Richard Milhous Nixon, the thirty-seventh President of the United States, was not the first U.S. President of questionable moral character, but thanks to his resignation on the eve of his almost certain impeachment, he has indeed become the most legendary. Cartoonists often portrayed "Tricky Dick" as a short, squat man with bushy eyebrows, beady black eyes, memorable jowls, and a long nose with flaring nostrils. A masterful politician with a keen eye for opportunity, Richard Nixon achieved his first political successes during the Red Scare of the early 1950's. As chair of a House subcommittee on Un-American Activities, Nixon gained national prominence when he led an investigation into the affairs of Alger Hiss, a former State Department Official. Richard Nixon served for eight year as Vice President during the Eisenhower administration before running for President himself in 1960. His poor television presence in the pre-election debates caused him to lose to Senator John F. Kennedy by one of the thinnest margins in election history. Two years after his presidential defeat, Nixon ran for Governor of his home state of California and was defeated. Though a man of ruthless political tactics, Richard Nixon was deeply sensitive and entertained a strong persecution complex. After his gubernatorial defeat he retired from politics, telling reporters bluntly "You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore." Surprisingly Nixon came back six years later to secure the Republican nomination for President as the anti-Vietnam War candidate. His victory over Vice President Hubert Humphrey was by a margin almost as slim as his 1960 defeat. As President, Nixon proved himself a master of foreign relations. His most notable accomplishment was the establishment of U.S. trade relations with communist China. President Nixon was also responsible for an important treaty with the Soviet Union limiting the production of nuclear weapons. As promised in his campaign, President Nixon pursued a slow, but sure removal of American forces from South Vietnam. Domestically, President Nixon's bold measure of instituting federal controls to freeze market prices and employee wages enabled him to institute measures to build up the economy without fear of inflation. His landslide victory over the Democratic candidate, George McGovern, in 1972 was a testament to the notable success of his first term. President Nixon's second term however, was notable for entirely different reasons. His removal of price controls shortly after the election, combined with an ill-timed Arab oil embargo, caused prices to skyrocket and the economy to suffer. To protect the federal budget, Nixon placed strict limits on government expediters which forced the administration to cut a number of social welfare and educational aid programs. President Nixon went on to impound federal funds already ear-marked for programs he disapproved of by refusing to authorize the spending of these funds. Not long after the 1972 election Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was found guilty of accepting bribes while governor of Maryland. Soon after Vice President Agnew's resignation, an IRS investigation revealed that President Nixon owed half a million dollars in back income taxes. It was in weathering the fall out of the IRS scandal that Nixon uttered the words "I am not a crook." Before the IRS scandal could completely subside, a minor break in at the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. that had taken place prior to the 1972 election began to snowball into a massive cover-up scandal implicating top White House officials and even the President himself. On August 9, 1974, President Nixon, who faced almost certain impeachment on charges of obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress, became the first President in the history of the United States to resign from office.
Richard Milhous Nixon was born January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California. He was the second child of five born to Hannah and Francis Nixon, who owned and operated a lemon farm in Yorba Linda. When Richard was nine, his family moved to Whittier, California where his father purchased a combination gas station and general store. Richard Nixon received his education from public schools in Whittier. In 1930 Nixon enrolled at Whittier College where he became president of the student body, played football, and joined the debate team. In 1934 he graduated second in his class with a degree in history. His exceptional grades won him a scholarship to Duke University Law School in Durham, North Carolina. In 1937 Richard Nixon graduated third in his class at Duke and then passed the California bar. He quickly secured a job at the firm of Wingert and Bewley in Whittier, and in very little time became a full partner.
See Richard And Pat Nixon: Despite Pat's reluctance to be observed by the public eye, she was both independent and supportive during Nixon's Presidency.
Richard Milhous Nixon married Thelma Catherine "Pat" Ryan, a high school typing teacher from Whittier, on June 21, 1940. The couple had two daughters. Patricia Nixon married Edward Cox in a White House Rose Garden Ceremony in 1971. Julie Nixon married David Eisenhower, grandson of former President Dwight Eisenhower, after her father had resigned from office.
See Pat Nixon: As First Lady, Pat Nixon used her position to encourage volunteer service.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Nixon quit the law firm and moved to Washington D.C. where he planned to help in the war effort. He worked for a time as a lawyer in the Office of Price Administration before being commissioned in the Navy with the rank of lieutenant. Lieutenant Nixon spent a year in the South Pacific working on a Navy air transport unit. Before leaving the Navy in 1944, Nixon had risen to the rank of lieutenant commander.
In 1945 Richard Nixon ran as the Republican candidate as representative for his home district against Jerry Voorhis, a ten year Democratic incumbent. In the campaign Nixon accused Voorhis of being a socialist. Though Nixon's accusations were unfounded, the public responded, and Nixon won the election. During his years in the House, Nixon helped write the Taft-Hartley Act, which limited the powers of labor unions, and was on the committee that wrote the beginning stages of legislation that was to become the Marshal Plan, which provided aid for economic recovery to post-war Europe. Nixon was most active, however, in his crusades against communist subversion in the federal government. In August of 1948, Nixon was elected chairman of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Nixon led a number of investigations into the affairs of top government officials, including former State Department official Alger Hiss. Despite of President Truman's denouncement of the committee's activities, especially its persecution of Alger Hiss, Nixon continued to pursue his cases and gained national prominence when he succeeded in obtaining a perjury conviction of Hiss.
Richard Nixon made a bid for the Senate in 1950. His opponent was Helen Gahagan Douglas, a New Deal Democrat. The campaign was long and bitter, but Nixon emerged victorious. Nixon was accused of using unethical campaign tactics, but his large margin victory caught the attention of the national Republican leaders. Senator Nixon served on the Labor and Public Welfare Committee.
At the 1952 National Republican Convention, Richard Nixon secured the Vice Presidential nomination on the Eisenhower ticket. Nixon's place on the ticket was jeopardized, however, when a story in the New York Post accused Nixon of using campaign funds, which he had received from California businessmen, for personal use. On September 23, 1952 Richard Nixon addressed the charges before the Republican National Convention in one of the most impassioned speeches of his career. He denied any wrongdoing, but admitted that he was guilty of accepting one personal gift, a little black and white cocker spaniel which his daughter had named "Checkers." Needless to say, the "Checkers" speech secured Nixon's place on the Republican ticket. The Democrats nominated Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for President and Senator John J. Sparkman of Alabama for Vice President. During the campaign Nixon declared that a vote for the Democratic party was a vote for socialism. The Eisenhower/Nixon ticket beat the Stevenson/Sparkman ticket by more than a six million vote margin in the popular election and by 442 to 89 in the electoral college. Despite a "dump Nixon" movement, Vice President Nixon was re-nominated to the Eisenhower ticket in 1956. The Eisenhower/Nixon ticket beat the Stevenson again in 1956, but this time his Vice Presidential running mate was Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee.
As Vice President, Nixon chaired a number of domestic policy committees and went on a number of good-will tours to foreign nations. In 1959 Vice President Nixon traveled to Moscow where he was to participate in ceremonies opening up a United States exhibit in the Moscow Museum. While walking through the exhibit of a model American home, Vice President Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev engaged in a spontaneous debate over the benefits of communism and capitalism which was widely referred to in the American media as the "kitchen debate." A number of times during Nixon's term as Vice President, President Eisenhower became ill, and Richard Nixon had to step in to take care of the affairs of state. President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September of 1955, an illness in June of 1956, and a stroke in November of 1957.
Vice President Nixon secured the nomination for the Presidency at the Republican National Convention in 1960. His Vice Presidential running mate was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. The Democrats nominated Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts for President, and Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas for Vice President. Vice President Nixon was the favored candidate, but after a poor showing in a series of four televised debates, the first public Presidential debates in U.S. history, Nixon lost the election by a slim margin to Senator Kennedy. Nixon returned to California to practice law. In 1962 he ran for governor of California against Democrat Edmund G. Brown. Deeply shamed by his defeat, Nixon gave a public address in which he announced his retirement from politics. He told reporters "You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore." Richard Nixon then left California and moved to New York City where he became a partner in a law firm. Though not seeking office himself, he remained active in the affairs of the Republican Party.
In 1968 Richard Nixon returned to politics when he attended the Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida and secured the Presidential nomination on the first ballot. His Vice Presidential running mate was Governor Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland. Nixon ran on a platform that promised to control inflation and put and end to the war in Vietnam. With President Johnson's refusal to run and the assassination Senator Robert Kennedy only minutes after he had delivered a speech in Los Angeles celebrating his victory in the Democratic Primaries, the nomination was secured by Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Anti-war protesters outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, who felt that Humphrey's nomination was less than on the level, began to make their dissatisfaction with the nomination known. Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard Daley responded to the protesters by allowing the police to use physical force to put down the disturbance. A widely televised riot in Chicago turned the election in the Republican's favor. Richard Nixon won the election by an exceedingly slim margin in the popular vote and by 301 to 191 in the electoral college. Richard Nixon became the thirty-seventh President of the United States on January 20, 1969.
President Nixon's policy towards Vietnam was to achieve what he called a "peace with honor." His plan to "Vietnamize" the war called for a slow phase out of the direct involvement of United States troops in combat missions. American troops were to be replaced in the field by American trained and supplied South Vietnamese forces. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger was given the task of trying to diplomatically mediate a peace between North and South Vietnam. In January 1973 President Nixon signed the Kissinger-negotiated Paris Agreement which ended the direct involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War in exchange for the release of war prisoners. As part of the treaty's negotiations, President Nixon made a secret promise to South Vietnam President Nguyen Va Thieu that the United States would not let his regime fall to the communist forces of North Vietnam. Because of strict Congressional laws limiting United States involvement in the affairs of South East Asia, this secret agreement was not honored by President Ford when North Vietnamese forces invaded and conquered the South in 1975. In keeping with one of his campaign promises, one of Richard Nixon's first acts as President was the instituting of a lottery system for the draft. Thanks largely to the Kissinger treaty, President Nixon was able to phase out the draft completely immediately after his second inauguration in 1973. Though the President saw his violation of Cambodia's neutrality by ordering a bombing campaign on North Vietnamese supply bases in 1970 as a way of bringing a quicker close to the war, the action actually broadened the scope of the war. President Nixon's bombing of Cambodia was a failure in that it did very little damage to the North's ability to wage war, but deepened the commitment of the United States in South East Asia, and re-ignited opposition to the war at home. After years of pressure, President Nixon finally ordered a stop to the bombing of Cambodia on August 15, 1973. In 1973 Congress overrode President Nixon's veto of the War Powers Resolution, which reaffirmed Congress's sole right to wage war.
One of President Nixon's most notable achievements was the re-establishment of the United State's relations with China. In 1972 President Nixon became the first American President to travel to China since that nation had come under communist rule in 1949. President Nixon was also responsible for a considerable improvement of the United States' relations with the Soviet Union. President Nixon traveled to Moscow for a summit meeting with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1972. The Moscow meeting resulted in a treaty which put limitations on the production of nuclear missiles, and several other treaties which reestablished trade relations with the Soviet Union. Brezhnev returned the goodwill gesture by traveling to Washington D.C. in June of 1973 for another summit meeting.
In domestic affairs, the Nixon Administration championed an antiballistic missile defense system known as Safeguard. Two bases for the establishment of Safeguard were approved by Congress in August of 1969. The Nixon administration was responsible for the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, which was established in 1970, and the Federal Energy Administration which was established in 1974. On August 15, 1971 President Nixon made a bold move to combat inflation by freezing wages and prices. The freeze was successful while it lasted and contributed largely to President Nixon's 1972 landslide victory over Democratic challenger George McGovern. When the wage and price freeze was lifted shortly after Nixon's second inauguration, however, prices skyrocketed because of an Arab oil embargo and a national wheat shortage brought about by a large sale of American wheat to the U.S.S.R.
President Nixon easily won the nomination of the national Republican Party in 1972. The Nixon/ Agnew ticket went on to defeat the Democratic nominees Senator George McGovern of South Dakota and former director of the Peace Corps Sergeant Shriver by an overwhelming margin in the popular vote and by 521 to 16 in the electoral college.
Soon after President Nixon's second inauguration, a federal investigation into the affairs of Vice President Spiro Agnew revealed that he had taken bribes during his term as governor of Maryland. The Vice President pleaded "no contest" to charges of graft and resigned from the Nixon Administration on October 10, 1973. President Nixon appointed Republican Senate Minority leader Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to the Vice Presidency on December 6, 1973.
See Vice President Spiro T. Agnew: Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was well known for his colorful speaking abilities. In 1973 he was indicted on charges of conspiracy, bribery, and tax charges.
Early in 1973, a minor break in at the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C., which had taken place on June 17, 1972, began to snowball into a major scandal implicating top White House officials, including President Nixon. The White House dismissed the Watergate break in as a small-time burglary, but when the five men who had been arrested in the break in were identified as members of the Committee to Reelect the President, a special Senate investigative committee was established. At first, President Nixon was not a suspect. John Dean, one of the President's aids, was the first to implicate the President. On July 16, 1973, a former White House employee, Alexander Butterfield, testified that the President kept an audio taped recording of all conversations which took place in the Oval Office. President Nixon refused to hand-over the tapes, claiming Executive Privilege, but did offer to submit a summary of the tapes. His offer was rejected as summaries were not admissible as evidence in a court of law. When special investigator Archibald Cox continued to insist that President Nixon turn the Oval Office tapes over to the Senate, President Nixon ordered his attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to fire him. Richardson and his assistant, William Ruckleshaustes, both resigned rather than fire Cox. The job of firing Cox was carried out by assistant to the assistant attorney general, Robert Bork. Congress forced President Nixon to name another prosecutor, and Nixon appointed Texas attorney Leon Jaworski. Under Jaworski, Congress unanimously ordered that President Nixon deliver the tapes or face an impeachment trial. President Nixon finally turned over the tapes on August 5, 1974. The Oval Office tapes proved that Nixon had ordered a cover-up operation into affect only six days after the burglary. Transcripts of the tapes were published in the American papers. The transcripts revealed the President behaving in a manner which unhinged what little remaining public support the President had. Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9, 1974. On September 8, 1974, President Ford granted Richard Nixon a full pardon for any and all crimes he may have committed while serving as President of the United States.
See President Nixon: As a result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. President to resign from office.
Richard Nixon retired to his ranch home in San Clemente, California. In 1978 he published RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. After moving to New York City in 1980, he published The Real War, a book which examined the current foreign policy of the United States. Richard Nixon moved to Saddle River, New Jersey in 1981 and continued to write books: Leaders was published in 1982; Real Peace: A Strategy was published in 1983; No More Vietnams was published in 1985; and In the Arena was published in 1990, the same year that the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California opened its doors to the public. On April 18, 1994 Richard Nixon suffered a stroke while at his home in Park Ridge, New Jersey. Richard Nixon died in a New York hospital on the night of April 22, 1994. Earlier that day, Beyond Peace, a book examining the problems of maintaining peace with the nations of the former Soviet Union, was released to bookstores. Nixon's body was flown to Yorba Linda, California and buried on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library.
