixon abandoned that line of argument in his actual resignation speech. He said that he initially felt ``that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion.'' But with the loss of his political base, ``I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served.''
In another passage, the 2,000-word undelivered speech has Nixon saying that resigning would be the easy way out.
``Some suggest that if I persevere, I am not only ignoring what they consider the inevitable outcome, but doing so at considerable personal risk,'' the draft says. ``They point to the fact that a president who resigns keeps all the pensions, allowances and other perquisites of an ex-president, whereas one removed by the Senate loses everything - and that he leaves in disgrace.''
This text acknowledge that impeachment by the House and trial in the Senate were ``almost a foregone conclusion ... the other side has the votes.''
LENGTH: Medium: 80 linesby CNB