Richard Nixon's White House had a speech prepared in case Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became stranded on the lunar surface, and the speech written by William Safire begins "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will st

Richard Nixon's White House had a speech prepared in case Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became stranded on the lunar surface, and the speech written by William Safire begins "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will st

Two days before Apollo 11’s lunar landing on 20 July 1969, William Safire, a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, sent a short memo to the President’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman. It was dated 18 July 1969. It was titled “IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER”. The document set out what Richard Nixon would say to the country if Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were stranded on the lunar surface. It also set out what was to happen before and after the addr…