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Good evening.

This is the thirty-seventh time I have spoken to you from this office.

where so many decisions have been made that have shaped the history of this nation.

Each time. I have done so because of a matter that I believe affected the national interest.

Of all the decisions I have made in my public life. I have tried to do what is best for the nation.

Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate.

I have felt that it is my duty to persevere. To make every possible to complete the term in office. to which you elected.

In the past few days. however. it has become evident to me. that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress.

to justify continuing that effort.

As long as there was such a base. I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the Constitutional process through to its conclusion.

To do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process.

and a dangerously destabilizing precedent to the future.

But with the disappearance of that base.

I now believe that the Constitutional purpose has been served. and that there is no longer a need for the prolonging of that process.