One of the things humanity is great at is constantly teetering at the brink of disaster. And when we narrowly avoid catastrophe, there's no real way of knowing what life would've been like if we hadn't.
But there's at least one creepy exception to this rule: speeches that leaders and their aides prepared in case the worst-case scenario became a reality. In these artifacts from a scarier version of history, presidents and monarchs reach out to their people to offer comfort and strength in the face of really, really bad news.
Here are the undelivered doomsday speeches that we should all be very glad stayed in the drafts folder.
1."In Event of Moon Disaster"
Naturally, being the first people to land on the moon was a perilous endeavor, and President Richard Nixon's administration was prepared for the worst. The "worst" in this case was Armstrong and Aldrin being stranded on the lunar surface, unable to reach the space capsule that could bring them home. If such a catastrophe had struck, there would've been no possibility of rescue, and they would've died "either by slow asphyxiation or perhaps by suicide."
White House speechwriter William Safire was told to prepare remarks for Nixon to deliver in case such a disaster ensued. The "Safire Memo" was a little over a page long and included instructions that Nixon ought to "telephone each of the widows-to-be" before addressing the public.
The instructions specified that after Nixon called the astronauts' wives and delivered the speech, NASA would end communication with the doomed men. Safire wrote that at that point, "A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to 'the deepest of the deep,' concluding with the Lord's Prayer."
"In Event of Moon Disaster" begins, "Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace." It eulogizes Armstrong and Aldrin as heroes who "stirred the people of the world to feel as one." It also promises that their loss, while tragic, will not mark the end of humanity's efforts to explore space.
Luckily for the astronauts (and the endeavor of space travel as a whole), Nixon never had cause to deliver Safire's devastating, poetic ode to a lost mission.
This speech was written in 1983 as a part of a "war-gaming exercise" through which the government of the United Kingdom could prepare for nuclear war. It's unlikely the Queen ever saw the speech, though it was written for her.
The draft references the "strength and struggles of the first two World Wars," and has the Queen reflect on listening to her father, King George VI, take on the "solemn and awful duty" of speaking to a nation newly at war (in that case, World War II).
The speech was written for a scenario in which the Soviet Union attacked Great Britain with chemical weapons, prompting a nuclear retaliation from the country and its allies.
The practice speech was declassified in 2013 — 30 years after it was written.
3.General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Remarks on the Failure of D-Day
Eisenhower was understandably nervous about such a high-stakes mission, and in the face of terrible weather, he told his generals, "I don't like it, but we have to go." After meeting with troops, he told his driver Kay Summersby, "I hope to God I'm right."
But just in case he wasn't, the night before the invasion, Eisenhower prepared a short speech that he would give to take total responsibility for its failure. He edited the remarks to make it clear that any fault lay solely with him; Eisenhower even underlined the words "mine alone" in the sentence "If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
He put the speech in his wallet and never had cause to take it out again.
4.John F. Kennedy Announces War Against the Soviet Union
Kennedy's administration drafted an address for the president in case he had to announce to the US that the Cuban Missile Conflict had escalated to the point of war.
Kennedy's usual speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, allegedly turned down the job. According to what Thomas Putman, the president of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sorensen "couldn't even come up with words that would perhaps support an invasion that would lead to a nuclear exchange."
Putman believes that National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy wrote the speech in Sorensen's place.
The speech was released in an archive that included "nearly 3,000 pages of notes, transcripts, and other documents kept by Robert Kennedy."
Also included in the archive were notes Robert Kennedy made about the possibility of nuclear war. Graham Allison, the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that he believed that when RFK wrote down the numbers "42 million" and "90 million," he was referring to the estimated death toll for a scenario in which the US attacked the Soviet Union first, versus one where the Soviet Union launched the initial attack.
Allison said, "Who in the world could imagine trying to make a choice about something that has such momentous consequences?"
5.President Richard Nixon Tells The Nation He Won't Resign
But resigning wasn't Plan A. Literally: His speechwriter Raymond Price labelled the resignation speech as "Option B." But Nixon never saw the speech Price wrote for him in case he wanted to continue to fight for his presidency.
It became clear to Nixon that he couldn't remain in office after he released a written statement revealing the "smoking gun" tape, on which he is heard "urging aides to use the CIA to halt the FBI investigation into the June 17, 1972, break-in at Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate."
This indisputable evidence of corruption outraged the nation, and Nixon soon "saw that his presidency was doomed and gave up the fight."
When Gerald Ford first addressed the nation as president, he said, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." While Nixon refusing to resign wouldn't have been on the level of outright nuclear war, suffice to say that it wouldn't have brought about a swift end to that "national nightmare."
Ford ultimately pardoned Nixon for "any crimes he had committed while in office."
6.And finally: CNN's Doomsday Video
OK, so this one isn't a speech, but it's just too creepy not to include. Here's the story: In 2009, writer Michael Ballaban was an intern at CNN. While working there, he uncovered something labeled the "Turner Doomsday Video."
Ted Turner, who founded CNN in 1980, once reportedly said, "We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event...when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God to Thee' before we sign off."
"Nearer My God to Thee" is a hymn that you may recognize as the song that the band in Titanic plays as the ship sinks. (Apparently, it was the real band's final song too.)
When Ballaban found the video, it was marked, "HFR [Hold For Release] till end of the world confirmed."
So that's what you'll see if you learn that the end is nigh (for real this time) and decide to turn on CNN one last time: a low-quality video of "the combined Armed Forces marching band" playing Turner's hymn of choice.
