Video: 'President Richard Nixon: Appears on Soviet Television - May 28, 1972'
(Sunday, May 28, 1972, 8:30 p.m. Moscow Standard Time; during the Moscow Summit (1972), part of the Cold War) — U.S. President Richard Nixon told the Soviet people in a televised speech today that the memory of the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union “can serve as inspiration for renewal of cooperation in the 1970s.
“As great powers, we shall sometimes be competitors, but we need never be enemies,” Nixon said, speaking from the Green Room of the Great Kremlin Palace, just across a courtyard from the palatial quarters where he has been living during his Moscow stay.
Video: 'President Nixon addresses the Soviet People live from the Kremlin'
His 20-minute address, telecast live from the Kremlin and transmitted by satellite to the United States, gave the citizens of this vast nation their first good look at the President, who has been carefully shielded from contact with the public during his visit.
It was the first time that a United States President had addressed the Soviet people over television from Moscow.
Video: 'YouTube Watergate Part 5 of 30' (Nixon addresses the Soviet Union on May 28, 1972 at 4:34)
Audience rating surveys are not practiced in the Soviet Union, but the national television network is theoretically capable of reaching 140 million of the population of 247 million.
Nixon opened and closed his speech with Russian phrases, made a few folksy remarks, and used proverbs and aphorisms, always dear to every Russian’s heart.
Video: 'Television & the Presidency Part 8' (Nixon addresses the Soviet Union on May 28, 1972 at 4:39)
Following Soviet television practice, the President’s reading of his text was accompanied by a simultaneous translation, with the Russian superimposed on the tuned-down, but still audible English voice.
The initial reaction of a few Soviet listeners who were questioned after the broadcast was favorable, but some appeared puzzled that the President had not used the opportunity to explain his policy in Vietnam. The war in Vietnam was not explicitly mentioned in the speech.
