FOR 30 YEARS, Mendel Rivers served the State of South Carolina and the Nation with dignity, with distinction, and with high integrity in the Congress of the United States. Throughout his career, Congressman Rivers held unswervingly to the belief that the freedom that exists in the modern world is inextricably tied to the military strength of the United States. He fought for that belief in committee, in the Congress, in the country. No shifting national opinion, no amount of hostile criticism, deterred him from the course he deemed right for America. In his death I have lost a friend upon whom I could rely in times of grave difficulty; South Carolina has lost one of the most distinguished men in her history; and America has lost a patriot.
Note: Representative Rivers, age 65, died following open-heart surgery at University Hospital, Birmingham, Ala.
He served in the House of Representatives from 1941 until the time of his death, and as chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services from 1965.
Richard Nixon, Statement on the Death of Representative L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240811