Preamble

This year our Republican Party has greater reason than ever before for pride in its stewardship.

When our accomplishments are weighed—when our opponents’ philosophy, programs and candidates are assessed—we believe the American people will rally eagerly to the leadership which since January 1969 has brought them a better life in a better land in a safer world.

This political contest of 1972 is a singular one. No Americans before have had a clearer option. The choice is between going forward from dramatic achievements to predictable new achievements, or turning back toward a nightmarish time in which the torch of free America was virtually snuffed out in a storm of violence and protest. It is so easy to forget how frightful it was. There was Vietnam—so bloody, so costly, so bitterly divisive—a war in which more than a half-million of America’s sons had been committed to battle—a war, it seemed, neither to be won nor lost, but only to be endlessly fought—a war emotionally so tormenting as almost to obliterate America’s other worldly concerns.

And yet, as our eyes were fixed on the carnage in Asia, in Europe our alliance had weakened. The Western will was dividing and ebbing. The isolation of the People’s Republic of China with one-fourth of the world’s population, went endlessly on.

At home our horrified people watched our cities burn, crime burgeon, campuses dissolve into chaos. A mishmash of social experimentalism, producing such fiscal extravaganzas as the abortive war on poverty, combined with war pressures to drive up taxes and balloon the cost of living. Working men and women found their living standards fixed or falling, the victim of inflation. Nationwide, welfare skyrocketed out of control.

The history of our country may record other crises more costly in material goods, but none so demoralizing to the American people. To millions of Americans it seemed we had lost our way. So it was when our Republican Party came to power.

Now, four years later, a new leadership with new policies and new programs has restored reason and order and hope. No longer buffeted by internal violence and division, we are on course in calmer seas with a sure, steady hand at the helm. A new spirit, buoyant and confident, is on the rise in our land, nourished by the changes we have made. In the past four years:

We have turned toward concord among all Americans;

We have turned toward reason and order;

We have turned toward government responding sensitively to the people’s hopes and needs;

We have turned toward innovative solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems;

We have turned toward new paths for social progress—from welfare rolls to payrolls; from wanton pollution to vigorous environmental protection;

We have moved far toward peace: withdrawal of our fighting men from Vietnam, constructive new relationships with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, the nuclear arms race checked, the Mid-East crisis dampened, our alliances revitalized.

So once again the foreign policy of the United States is on a realistic footing, promising us a nationsecure in a full generation of peace, promising the end of conscription, promising a further allocation of resources to domestic needs. It is a saga of exhilarating progress.

We have come far in so short a time. Yet, much remains to be done.

Discontents, frustrations and concerns still stir in the minds and hearts of many of our people, especially the young. As long as America falls short of being truly peaceful, truly prosperous, truly secure, truly just for all, her task is not done.

Our encouragement is in the fact that things as they are, are far better than things that recently were. Our resolve is that things to come can be, and will be, better still.

Looking to tomorrow, to President Nixon’s second term and on into the third century of this Republic, we of the Republican Party see a quarter-billion Americans peaceful and prospering as never before, humane as never before, their nation strong and just as never before.

It is toward this bright tomorrow that we are determined to move, in concert with millions of discerning Democrats and concerned Independents who will not, and cannot, take part in the convulsive leftward lurch of the national Democratic Party.

The election of 1972 requires of the voters a momentous decision—one that will determine the kind of nation that is to be on its 200th birthday four years hence. In this year we must choose between strength and weakness for our country in the years to come. This year we must choose between negotiating and begging with adversary nations. This year we must choose between an expanding economy in which workers will prosper and a hand-out economy in which the idle live at ease. This year we must choose between running our own lives and letting others in a distant bureaucracy run them. This year we must choose between responsible fiscal policy and fiscal folly.

This year the choice is between moderate goals historically sought by both major parties and far-out goals of the far left. The contest is not between the two great parties Americans have known in previous years. For in this year 1972 the national Democratic Party has been seized by a radical clique which scorns our nation’s past and would blight her future.

We invite our troubled friends of other political affiliations to join with us in a new coalition for progress. Together let us reject the New Left prescription for folly and build surely on the solid achievements of President Nixon’s first term.

Four years ago we said, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, that Americans must think anew and act anew. This we have done, under gifted leadership. The many advances already made, the shining prospects so clearly ahead, are presented in this Platform for 1972 and beyond.

May every American measure our deeds and words thoughtfully and objectively, and may our opponents’ claims be equally appraised. Once this is done and judgment rendered on election day, we will confidently carry forward the task of doing for America what her people need and want and deserve.