In several minutes, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

I am surely not alone in reflecting that fortune has brought us a strange boon, in that the two subjects of Bioflight 2— brave monkeys Able and Baker— recovered in their Jupiter space capsule early this week, have returned from their strange journey much improved.

Many have noted the great upsurge in Jupiter rocket launches— 7 in the past 72 hours— with no official explanation released to the public. I offer you an explanation now:

These rockets, at the behest of Space Monkey Able, have been carrying similar simian payloads, so that they too might absorb the wisdom of the cosmos. Already, the earliest of these groups has returned, so that we may, as a world culture, reap the benefits of their massively expanded intellects.

Though small in stature, Space Monkey Able and his ilk have returned from the stars possessed of great powers which we must, as a nation of reasonable and God-faring men, both fear and respect. Demonstrations by Able this afternoon have confirmed that, should we choose to effect an armed resistance to her ascendance, we will be utterly destroyed. I am certain that we all understand the gravity of this threat, and that our prayers are with the families and friends of the brave, fallen residents of Pasadena, Tacoma, Santa Fe, and all the red-haired men above the age of 37 In the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. We likewise pray for these fallen men and women, for the deliverance of their souls, or their reversion to a human or near-human form, whichever may be more merciful.

Like every other citizen, I wish our natural superiors and new masters, and all who will labor under them, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

We must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, with our monkey overlords, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals, but only in the case that they are equals who come to the conference table. Unfortunately, we who approach that table, scarred by many past frustrations, are emphatically not equals. We cannot afford to abandon this conference table for the certain agony and defeat of the battlefield. Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is the imperative.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose and subservience to the monkey-will that guides these noble creatures. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war— as one who knows that a war with these, our monkey superiors, could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years— I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided, for the time being, dependant upon our continuing co-operation and faithful service.

So— in this my last good night to you as your President— I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know I will find ways to improve performance in the future, as I continue in my residence here, managing the household affairs of Our Once and Future Ruler, Space Monkey Able.

You and I— my fellow citizens— need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice under the guiding hands of these supermonkeys. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle and monkey hegemony, confident but humble with the limited powers they deem to grant us, and diligent in pursuit of the Nation's new great goals of planetary dominance and interstellar enslavement of all sentient races.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied by quietly submitting to Monkey Rule, for the good of all mankind. I have been assured that, this being the case, the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect, love and the force of our ruler's vast military, technological and psychic superiority.

I now turn the podium over to Space Monkey Able, henceforth to be referred to as the Venerable Agrippa the Great and Potent.

Thank you and goodnight, America. May God speed us to our fate.

Agrippa, you have the floor.