The inauguration fell during a time of war and national turmoil. Soldiers were dying in a shadowy conflict half a world away. The televised images were horrific.
The election had been bitter, nasty and close. Protesters clamored that American soldiers, some of them accused of atrocities, should come home.
So when the president delivered his inaugural speech, he set out a theme of peace, harmony and vision. He chose warm, healing words, often drawn from biblical images, and used them to soothe the nation's troubled heart.
"The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker," he intoned. "This honor now beckons America -- the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil. . . . We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. . . . to a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit."
Thus spoke Richard Milhous Nixon in 1969.
The Vietnam War and domestic troubles would continue for years, until the last Americans out of Saigon and the president himself disappeared into history via helicopter.
Thirty-five years later, President Bush and his administration tomorrow will announce the theme for the wartime inaugural events of this generation. Spokesman Steve Schmidt said in an interview last week that Bush would not have a "dance in the end zone" type of celebration -- the inauguration would strike a dignified tone between celebrating a hard-won political victory, the continuation of the nation's democratic process and honoring the men and women serving in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The inaugural theme rollout will strike an important note in the social life of Washington and provide momentary symbolism to the world, but as the eloquent Nixon speech demonstrates, history has a habit of defining the president rather than the other way around.
Still, an inauguration during a time of war, and before a deeply divided electorate, affords Bush a landmark opportunity to wrangle images and themes in his favor for a few precious days, presidential historians say, and hope that they echo into the coming years.
"On the short list of great American rhetoric, inauguration speeches take up a fair amount of space," says Fred Greenstein, professor emeritus of political science at Princeton and author of "The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to George W. Bush."
"Think Roosevelt's 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Think Kennedy's 'Ask not what your country can do for you.' It's a president's chance to address history, to rise above the fray."
Sheila Tate, former press secretary to both Nancy Reagan and the elder George Bush, has been eyewitness to some of that history. In the end, she says, it's all about The Speech.
"I can't for the life of me remember the theme of any inauguration," she says with a laugh. "What gets remembered is the speech. It's usually noted for its brevity, for two or three memorable lines -- but if it's delivered outside, believe me, for the participants, it's remembered for the brevity."
Inaugurations during a war are rare in American history -- only a handful of the 55 presidential inaugurations have been in times of open conflict -- and some of those rank as some of the most memorable.
The gold standard is Lincoln's second inaugural address of 1865, in which he invoked the full moral weight of the battle against slavery in the Civil War. It is famous for Lincoln's soaring conclusion: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds. . . ."
It was a transcendent moment in American history, but the practical reality that March afternoon was that weeks of rain had turned Pennsylvania Avenue into a sea of mud and standing water. It was not a glorious venue.
Second, historians generally agree, is Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth inaugural address, in 1945. The nation was exhausted by World War II, and Roosevelt's health was failing. The inaugural parade was canceled, and the oath of office was delivered not on the steps of the Capitol but on the South Portico of the White House.
FDR, less than three months before his death, told the nation that it was passing through "a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage -- of our resolve -- of our wisdom -- our essential democracy. If we meet that test -- successfully and honorably -- we shall perform a service of historic importance which men and women and children will honor throughout all time."
It was the rare magic touch, of defining history and making the terms stick. Half a century later, the monument to FDR stretches around the Tidal Basin. The men and women who listened to him over the radio are popularly referred to as "the greatest generation." The vast monument to the soldiers of that war was erected last year on the eastern edge of the Reflecting Pool. The west end of the pool ends at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
That said, if the war doesn't go well, no one remembers the inauguration in heroic terms, no matter how lofty the imagery of the president-elect.
The United States was at war with England when James Madison took the oath of office for the second time in 1813. The theme of his inauguration was the nobility of the American people vs. the brutality of the British, and he called on the population to fight with dignity.
The next year, an invading British garrison burned the Capitol and executive mansion. Washington was thrown into a wild panic.
Nearly 200 years later, the Mall awaits a Madison Memorial.
Historians say President Bush is facing a difficult proposition this time around, for some very particular reasons concerning Iraq, but mostly for the age-old questions of not knowing how history will unfold.
The war in Iraq is not the Civil War or World War II or even Vietnam (American losses in Iraq are, at the moment, less than one-fortieth those of Vietnam War). And while it is a conflict that Bush sees as essential to his place in history -- the battle against international terrorism -- that war did not begin in Baghdad and will not end there.
Further, the Bush administration is dealing with an uncontrollable wild card -- the elections in Iraq are set for Jan. 30, just 10 days after Bush takes the oath of office. With violence so far marking the run-up to that election, some presidential historians think he would do well to avoid specific mentions of Iraq, lest they come back to haunt him in the corridors of history.
"They'll have to walk the Iraq line very carefully, and the way to do that is to pull a Ronald Reagan," says Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at the University of New Orleans and author of the upcoming book "The Boys of Pointe Du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day and the Heroic Feats of the U.S. Army Rangers."
"You don't talk specifics, you talk great themes. Reagan had his 'New Patriotism,' and I think Bush will want something like the 'New New Patriotism.' Some great phrase or slogan, something like 'Freedom knows no surrender,' that they'll carve in granite when they get around to building the George W. Bush presidential library."
Allan J. Lichtman, professor of history at American University and author of "The Keys to the White House," says Bush has always talked in grand themes and is highly unlikely to talk specifics of the ongoing war.
"He's going to talk about his broad mission to keep the nation safe, to battle our enemies, and promote democracy around the world. It's going to be this nation's mission in the world."
Further, Bush faces a challenge in that second inaugurations are by nature less giddy affairs. When Lincoln stood to give that landmark second inaugural address during the Civil War, even he began by saying: "At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first."
But what he went on to say, particularly considering it came during the nation's bloodiest war, is striking for its humility. Though the end of the war was at hand, he did not boast or even promise victory.
He allowed that the war even might be God's punishment for slavery. If it continued "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be repaid by another drawn with the sword," then so it must be.
He said that soldiers on both sides read the same Bible, prayed to the same God, and each invoked His aid against the other. "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged," he said. "The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."
What faith! What dignity! What honesty!
Lincoln was assassinated a month later in Ford's Theatre, less than a mile away from where he gave his inaugural address.
His own purposes, indeed.
