I would rather be a one-term President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at the cost of seeing America become a second-race power and to see this Nation accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history.
Richard M. Nixon's address to the nation on the situation in Southeast Asia (April 30, 1970) as quoted in "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970" by the U.S. Government Printing Office (p. 410), 1971.
