Video: 'Vietnam: A Television History - Homefront USA [10/11]' (May 1, 1970, at 46:06)

(Friday, May 1, 1970, 8:41-10:25 a.m. EDT; during the Cambodian Campaign, part of the Vietnam War, Cambodian Civil War, Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — U.S. President Richard Nixon today referred to some campus radicals who violently oppose his Vietnam policies as “bums” and, in contrast, he said American soldiers were “the greatest.”

The President’s remarks on violence at universities and the war were made to a group of civilian employees who greeted him at the Pentagon, where he went for a briefing on the new U.S. military operations in Cambodia.

Nixon was cheered by public response to his television speech on Cambodia delivered the previous night. Ronald L. Ziegler, White House press secretary, said telephone calls and telegrams received since Nixon spoke were “positive” in a ratio of six to one.

Video: 'Vietnam: A Television History - Peace is at Hand [9/11]' (May 1, 1970, at 16:14)

One such favorable comment came from a young woman in a group of Pentagon employes who told the President: “I loved your speech. It made me proud to be an American.”

Smiling and obviously pleased, Nixon stopped and told how he had been thinking, as he wrote his speech, about “those kids out there.”

“I have seen them. They are the greatest,” he said. Then he contrasted them with anti-war activists on university campuses. According to a White House text of his remarks, he said:

Video: 'Our World Spring 1970 Part 1' ('bums' remark at 8:13)

“You see these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses. Listen, the boys that are on the college campuses today are the luckiest people in the world, going to the greatest universities, and here they are burning up the books, storming around about this issue. You name it. Get rid of the war there will be another one.”

“Then out there we have kids who are just doing their duty. They stand tall and they are proud. I am sure they are scared. I was when I was there. But when it really comes down to it, they stand up and, boy, you have to talk up to those men. They are going to do fine and we have to stand in back of them.”

The President’s use of the term “bums” to refer to student radicals was the strongest language he has used publicly on the subject of campus violence, although he has been known to employ such terms in private.