you milhous nixon, do solemnly

swear. i, richard, bill house nixon. do solemnly swear. that you will faithfully execute the office that i will face. fully execute the office of president of the united states as president of the united states, and will to the best of your ability and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and repair, reserve, protect and defend the constitu of the united states, the constitu of the united states. so help god. so help me god.

senator dirksen, mr. chief justice. mr. president. president johnson. vice president humphrey. my fellow americans and my fellow citizens of the world community. i ask you to with me today, the majesty of this moment and the

orderly transfer of power. we celebrate the unity keeps us free. each moment in history, a fleeting time, precious and unique. but some out as moments of beginning in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries. this can be such a moment for forces now are converging that make possible for the first time. the hope that many of man's deepest aspirations can at last be realized. the spiraling pace of change allows us to contemplate within our own lifetime advances that once would have taken centuries in throwing wide the horizon of space. we discovered new horizons on for first time because people of the world want peace and the leaders of the world are afraid

of war. the times on the side of peace. eight years from now, america will celebrate its 200th anniversary as a nation and within the lifetime of most people now living, mankind will celebrate that great new year which comes only once in a thousand years. the beginning of our third millennium. what kind of a nation we will be? what kind of a world we live in? whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is is determined by our actions and our choices. the greatest honor history can is the title of peacemaker. this honor now beckons american. the chance to help lead world at last out of the valley of turmoil and on that high ground

peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization. if we succeed. generate to come will save us now living that we mass are a moment that we help make the world for mankind. this is our to greatness. and i believe the american people ready to answer this call. the third of this century has a time of proud achievement. we have made enormous strides in science and industry, in agriculture. we have shared our wealth more broadly than ever. we've learned at last to manage a modern economy, to ensure its continued growth. we given freedom, new reach. we have begun to make its promise real for black as well as for white. we see the of tomorrow and the youth of today.

i know america's youth. i believe in them. we can be proud that they are better educated, more committed, more driven by conscience than. any generation in our history. no people has ever been so close to the achievement. a just and abundant society, our soul possessed of the will to and because our strengths are so great we can afford to appraise our weaknesses with candor and to approach them with hope. standing in this same place, a third of a century ago franklin delano addressed the nation ravaged depression gripped in. he could say. and surveying the nation's

troubles, they concern. thank god only things. our today is in reverse. we find ourselves rich in good but ragged in spirit, reaching with magnifying and precision for the moon, but falling into raucous discord on earth. we are caught in war wanting peace. we're torn by division, wanting unity. we see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. we see tasks that need doing. waiting for hands that. do them to a crisis of the spirit. we need an answer of the spirit. and to find that answer. we need only within ourselves. when we listen to better angels of our nature. we find the face celebrate the simple things, the basic things. such as goodness, decency love,

kindness, greatness in simple trappings. the simple things are the ones most needed today. if we are to surmount what divides us and some in what unites to lower our voices, it would be a simple thing and these difficult years. america has suffered from a fever, words from inflated rhetoric that promises more that it can deliver from angry rhetoric that fans discontent and the hatreds from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. we cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another, until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our. for its part, government.

listen. we will strive to listen in new ways to the voices of quiet anguish. the voices that speak without words. the voices of the heart to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that of being heard. those who been left out. we will try to bring in those left behind. we will help to catch up. for all of our people, we will set our goal. the decent order that makes progress possible in our lives secure as we reach toward our hopes. our task is to build on has gone before not away from the old but turning toward the new and this past third of a century, government has passed laws, spent more money, more programs and all our previous history and are pursuing our goals of full employment, better housing excellence in education, in rebuilding our cities and

improving our rural areas, and protecting environment, enhancing the quality of life in all these and more. we will and must press urgently forward. we shall now for the day when our wealth can be transferred. the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home. the american dream does not come to those who fall asleep. but we are protecting the limit of what government alone can do. our greatest need now is to reach beyond government, enlist the legions of concerned and the committed. what has to be done has to be done by government and people, or it will not be done at all. the lesson past agony is that without the people we can do

nothing with the people. we can do everything everything. to match the magnitude of our task. we need the energies our people enlisted, not in grand enterprises, but more importantly in those small, splendid efforts that make headlines and the neighborhood. instead of the national journal. with these. we can build a great cathedral. the spirit. each of raising it. one stone at a time. as he reaches out to his neighbor helping carrying doing. i do not offer a life of uninspiring ease. i do not call for a life of grim sacrifice. i ask you, join in a higher adventure. one as rich as humanity itself

and exciting as the times we live in. the essence of freedom is that each of us shares the shaping of his own destiny until he has been of a cause larger than himself. no man, truly whole. the way to fulfillment is in the use of our talents. we achieve nobility. the spirit that inspires that youth. as measure what can be done. we shall promise only what we know we can produce. but as we chart our goals, we shall be lifted. our dream. no man can be fully while his neighbor is not to go forward at all is to go forward together. this means and white together as one nation, not to the laws have caught up with our conscience. what remains to give life to what is in the law to ensure it

last. that is all our bar in equal and dignity before god all are born in dignity before a man. as. we learn to go forward together at home. let us also seek to go forward with all mankind. let us take as our goal. peace is unknown. make welcome. where peace. fragile. make it strong. where peace is temporary. make it permanent. after a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation. let all nations know that during this administra ation, our lines of communication will be open. we seek an open world, open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people. a world in which no people, great or small, will live in

angry isolation. we cannot expect to make everyone our friend. but we try to make no one our enemy. those who would be our adversaries? we invite to a peaceful competition. not in conquering territory or extending dominion, but in enriching the life of man. as we explore the reaches of space. let us go to the new worlds together. not as new worlds to be conquered, but as a new adventure to be shared. and with those who are willing join. let us cooperate to reduce the burden of arms. to strengthen structure of peace, to lift up the poor and the hungry. but to all those who would be tempted by weakness, let us leave. no doubt that we will as strong

as we need to be for as long as we need to be. over the past 20 years, since i first came to this capital as a freshman congressman. i have visited most of the nations, the world. i have come to know the leaders of the world, the great forces, the hatreds, the fierce the divided, the world. i know that peace does not come through wishing for it, that there is no substitute for days and even years of patience, prolonged diplomacy. i also know the of the world. i have seen the hunger of a homeless child. the pain of a man wounded battle, the grief of a mother who has lost her son.

i know these have no ideology, no grace. i know america. i know the heart of america is good. i speak from my own and the heart, my country. the deep concern we have for those who and those who suffer. i have taken oath today in the presence of god and countrymen to uphold and the constitution of the united states. and to that. i now add this sacred commitment. i shall concentrate my office, my energies and. all the wisdom i can summon to the cause of peace among nations. let this message be heard by strong and weak.

the peace we seek. the peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people. but peace that comes with healing and its wings, with compassion for those who have suffered, with understanding, those who have opposed it. with the opportunity for all peoples of this earth to choose their own destiny. only a few short ago, we shared the glory of man's first sight of the world. as god sees it as a single spare reflecting light in the darkness, as the apollo astronauts flew over the moon's gray surface christmas eve. they to us of the beauty, earth. and in that voice so clear across the lunar. we heard them god's blessing on,

its goodness and in that moment, their view from moon moved archibald macleish to write to the earth as it truly is small and blue and beautiful, and that eternal silence it floats is see our ourselves as writers on. the earth together brothers in that bright, lovely and the eternal cold brothers who know now they are truly. in that moment of surpassing triumphs. men turn their thoughts home when humanity seeing and that far perspective, that man's destiny on earth is not divisible. telling us that however far we reach into the cosmos, our destiny lies, not in the stars,

but on earth itself. in our own heart, in our own hearts. we have endured a long night of. the american spirit. but as our eyes catch the dominance of the first rays of dawn. let us not curse the remaining dark. let us gather the light. our destiny offers. not the cup of despair, but chalice of opportunity. so let us seizing, not in fear, but in gladness and writers on earth together. let us go forward, firm in our faith, steadfast in our purpose, cautious of the dangers, sustained by our confidence in the will of god and the promise of man.