Special Message to the Congress About the Death of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

To the Congress of the United States:

It is my sad duty to inform you officially of the death of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the thirty-sixth President of the United States.

His loss is especially poignant for all of us who knew him and worked with him in the House and Senate. It was there that he first became a legend and there that he began to influence our destiny as a great Nation.

Yet Lyndon Johnson's legacy extends far beyond his years in the Congress. He was a man of fierce devotion and love. He was devoted to his family. He was devoted to the cause of freedom and equality for his fellow man. And as President, he was devoted in a very special way to the land he loved.

The whole story of the Johnson years in the White House remains to be told, and history has yet to make its judgment. But millions of Americans will always remember a bitter day in November, 1963, when so many of our people doubted the very future of this Republic, when so many were stunned at the very idea that an American Chief of State could be assassinated in this age, and so many abroad were fearful about the future course of the American democracy. And Lyndon Johnson rose above the doubt and the fear to hold this Nation on course until we rediscovered our faith in ourselves.

If he had done no more, his place in history would have been assured. But he did much more, and his role then was not a high-water mark but a hallmark. For it was his noble and difficult destiny to lead America through a long, dark night of necessity at home and abroad. He had the courage to do what many of his contemporaries condemned him for, but what will surely win warm praise in the history books of tomorrow.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House,

January 23, 1973.