Edmund Muskie said, “The Attica tragedy is more stark proof that something is terribly wrong with America. We have reached the point where men would rather die than live another day in America.” Which was pretty nihilistic for a presidential front-runner. But it matched the nihilistic national mood—such as Richard Nixon, reflecting that summer in a speech to media executives upon the columns of the National Archives Building on July 6: “Sometimes when I see those columns, I think of seeing them in Greece and Rome. And I think of what happened to Greece and Rome, and you see only what is left of great civilizations of the past—as they have become wealthy, as they lost their will to live, to improve, they became subject to the decadence that destroys the civilization. The United States is reaching that period.”