Richard Nixon (1913 - 1994) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 to 1974. [1] His foreign policy produced the opening to the People's Republic of China, the strategic arms agreements of détente with the Soviet Union, and the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam. [2] He resigned on 9 August 1974, the only US president to do so, after the Watergate scandal exposed an illegal cover-up directed from the White House. [3]
Early life and early career
Nixon was born on 9 January 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, into a Quaker family of limited means. He attended Whittier College and then Duke University School of Law, graduating in 1937. He practised law in California and served as a United States Navy officer in the Pacific. [1]
Elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, he gained national attention on the House Un-American Activities Committee through the investigation of Alger Hiss. He won a Senate seat in 1950 and was chosen as Dwight D. Eisenhower's running mate in 1952, serving two terms as vice president. [2]
Defeats and return
Nixon lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy by a narrow margin, after the first televised presidential debates, and lost the California governor's race in 1962. He then rebuilt his standing within the Republican Party. In 1968, with the country divided over Vietnam, he won the presidency on a platform of "law and order" and an honourable end to the war. [1]
Presidency: foreign policy
Working closely with his national security adviser and later secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Nixon reoriented American foreign policy. His visit to the People's Republic of China in February 1972 ended more than two decades without direct relations between the two governments and altered the balance of the Cold War. [2]
Later that year he travelled to Moscow and signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the central achievements of détente. In Vietnam he pursued "Vietnamization", withdrawing American ground troops while intensifying bombing and extending operations into Cambodia and Laos; the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 ended direct American involvement. [1]
Domestic policy
Nixon's domestic record included the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act amendments and the Endangered Species Act, the end of the military draft, and the removal of the dollar from the gold standard in 1971, which dismantled the Bretton Woods system. [2]
Watergate and resignation
In June 1972 five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington. Investigation by journalists, a Senate committee and a special prosecutor established that the burglars were connected to Nixon's re-election campaign and that senior White House officials had obstructed the inquiry. [3]
A protracted fight over the White House taping system was resolved when the Supreme Court ordered the recordings released in United States v. Nixon. One tape showed that Nixon had approved efforts to obstruct the FBI investigation within days of the break-in. Facing certain impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate, he resigned on 9 August 1974. [1] His successor, Gerald Ford, issued him a full pardon a month later.
Later life and legacy
Nixon retired to California and wrote a memoir and several books on foreign affairs. He died in Manhattan on 22 April 1994. [1]
Historians generally treat his presidency as a case of substantial achievement in foreign and environmental policy undone by abuse of executive power. [3] Watergate reshaped American politics, producing campaign finance and ethics legislation and a lasting decline in public trust in government.
