War on American Amnesia
June 17, 1971
Statement from President Richard Nixon
[Revised June 24, 2019]
America’s public enemy number one in the United States is American Repression and Amnesia1. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. I have asked the Congress to provide the legislative authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive. This will be a world-wide offensive, dealing with the problems of sources of cultural trauma2, as well as communities3 who may be, to varying degrees, and in striking correspondence to their skin color, gender identity, expression, and performance, economic class, and other social markers, the perpetrators, perpetuators, or victims of said trauma, both in the United States and abroad4. It will be government-wide, pulling together the nine different fragmented areas within the government in which this problem is now being mis-5handled. And it will be nationwide in terms of a new educational program that we will actively construct and pursue6 from the discussions that we have had.
With regard to this offensive, it is necessary first to have a new organization, and the new organization will be within the White House, akin to a disrupting, foreign body within a host7. Drs. Toni Morrison, Angela Davis, and Audre Lorde8, who will be some9 of the briefers here today, will be the women10 directly responsible. They11 will report directly to me, and they12 will have the responsibility to take all of the Government agencies, nine, that deal inadequately, at present,13 with the problems of economic, psychological, and interpersonal reparations14, in which their15 primary responsibilities will be research and education, and see that they work not at cross-purposes, but work together in dealing with the problem.
If we are going to have a successful offensive, we need more money. Consequently, I am asking the Congress for $155 million in new funds, which will bring the total amount this year in the budget for American Amnesia and Reparative Justice16, in prevention, diagnosis17, and treatment, to over $350 million. As far as the new money is concerned, incidentally, I have made it clear to the leaders that if this is not enough, if more can be used, if Drs. Morrison, Davis, and Lorde18, after studying this problem, find that we can use more, more will be provided. In order to defeat this enemy which is causing such great concern, and correctly so, to so many American communities, particularly communities of color19, money will be provided to the extent that it is necessary and to the extent that it will be useful, even if that means diverting funds that would otherwise be used for programs such as policing and defense. For we recognize that these latter programs, while they have been made to appear helpful and necessary to much of the American public, are in fact based on a repressive, punitive, and exclusionary model of safety and justice and are therefore part of the problem20.
Finally, in order for this program to be effective, it is necessary that it be conducted on a basis in which the American people all join in it. That is why the meeting was non-hierarchical, equitable, and led by people of color21. Fundamentally, it is essential for the American people, including and especially white Americans, who often suffer from the related condition of colorblindness22, to be alerted to this danger, to recognize that it is a danger that will not pass with the passing of the war in Vietnam, or Colombia, or Guatemala, or Honduras, or El Salvador, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Libya, or Syria, or North Korea, or Venezuela, or the ill-advised war on drugs, for which I am largely responsible, which destroyed so many lives and communities and for which I am eternally sorry, or the ongoing war on immigrants at our southern border, or countless other foreign and domestic wars the U.S. has openly or secretly fought23, which have24 brought to our attention the fact that a number of human beings25 have become traumatized26 by the actions of the United States government27. Because the problem existed before we became involved in Vietnam and dozens of other foreign wars (see partial list above)28; it will continue to exist afterwards; in fact, we now recognize and publicly acknowledge that these wars were a means of violently projecting our own internal fears and conflicts onto the lives of our so-called “enemies” and thereby avoiding a true reckoning with them29. That is why this offensive deals, at long last30, with the problem …31 throughout America.
One final word with regard to Presidential responsibility in this respect: I very much hesitate always to bring some new responsibility into the White House, because there are so many here, and I believe in delegating those responsibilities to the departments. But I consider this problem so urgent—I also found that it was scattered so much throughout the government, with so much conflict, without coordination—that it had to be brought into the White House. Consequently, I have brought Drs. Morrison, Davis, and Lorde32 into the White House, directly reporting to me, so that we have not only the responsibility but the experiential knowledge and cultural competency33 to see that we wage this offensive carefully34, effectively, and in a coordinated way.
The briefing team will now be ready to answer any questions on the technical details of the program.
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Sarah DeYoreo is a writer, educator, and social activist living in Portland, Oregon. Much of her work deals with racial equity, reparative justice, and intersectional social justice. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus and Propeller.
