LT. GENERAL JAMES D. HUGHES

I have this honor today because, in 1958, President Eisenhower sent Vice President and Mrs. Nixon on a goodwill trip to Africa and Admiral Radford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, convinced the Vice President to add two military aides to his small staff on a "temporary trial basis." I was the junior officer and served as the ceremonial aide for Pat Nixon. I was inexperienced as an aide and did not know the Nixons so I was more than a little anxious. In fact, on the first few ceremonial occasions it was hard to tell the aide from the aidee.

But she was a teacher and I soon learned a little about protocol and a lot about Pat Nixon. The African heat, primitive accommodations, and the grueling schedules tested everyone's endurance. And the unstructured third-world protocol made for some challenging "ad hoc-ing" at the various ceremonies. I was amazed by her limitless stamina and patience; her knack for looking fresh in 110-degree temperatures; and her ability to relate convincingly to people-especially children. Clearly she was a superb ambassador.

In Washington, the "temporary trial period" lasted four years and I got to know her better and learned more about her. I learned that the steel in her character was forged by the hardships of her early life. At thirteen she lost her mother to cancer and, five years later, nursed her father through his final illness. She maintained a home for her two brothers. And she worked her way through University of Southern California and graduated cum laude. After her marriage she taught high school and worked as an OPA wartime economist.

In 1946, she became a member of the Dick and Pat political team and embarked on the most important and demanding work of her life.

I marveled as she functioned as a homemaker and devoted mother while coping with her official and social obligations. One Christmas the Nixons hosted, at home, five separate parties to accommodate the guest list of officials, diplomats and friends. But the Nixon family still had a traditional Christmas!

By now we were friends and I thought I knew her well. But on the 1958 goodwill trip to South America our last stop was Caracas. I knew she was tough but Caracas convinced me that her courage knew no bounds.

The rioting mob that welcomed us had been whipped into a frenzy by their "student" leaders - "students" in middle age! Our past brushes with demonstrators and even my combat duty in Korea had not prepared me for the hate and unrelenting fury that was unleashed on us.

It was humiliating, infuriating and terrifying! With the foreign minister's wife, Pat moved slowly and calmly toward the cars while the crowd roared insults and the spit rained down.

During the motorcade she comforted the foreign minister's wife who was close to hysterics. We talked quietly, but I can't remember anything we said except that she asked frequently if the Vice President was alright. I reassured her as best I could-with crossed fingers!

Throughout the ride I never saw her flinch when the car was hit with various missiles and clubs. She remained totally composed and that made it easier for me and the Secret Service. Upon reaching the Embassy residence she quickly freshened up and began to talk with the Vice President about our situation. Her principal concern was to get word to Tricia and Julie that they were all right.

We left Caracas the next day through a tear gas mist-with an overabundance of military protection that was noticeably absent the day before.

But we left in the Nixon style with heads up and all flags flying!

In later years she did not lose this touch. She was at home visiting leper colonies or riding in an open door helicopter to visit combat troops in Vietnam. And her courage was her trademark as she stood by her husband in good times and in bad.

In closing, I can think of no better tribute than part of a quote from reporter Bob Hartmann's Caracas story-"Pat Nixon was magnificent."

CYNTHIA HARDIN MILLIGAN

To know Mrs. Nixon was to know a person of compassion, courage, and character, with unusual ability to relate to people. The first time I met Mrs. Nixon was at the White House. My father had just been appointed to the Department of Agriculture, and I was a young law student, recently married and in the same age group as the Nixon daughters, Tricia and Julie. Before that introduction, I knew Mrs. Nixon only in her public role as an ambassador of goodwill. I, along with the entire American public, admired her graciousness and we were proud she would now represent us as First Lady. But, it was not until I met her face to face that I realized how warm and natural she was. She put people immediately at ease. One felt one was visiting with a good and caring friend with whom one could discuss concerns or problems and that Mrs. Nixon would understand and would care.

She was also a woman of substance. She was always current and interested in national and world events. Once while visiting with the Nixons during the Gulf War, I referred to an editorial in that morning's edition of the Wall Street Journal. Mrs. Nixon asked which editorial because she said there were two editorials that day in the Journal about the Gulf War. She was right.

Over the past twenty-five years, through my friendship with Tricia and Julie, I have come to know and appreciate Mrs. Nixon in her roles as mother, grandmother, wife and friend. She always created an atmosphere of love and beauty in every Nixon home, including the White House. She loved flowers. She surrounded each home with gardens in such a way that one could look out of the windows and enjoy the colors of the flowers and foliage as an extension of beauty of each room.

She dressed in the same fresh, soothing colors that she used in decorating. She had an eye for style and beauty. The Secret Service code name for Mrs. Nixon was "starlight." That is an appropriate reflection of the light and beauty that were so much a part of her.

I have admired Mrs. Nixon, especially as a mother and grandmother. Any of you who know the Nixon daughters, Tricia and Julie, and admire the fine ladies that they are-women of kindness and grace-can appreciate Mrs. Nixon's devotion to her family. The girls grew up knowing that they were the most important things in both of their parents' busy lives. The love, devotion, respect, pride and loyalty each member of the family feels for the other is beautiful.

As a grandmother, Mrs. Nixon had a special relationship with each grandchild, which she tailored to their unique personalities. I enjoyed watching her spend seemingly endless hours playing imaginary games with her granddaughters, Jennie and Melanie Eisenhower. When they were younger Jennie used to love to play shoe store clerk and Mrs. Nixon was incredibly patient, playing the role of customer, even allowing Jennie to dump every shoe out of the closet, and trying on pair after pair for Jennie. Melanie enjoyed playing waitress. One evening when I was visiting, Melanie not only took dinner orders, but served the dinner while both grandparents played the roles of appreciative restaurant customers. Grandson Christopher Cox has spent countless hours with his grandmother and shared her love of the outdoors and of dogs. And Alex Eisenhower had an enthusiastic grandmother rooting for him at many of his baseball games.

They, and we, enjoyed Mrs. Nixon's youthful spirit. She was fun to be with. She had a great spirit of adventure. It was that sense of adventure which led her to become half of the Dick and Pat partnership that began in California fifty-three years ago and brought them to heights of fame, power, turmoil, frustration, and peace that few have experienced.

The Bible in Proverbs 31 describes a woman of noble character, a woman such as Pat Nixon:

She is clothed with strength and dignity;
She can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
"Many woman do noble things,
but you surpass them all."

GOVERNOR PETE WILSON OF CALIFORNIA

President Nixon, President and Mrs. Ford, President and Mrs. Reagan, Dr. Graham, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I'll never forget the day that I caught, literally caught, Pat Nixon. Back then, I knew her as Mrs. Nixon, but of course Pat was the name by which the world came to love her and now how could we call her anything else.

I first met her during Richard Nixon's 1962 campaign for Governor. As Mrs. Nixon campaigned, women lined up for blocks in blocks in city after city to shake her hand.

In fact, the campaign strategists quickly learned that Pat Nixon was a far bigger draw than the incumbent governor they were running against.

By the end of the campaign, Pat was doing three events a day on her own and joining her husband every evening for one more rally.

Fresh out of law school, I was an advance man setting up those rallies.

One night, we staged a rally at Los Angeles State. Pat campaigned with her usual grace and tireless good humor. She was recovering from a mild illness, but you'd never know it from the energy and enthusiasm she communicated to the audience. It was clear from their smiles and close attention that the crowd was feeling the same warmth and good cheer Pat Nixon seemed to inspire in everyone she met.

This was one of the first events I had advanced for Mrs. Nixon. As we were making our way off campus after the rally, we started down some concrete steps. As she started down the steps, her heel caught on the top step and she lost her footing and pitched forward. My heart was in my mouth.

I was just ahead and below her on the steps. I reached out with both arms and caught her around the waist as she fell. Finding herself locked in my embrace, Pat looked up at me, laughing and said, "I'm sorry. I really hadn't intended to be quite so familiar on such brief acquaintance!"

That, I would learn, was vintage Pat Nixon: always more concerned about those who served her than herself, and always able to put them at ease.

Helping her back to her feet, I noticed for the first time what a slight woman she was. I've never forgotten it, because it struck me as such a paradox-that such a strong personality and vigorous spirit could be contained in so delicate a frame.

That contrast was always there. She was a tireless campaigner, but she brought to politics so much dignity, warmth and generosity of spirit. And in the often harsh, adversarial world of politics, generosity of spirit is too often a scarce commodity.

People around the world could sense that in Pat. She projected a genuineness and kindliness that were real reflections of her own inner feelings. If Richard Nixon is the most traveled public figure of all time, Pat Nixon is a close runner-up. When I met her in 1962, she had already been to all fifty states and more than fifty foreign countries.

Everywhere she went, whether it was a state visit to Singapore or a campaign trip to Sacramento, she practiced her own, very personal brand of diplomacy. Children everywhere were drawn to her-their instincts for finding love always uncanny whether in California, or Africa, or the Moscow Hospital that Pat visited during the Vice-Presidential trip which produced the famous "kitchen debate." Russian children responded to Pat Nixon like kids everywhere, while Nikita Khrushchev learned the hard way that neither Richard Nixon nor America would be bullied by his crude tactics.

Both children and adults instinctively warmed to Pat. She radiated dignity, honesty, quiet strength, and wholesome charm-virtues all too rare in our public life. That may explain why Pat Nixon was-I believe-the only woman in history to have been among America's most admired women in three different decades.

But Pat Nixon knew trial as well as triumph.

Her childhood didn't last long. Growing up, she nursed two terminally ill parents and kept up the family's farm, just south of Los Angeles. She worked her way through college with jobs ranging from telephone operator to Hollywood movie extra before graduating cum laude from University of Southern California.

But that tough start fortified an already strong character and prepared her well for the demands of public life. Her devotion to others never wavered, her courage never faltered, no matter what the challenge. And in good times and bad, she used her strength to protect that which she prized above all else-her family.

It was obvious to all that she loved her family deeply. She nurtured Julie and Tricia with that love. And her love helped shield them from the darker pressures of public life. She was almost visibly protective of the husband whose courage and commitment she so admired. In her fine eyes, Pat's concern and love were plain to see-for him and for the daughters she cherished-when mean personal attacks were made against him.

But in that fragile body beat a great Irish fighting heart. She felt anger far more than fear when an ugly anti-American mob beset their Vice-Presidential motorcade in Venezuela.

For Pat Nixon, her family, her husband, children and grandchildren, were, in the words of the poet Theodore Roethke her "last pure stretch of joy."

But while that joy sprang from her family, she shared it with many others.

I have heard the story of one very special night at the White House. It was Duke Ellington's seventieth birthday and the Nixons were entertaining a virtual Who's Who of American jazz. The guests ranged from Cab Calloway to Earl Hines to Richard Rodgers.

After the evening's performers played tributes to Ellington, President Nixon asked for one more song from the evening's honoree-the grand old man of jazz.

President Nixon escorted him to the piano. The room was hushed as Duke Ellington sat there a moment in silence. Then he said he would improvise a melody. "I shall pick a name," he said, "gentle, graceful-something like Patricia."

Then, the Duke played a soft melody. As President Nixon recounted it, the melody was "lyrical, delicate and beautiful-just like Pat."

That lyrical and beautiful melody called Patricia lingers on today. The memory of Pat Nixon and all she meant to her family and her country is a legacy we shall always cherish.

SENATOR BOB DOLE OF KANSAS

When the doors of this beautiful library and museum were opened to the public three years ago, Mr. President, you told a story which bears repeating today.

You recalled a campaign stop you once made in Kansas. My predecessor, Senator Frank Carlson, told you with typical Kansas bluntness, "Dick, you're controversial, but everybody loves Pat."

The outpouring of affection and admiration from across America and around the world over the past few days has underscored the truth of those words. Everybody did love Pat.

They loved her for her grace. For her grit. For her heart. For her steadfastness to her family. They loved her because they knew she cared.

Washington, DC, is a town where the monuments are tall, and the egos even taller.

Every once in a while, however, there comes along a rare spirit like Pat, who dispels the cynicism and reminds us that compassion need not be legislated, it need only be felt-and then expressed: by hugging a child, comforting a victim of a natural disaster, or just personally answering a letter from one of the countless real people who turn to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue when all other avenues seem closed.

In an age saturated with the false values of celebrity, Pat Nixon was as genuine as those signatures she insisted on signing on her letters.

She would stand in a receiving line for hours, aware that for her guests, this might be their only White House evening. As a friend of hers told me this week, "Pat treated everyone like a head of state."

I'm reminded of the story in Julie's bibliography of her mother about a poster child who was brought to the White House to meet Mrs. Nixon.

The frightened and nervous young boy looked at Pat and declared that this couldn't be her house, because he didn't see a washing machine.

So-the story goes-Pat took him by the hand. They rode an elevator to the third floor, walked down the hallway into the laundry rooms, where Pat showed him her washing machine.

His parents were surprised. Their son had never before gone off with a stranger.

But then, Pat Nixon was never really a stranger to anyone. She made friends wherever she went-not only in America, but Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

Time and again she set new precedents in diplomacy, by disregarding protocol, going to where the people were, and reaching out to those overlooked by conventional official visitors.

Wherever Mrs. Nixon went, she never forgot where she came from. When she presided over the White House, she was still the same person who nursed both her parents through their final illnesses, and who scrubbed floors in a bank so that she might attend college.

As First Lady, Pat Nixon was a patron of American culture who never patronized her countrymen. She loved the White House, not for its power, but for its beauty and its history. So she restored it with hundreds of original furnishings. And she did it her way-quietly, professionally, with total involvement, and minimum publicity.

Mr. President, you are fond of Teddy Roosevelt, and especially fond of his reference to the political world as "the arena." Those of us privileged to serve in that arena know that we are not there alone. Our family is there. Our battles are their battles. Our victories, their victories. Our defeats, their defeats. Our dreams, their dreams.

There are times when the arena is not a pleasant place. And while Mrs. Nixon hated the cruelties of politics, she would never yield to a falsehood or a smear.

In 1952, when some sought to force you off the national ticket, Pat spoke the words you desperately needed to hear, telling you to "fight it through to the end."

Her strength and spirit were called upon again during the most difficult days of your Presidency, when she would encourage staff and friends by ending conversations with the words "onward and upward."

Half a century after you and the woman you lovingly called "Miss Vagabond" embarked on your life's journey, Mr. President, we can say with assurance and with pride that the world is a much better place because you were in the arena together.

Mr. President, of all the challenges you have faced, enduring the pain and loss of your life's partner must be the most difficult.

Our prayers and thoughts are with you, Julie, Tricia, and their families, as you continue onward and upward. . . . Always fighting it through to the end, just as Pat would have wanted it.

SERMON BY DR. BILLY GRAHAM

When we are confronted with the death of someone we love, we all pause for one moment in time to consider eternity.

Jesus speaks to our grieving hearts words of comfort, like any child longs to hear when his parents are leaving him. What does a child say when you go away? The child says, "Where are you going? Can I go with you? Who is going to stay with me?"

In the Upper Room, Jesus called His disciples "children" and in death's presence, we are all children. Death comes to us all and we need the hope of which Jesus speaks: "In my Father's house are many mansions."

In the hard days of the Depression, when kinfolks came to see you, you always wanted to say, "Come on, we have plenty of room. You are going to stay with us."

Well, that's what Jesus says to the Apostle John here in our text-and to us, when we sincerely turn to Him: "Since I know death is there, I know your hearts will be in pain. But remember, I will turn that pain to joy, for when you come to my house, we have plenty of room, and I want you to stay with us. In my Father's house there is much room, if it were not so I would have told you."

The Scripture teaches that there is a time to be born and a time to live and a time to die. Solomon said long ago that the day of man's death is greater than the day of his birth (Ecclesiastes 7:1). If this is true, this past Tuesday, June 22, Pat Nixon spent her greatest day!

The passing of Pat Nixon occasions not only sorrow at her loss, and sympathy for her family and friends, but it draws attention to all the great values of life which she demonstrated.

Some years ago, Mike Wallace of CBS told me that of all the people he had met, he admired Pat Nixon the most.

I read that once, when they returned to the White House from Asia, President Eisenhower praised them publicly: "Dick, I've heard some pretty good reports on you." Then he turned to the "Second Lady," and smiled his widest grin: "But the reports on you, Pat, have been wonderful!"

Time Magazine once profiled her in a cover story and stated that her "stamina and courage, her drive and control have made her into one of the U.S.'s most remarkable women-not just a showpiece. . ., not merely a part of the best-known team in contemporary politics, but a public figure in her own right."

To quote one Senator, "Everybody likes Pat."

In your memoirs, Mr. President, I liked what you said when you told us that the Secret Service's code name for her was "Starlight" and that she fitted it to a "T" during the White House years.

I was also personally impressed by her resourcefulness. I remember some years ago, Ruth and I were guests of the Nixons at their apartment on Fifth Avenue, and we were invited by Jack Parr to go out to their home and watch the opening show of his new series. So we all piled into the car and went to the Parr's home and had a wonderful evening. The car brought us back to the Nixon's building and we went up to their apartment. Ruth and I were staying at a nearby hotel, so President and Mrs. Nixon put us on the elevator and for some strange reason that I have never learned, the elevator got stuck halfway between two floors. Ruth and I punched all the buttons, hollered, kicked the sides of the elevator, pounded and yelled for help, and after about twenty minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Nixon showed up in their bath robes and immediately took over. And Pat was the one who seemed to know exactly what to do. Finally we got the elevator down, only to find that the door to the apartment house was also locked and the night watchman was off duty. And again, Pat helped us to get out! We realized then that she not only knew how to handle herself in a crisis, but must have had experience in mechanics, as well as hard work! She was an amazing woman!

One is reminded of the words of King Solomon, "The memory of the just is blessed." (Proverbs 10:7)

Few women in public life have suffered as she has suffered, and done it with such grace. In all the years I knew her, I never heard her say anything unkind about anyone.

As we talked about Pat, my wife Ruth reminded me of a little poem by George Goodman which she has written in the back of her Bible:

He led me by a way of pain
A barren and a starless place;
I did not know His eyes were wet
He would not let me see his face.

He left me like a frightened child
Unshielded in a night of storm,
How should I dream He was so near?
The rain-swept darkness hid His form.

But when the clouds were drifting back
And dawn was breaking into day
I knew whose feet had walked with mine,
I saw His footprints all the way.

Pat Nixon also loved her husband and family. I remember when she and I flew to Liberia on Air Force Two at the President's request to represent him and the United States at the inauguration of the president of West Africa. During the long flight, Pat got to waxing eloquent on her love for Dick, and what a great man he was. As if it was yesterday, I can still clearly hear her saying, "He's my man!"

The Nixon longtime friend and housekeeper, Heidi Retter, who is with us today, told the family a few hours after Pat's death that in her native country she was told not to express emotions. She told Pat's family, "It was Mrs. Nixon who taught me to say, `I love you.'"

And to you, Mr. President, and the family today I say, "May God's grace be sufficient for you at this turning point in your lives."

There is a democracy about death. John Donne said, "It comes equally to us all and makes us all equal when it comes."

The Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die" (Hebrews 9:27).

For the Christian believer who has been to the Cross, death is no frightful leap in the dark, but is the entrance into a glorious new life. The Apostle Paul said, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

For the believer the brutal fact of death has been conquered by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the person who has turned from sin and has received Christ as Lord and Savior, death is not the end. For the believer there is "hope" beyond the grave. There is a future life! The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ not only died on the cross for our sins but that He rose again and that there will be a day of resurrection. After the resurrection of Christ, the apostles never used the word "death" to express the close of the believer's life, but always referred to it in the image-frame of "being home with the Lord." I do not believe that God would have placed "eternity" in our hearts unless there was a future life.

The Bible speaks of death in several ways:

1. It is a coronation
The picture here is that of a great prince who, after his struggles and conquest in an alien land, comes to his native country to be crowned and honored for his deeds. We are as pilgrims and strangers in a foreign land. This world is not our home. Our citizenship is in Heaven.

2. Death is a cessation from labor
The Scripture says, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. . ., that they may rest from their labors" (Revelation 14:13).
The Lord of the harvest says to the weary laborers, "You have been faithful in your task. Come and sit in the sheltered porch of my palace and rest from your labors. Enter now into the joy of your Lord."

3. Death is spoken of as a departure
The Apostle Paul said, "The time of my departure is at hand" (2 Timothy 4:6).
Many times Pat would kiss Dick as he said goodbye to his family to go on another trip, or to attend another important meeting. Separation always meant, probably, a tinge of sadness, but there was always high hope that they would meet again. It is no different now.

4. Death is a transition
Here we are as pilgrims, living in a frail, flimsy house, subject to disease, pain and peril. But at death, we exchange this crumbling, disintegrating tent for a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

5. Death is an exodus
We speak of "decease" as though it were the end of everything, but the word decease literally means "exodus" or "going out." The imagery is that of the Children of Israel thousands of years ago leaving Egypt and its bondage, slavery and hardships. So death to the Christian is an exodus from the limitations, the perils and the bondage of this life.

Pat Nixon's time to die came on Tuesday.

As someone has written:

Think of stepping on shore
-and finding it Heaven;
Of taking hold of
-and finding it God's hand;
Of breathing a new air
-and finding it celestial air;
Of feeling invigorated
-and finding it immortality
Of passing from storm and tempest
to an unknown calm;
Of waking up
-and finding it home.

To you, Mr. President, Tricia and Ed, Julie and David, and to you grandchildren, Chris, Jennie, Alex and Melanie, and other members of the family, may the God of all comforts sustain you now and in the days to come.

Tricia, you were quoted in London's Daily Mail in England as saying, "My mother's faith in God sustained her during the last difficult years of her life."

Julie, in your wonderful book about your mother entitled, Pat Nixon: the Untold Story, you wrote, "My mother had a phrase that she used countless times to end conversations with her White House staff members throughout my father's Presidency: `Onward and upward.'"

So today, we say to you all, on behalf of Pat: Onward and upward!

PRESIDENT NIXON'S TRIBUTE TO PAT

Given to family members and friends after her service at the Nixon Library

Let me tell you about the real Pat-the Pat I knew and loved for over half a century.

She was beautiful and intelligent and wise.

She loved her family. She loved people. Not just the American people, but the thousands of people she met in our travels to Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe over the past forty years.

She loved a good time. She knew how to make us laugh. She always brought sunshine into a room.

Above all, she was strong. Just before going on T.V. for the fund broadcast in 1952, I turned to her and said, "I don't think I can do this one." She grasped my hand firmly and said, "Yes you can," and I did.

In 1974, when I went into shock after an almost fatal operation, the first person I saw when I finally opened my eyes was Pat. She had been sitting by the bed for hours. I was profoundly depressed. I said, "I don't think I'm going to make it." As she had twenty-two years before, she took my hand and said, "yes you can," and I did.

Had it not been for Pat, I would not have made it politically or physically.

She never gave up. After her stroke in 1976, her left arm was paralyzed. Some said she would never recover its use. They did not know her. I can see her now, on the patio of Casa Pacifica in the early morning hours, turning an exercise wheel again and again and again. She completely recovered. If you had seen her in later years, you would never have known she had suffered a stroke. She healed herself. No one did it for her.

In the final, and at times excruciatingly painful, last two months of her life, she never gave up. She refused to use a wheelchair. She kept saying over and over again, "I don't want to be a burden. I have to try to walk. I must try to get well."

She always thought of others, not herself. One of her closest friends was stunned when she got the news on Tuesday. She said that she had talked to Pat on the phone on the Friday before the end, and that Pat was upbeat and cheerful, that they had had some good laughs together. Instead of talking about herself she kept asking her friend about how she felt.

Tricia and Julie are splendid examples that despite her having a public schedule, she was a fine mother. She was a remarkable grandmother. When Jennie, who will be fifteen in August, was old enough to talk, she asked Pat what she should call her. Pat thought "grandmother" sounded too old and formal.

She said, "call me Ma." When Jennie asked me, I said, "anything would be okay." After all, I have been called everything! She called me "Ba" and so it was that Jennie, Christopher, Alex and Melanie called us "Ma and Ba." We were their close friends, not distant grandparents.

How would Pat like to be remembered? Seventy-five years ago in that little house here in which I was born in 1913, I used to hear the train whistle in the night and dream of places far away I hoped to visit someday.

I have always been fascinated by trains. 1952 was my favorite campaign. It was the last whistle-stop campaign. As the train pulled into the station, Jack Drown would put a recording of the campaign song on the public address system. Some of you may remember the lyrics-"I like the sunshine of your smile."

I hope you will remember this day-the spectacular beauty of the flowers, the superb music, the eloquence of the eulogies.

But above all, when you think of Pat, I hope you will always remember-the sunshine of her smile.

She would like that.

STATEMENT BY
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON

The White House
Washington, DC, June 22, 1993

The Nation is deeply saddened today by the loss of former First Lady Pat Nixon. Patricia Ryan Nixon was a quiet pioneer whose concern for family and country will leave a lasting mark on history. Mrs. Nixon personified a deep reverence for the cherished American traditions of community service, volunteerism, and personal responsibility to one another.

As First Lady, she was indeed a lady of "firsts." She was the first First Lady to represent the President of the United States on an official overseas visit. She was the first incumbent First Lady to publicly support the Equal Rights amendment. And she was an early advocate of promoting a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.

While always dignified and gracious, Mrs. Nixon was also a passionate believer in volunteer service and the importance of Americans helping one another. The appearance of the White House today and its accessibility to visitors at special times each year owe themselves in large degree to her generous and creative efforts. During her first Thanksgiving as First Lady she invited 225 senior citizens from area nursing homes to the White House for a special meal. She invited hundreds of families to nondenominational Sunday services in the East Room. And she offered the White House as a meeting place for volunteer organizations dedicated to solving community problems.

Mrs. Nixon, a mother of two, was also a loyal and steadfast believer in family. She traveled extensively with her husband across the Nation and abroad and was widely praised for her diplomatic gestures overseas. As she said in 1971, "We've always been a team." We are heartened that former President Nixon and Mrs. Nixon were able to celebrate their fifty-third wedding anniversary yesterday. Our thoughts are with Mrs. Nixon's family today as we remember her many accomplishments and contributions to the Nation.