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| Order: | 37th President |
|---|---|
| Term of Office: | January 20, 1969–August 9, 1974 |
| Predecessor: | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Successor: | Gerald R. Ford |
| Date of Birth: | January 9, 1913 |
| Place of Birth: | Yorba Linda, California |
| Date of Death: | April 22, 1994 |
| Place of Death: | New York, New York |
| First Lady: | Pat Nixon |
| Profession: | lawyer |
| Political Party: | Republican |
| Vice President: | |
| Order: | 36th Vice President |
| Term of Office: | January 20, 1953–January 20, 1961 |
| Predecessor: | Alben W. Barkley |
| Successor: | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| President: | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913–April 22, 1994) was the thirty-sixth (1953–1961) Vice President, and the thirty-seventh (1969–1974) President of the United States. He is the only man to have been elected twice to the vice-presidency and twice to the presidency; and was the fifth President of the Republican Party to be elected to two terms. He will always be remembered, however, as being the only US President to have resigned from office. His resignation came in response to the complex of scandals called the Watergate conspiracy.
Nixon was born to Francis Nixon and Hannah Milhouse. He was raised as an Evangelical Quaker by his mother, who hoped he would become a Quaker missionary. His upbringing is said to have been marked by such conservative Evangelical Quaker observances as refraining from drinking, dancing, and swearing.
His father was less religious, focusing on the family business, a store that sold groceries and gasoline. There is much debate as to whether Nixon went through the expected Quaker soul-searching regarding whether to become a conscientious objector in World War II.
During the period of his political career, however, he was not a practicing Quaker. Further discussion about Nixon's relationship with the Quakers can be found at and .
Nixon won an award from the Harvard Club of California as the state's outstanding student his senior year of high school. However, his family was unable to afford his leaving home for college. He instead attended Whittier College, a local Quaker school, graduating second in his class, and Duke University Law School, where he received a full scholarship.
He served as a noncombatant officer in the US Navy in World War II, and was a lawyer for PepsiCo.
Nixon was elected to the United States House of Representatives from California in 1946, in a class of freshman war veterans that included his future rival John F. Kennedy, of Massachusetts.
In the House, Nixon served on a committee that helped to implement the Marshall Plan which helped war-torn Europe. He also helped in the passage of the Taft-Hartley act which set up controls over labor unions. He proposed a bill to facilitate servicemen's voting that was passed by both houses and signed into law. Nixon climbed the political ladder swiftly, making his name as an anti-Communist and a rough, no-holds-barred campaigner. He became a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee and was instrumental in the trial of the ex-government official Alger Hiss for perjury as a part of the accusation that he was a Soviet spy.
Nixon was elected to the Senate in 1950, defeating actress/congresswoman Helen Gahagan, who Nixon accused during the campaign of having communist sympathies. In his Senate service, Nixon helped to sponsor many bills such as the ones that gave statehood to Alaska and Hawaii.
In 1952 he was elected Vice President on Dwight Eisenhower's ticket, although he was only 39 years old.
One notable event of the campaign was Nixon's innovative use of television. Nixon was accused of having been financed by a slush fund provided by business supporters. He went on TV and defended himself in an emotional speech in which he stated that his wife Pat did not wear mink, but rather "a respectable Republican cloth coat", and stated that although he had been given a cocker spaniel named "Checkers", he was not going to give it back because his daughters loved it. This broadcast resulted in a flood of support that required Eisenhower to keep Nixon on the ticket.
As Vice President, Nixon journeyed to South America and was praised for his courage in facing angry mobs protesting US foreign policy.
Nixon was notable among Vice Presidents in having actually stepped up to run the government three times when Eisenhower was ill: on the occasions of Eisenhower's heart attack on September 24, 1955; his ileitis in June 1956; and his stroke in November 1957. He also proved to be able to quickly think on his feet which was demonstrated on July 24, 1959 at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow where Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had an impromptu "kitchen debate" about the merits of capitalism vs communism.
In 1960, he ran for President on his own but lost to John F. Kennedy, ironically a friend of Nixon's (Kennedy, in fact, was one of the first to congratulate Nixon when he was chosen as Eisenhower's running mate). Many observers believe that a crucial factor in his loss was the first televised presidential debate. Despite his five o'clock shadow, Nixon refused television makeup (instead using simple "Lazy Shave" coverup makeup) and was feeling sick, having recently injured his knee while campaigning. He expected to win voters with his foreign-policy expertise, but people only saw a sickly man sweating profusely and wearing a gray suit that blended into the scenery; while his rival, Kennedy, looked comfortable in his position. It has since been widely suggested, with some support from research, that those who had listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon had won, but that the television audience gave the win to Kennedy.
On November 7, 1962, he lost a race for Governor of California. In his concession speech, Nixon stated that it was his "last press conference" and that "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more".
The defeated mood did not last. He moved to New York City and worked as a prominent lawyer, and in the election of 1968 completed a remarkable political comeback by defeating Hubert H. Humphrey to become the 37th U.S. President.
Nixon appealed to what he claimed was the "silent majority" of socially conservative Americans who disliked the "hippie" counterculture and civil rights and anti-war demonstrators. Nixon also promised "peace with honor", and without claiming to be able to win the war, Nixon claimed that "new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific." When a reporter pressed Nixon for specifics, he did not reveal any details. Because of this, Nixon's opponents criticized him for not revealing his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War, although Nixon had not used this famous phrase. Still, many voters supported Nixon because they believed he would end the war.
He proposed the Nixon Doctrine to establish a strategy of turning over the fighting of the war to the Vietnamese. During the war, on July 30, 1969, Nixon made an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, and met with President Nguyen Van Thieu and with US military commanders. The war ended during Nixon's term, but only after four more years of strategic bombing and defeat on the ground, and the withdrawal of US troops, leaving the battle to the ineffective South Vietnamese army.
Nixon's administration "secretly" began a massive bombing campaign against Cambodia in March, 1969 (code-named Menu) to destroy what were believed to be the headquarters and large numbers of soldiers of the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam. The bombing campiagn was a "secret" only to the American public. Militarily ineffective, the bombing campaigns killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodian peasants.
In ordering the bombings, Nixon realised he would be extending an unpopular war as well as breaching Cambodia's official neutrality. He also understood that the war was militarily and politically un-winnable. Details of the bombing were kept "secret" even from high ranking officials such as Secretary of State William P. Rogers and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During deliberations over Nixon's impeachment, his unorthodox use of executive powers over the ordering of these bombings were considered as an article of impeachment, but the charge was dropped. This bombing (and an "incursion" by US forces into Cambodian territory in April 1970) added to the administration's tacit support for the overthrow of the neutralist royal government of Norodom Sihanouk by the rightist military dictator Lon Nol, created chaos, and drove much of the peasant population of that country into the arms of the Khmer Rouge, a Maoist and nationalist revolutionary movement that would eventually kill 1.7 million Cambodians after taking power.
On January 5, 1972 Nixon approved the development of the Space Shuttle program, a decision that profoundly influenced U.S. efforts to explore and develop space for several decades thereafter.
In 1972 Nixon was re-elected in one of the most massive landslide elections in U.S. political history, defeating George McGovern and garnering over 60% of the popular vote. He carried 49 of the 50 states, trailing only in Massachusetts.
On January 2, 1974 Nixon signed a bill that lowered the maximum US speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during the 1973 energy crisis.
Nixon appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
Nixon was eventually investigated for the instigation and cover-up of the burglary of the Democratic Party offices at the Watergate office complex, one of a series of scandals involving CREEP (the Committee to Re-Elect the President), which also included the enemies list and assorted "dirty tricks." His secret recordings of White House conversations were subpoenaed, and revealed details of his complicity in the cover-up. Nixon was named by the grand jury investigating Watergate as "an unindicted co-conspirator" in the Watergate Scandal. He lost support from his own party as well as the country in the Saturday Night Massacre in which he ordered Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor in the Watergate case fired, as well as firing several of his own subordinates who objected to this move. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opened formal and public impeachment hearings against Nixon on May 9, 1974. Rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and a conviction by the Senate, he resigned, effective August 9, 1974.
His successor Gerald R. Ford issued a pre-emptive pardon, ending the investigations.
Nixon's presidency was frequently dogged by Nixon's personality, and the public perception of it. Editorial cartoonists and comedians had fun exaggerating Nixon's appearance and mannerisms, to the point where the line between the human president and the caricature version of him became increasingly blurred. He was usually portrayed as a sullen loner, with unshaven jowls, slumped shoulders, and a furrowed, sweaty brow. He was, to some, especially the younger generation, the very epitome of a "square," and the personification of unpleasant adult authority. Nixon tried to shed these perceptions by staging photo-ops with young people, and even appearing on popular TV shows such as Laugh-In and Hee Haw. He also frequently brandished the two-finger V sign (alternately viewed as the "Victory sign" or "peace sign"), an act which became one of his best-known trademarks.
In his last years Nixon succeeded in rehabilitating his public image to some extent, and gained respect as an elder statesman in the area of foreign affairs, being consulted by both Democratic and Republican successors to the Presidency.
Further tape releases, however, removed all doubt as to Nixon's involvement both in the Watergate cover-up and also the illegal campaign finance and intrusive government surveillance that were at the heart of the scandal.
In July 2003, Jeb Stuart Magruder, a former Special Assistant to the President, alleged that Nixon had personally ordered the Watergate break-in by phone. Previously the only guilt that was alleged was his role in the cover up of the break-in.
The year 1977 saw the publishing of a book by Victor Lasky called It Didn't Start With Watergate. The book came to Nixon's defence pointing out that Presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy and Johnson used wiretaps and engaged in many of the activities Nixon was accused of, but were never pursued by the press or the subject of impeachment hearings. A three volume account of Nixon's life by historian Stephen Ambrose pointed out his many positive accomplishments.
Nixon wrote many books after his departure from politics, including his memoirs.
Nixon died on April 22, 1994 in New York City, New York at the age of 81, from complications related to a severe stroke, and was buried beside his wife Pat Nixon on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. Nixon did not recieve a state funeral, as most presidents do. However, President Clinton spoke at the April 27 funeral, and former presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush and their respective first ladies were also in attendance: this was the last gathering of these presidents before the memorial service for the victims of the September 11 attacks. Nixon was survived by his two daughters Tricia and Julie.
The Nixon Library contains only Nixon's pre- and post-presidential papers, as his presidential papers have been retained as government evidence. Nixon's attempts to protect his papers and gain tax advantages from them had been one of the important themes of the Watergate affair. The library is unique in that it is privately funded; other presidential libraries receive support from the National Archives.
Richard Nixon has appeared as a character (with varying degrees of verisimilitude), both major and minor, in a variety of movies and productions:
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