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1977 State of the Union Address

speech by US president Gerald Ford

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ19045504 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1977 State of the Union address was given by President Gerald R. Ford to a joint session of the 95th United States Congress on Wednesday, January 12, 1977. Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker, Tip O'Neill, accompanied by Nelson Rockefeller, the vice president, in his capacity as the president of the Senate.

The speech lasted 44 minutes and 55 seconds and contained 4,727 words. In the speech, President Ford discussed the Vietnam War, national defense, and fiscal policy issues.

The President advocated for peace through strength by saying:America's first goal is and always will be peace with honor. America must remain first in keeping peace in the world. We can remain first in peace only if we are never second in defense.

See also

1976 United States presidential election

References

External links

(full transcript), The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1977 State of the Union Address” as speech by US president Gerald Ford. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1977, 1976—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where State, Union and Address can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as speech by US president Gerald Ford. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19045504. Authority coordinates are 38.890, -77.009. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977 and 1976.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1977 State of the Union Address”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1977 State of the Union Address primary sources, 1977 State of the Union Address archive and State research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1977 State of the Union Address” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.