Contents
NIXON, Richard Milhous
(1913–94), 37th president of the U.S. (1969–74),
and the only one to have resigned from office.
Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Jan. 9, 1913. His
parents were poor, and his early life was one of hard work and study.
He was a gifted student, finishing second in his class at Whittier
College (1934) in Whittier, Calif., and third in his class at Duke
University Law School (1937). Unable to find a position with a Wall
Street (New York City) law firm after his graduation, Nixon returned
to Whittier to practice. There he met Thelma Catherine (Pat) Ryan
(1912–93), whom he married in 1940. Nixon enlisted in the
U.S. Navy in 1942 and served as a supply officer in the South Pacific
during World War II. He left the service as a lieutenant commander.
Back in Whittier in 1946, Nixon was persuaded by a group
of southern California Republicans to challenge Democratic congressman
Jerry Voorhis (1901–84). Nixon campaigned vigorously, tabbed
the liberal Voorhis as a dangerous left-winger, and won by 16,000
votes. In 1948 and 1949 Nixon achieved a national reputation in
the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Committee on
Un-American Activities during its investigation of what became known
as the Hiss case. In 1950 Nixon ran for the U.S. Senate and won
against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas (1900–80),
whom he labeled the “Pink Lady” for what he alleged
to be her pro-Communist sympathies; his campaign tactics were widely
criticized.
In 1952 the Republicans nominated Nixon to be the running
mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower. When it was
disclosed that as a senator Nixon had accepted an $18,000
fund for “political expenses” from California
businessmen, he was nearly dropped from the Republican ticket. Nixon’s
televised self-defense, called the “Checkers” speech
because of a sentimental reference to his dog Checkers, saved his
political life. As vice-president, Nixon emerged as a vigorous Republican
spokesman during the Eisenhower years, campaigning in a cut-and-thrust
style that contrasted with Eisenhower’s nonpartisan aloofness.
In nonelection years, Nixon toured the country trying to bolster Republican
party finances and spirit. He also developed foreign affairs credentials
by visiting numerous other countries, including the Soviet Union,
where an impromptu “kitchen debate” with Nikita
S. Khrushchev made worldwide headlines in July 1959. As undisputed
party leader at the end of Eisenhower’s second term, Nixon
easily won the presidential nomination in 1960. Against the articulate,
wealthy, and politically well-connected John F. Kennedy, however,
the Nixon edge in experience and prominence melted away. Kennedy won
with a narrow popular-vote margin of 113,000 votes out of 68.8 million
cast.
Returning to California, Nixon sought to revitalize his political
career by challenging Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown (1905–96)
in the 1962 gubernatorial race. Defeated, Nixon angrily announced
his withdrawal from active politics. He moved to New York City and
began a lucrative law practice. He continued, however, to speak
out on foreign policy issues, address Republican fund rallies, and
maintain his strong influence in the party. By 1968 he was poised
again to try for the presidency, this time as a more temperate “new
Nixon.” With Spiro T. Agnew as the vice-presidential candidate,
the Republican campaign made skillful use of television, and benefited
from national dissatisfaction with the war in Vietnam and from division
in the Democratic camp. Nixon defeated Hubert H. Humphrey with a
popular-vote majority of about 500,000 votes.
At the pinnacle of his career in 1969, President Nixon organized
the White House to protect his energy and time. He left most administrative
affairs to such powerful aides as H(arry) R(obbins) Haldeman (1926–93),
John Ehrlichman (1925–99), and Charles Colson (1931– ).
This allowed him time for what had become his absorbing interest:
international affairs. With Henry A. Kissinger as his most trusted
foreign policy adviser, Nixon redefined the American role in the
world, suggesting limits to U.S. resources and commitments. “After
a period of confrontation,” he declared in his inaugural
address, “we are entering an era of negotiation.” He
ordered a gradual withdrawal of the 500,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam.
The withdrawal took four years, however, during which the war raged
and U.S. casualties mounted. Nixon authorized a U.S. incursion into
Cambodia in 1970 and the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong
Harbor in 1972. These actions were unpopular, but he credited them
with helping to bring about a negotiated settlement by which all
U.S. forces were withdrawn and all known U.S. prisoners of war released before
the end of March 1973.
Nixon’s greatest innovation was his approach to
the People’s Republic of China. Sensing that the time was right
to make an overture to China, Nixon sent Kissinger to confer secretly
with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai in July 1971. Nixon’s own
1972 summit meeting in China, at which he signed the Shanghai Communiqué, was
a diplomatic triumph that left the president’s critics,
accustomed to his fervent anti-Communism, astonished and off-balance.
Within a few weeks, Nixon was in Moscow to negotiate the first step
in a strategic arms limitation agreement. Born in that session was
the era of détente, a search for accommodation between the
two superpowers, and an effort to reduce the danger of nuclear war.
Other parts of the world were not neglected. In the strategically
vital Middle East, Nixon established links with Egypt while maintaining
the U.S. commitment to Israel. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973,
the U.S. replaced the Soviet Union as the dominant influence in
Egypt.
At home, Nixon adopted the so-called New Federalism, a program
designed to end what he said was the Democratic habit of “throwing
money at problems.” Congress passed part of the plan—revenue
sharing with states and cities—and appropriated some $30
billion for local needs. While espousing the fiscal conservatism traditional
to his party, Nixon held to no set economic course. After first
advocating a balanced budget, he turned to deficit financing. Having
decided against wage and price controls to battle rising inflation
rates, he reversed himself dramatically in August 1971. He imposed
controls, with limited success, in four phases extending into 1974.
Nixon’s economic policies were bold but inconsistent, and,
partly because of rapidly rising energy costs, he was unable to
avert a recession in 1974.
On racial matters, Nixon generally adopted a passive stance
toward efforts by American blacks to achieve educational, economic,
and social equality. He personally opposed busing but insisted that
the law be upheld in cases where the courts required it.
The Nixon response to rising urban crime rates included demands
for stricter law enforcement and less “coddling” of
criminals and radical activists. The leading voice for this politically
popular theme of “law and order” was Attorney
General John N. Mitchell, the president’s former law partner
and campaign manager. Nixon’s four Supreme Court appointees,
men whom he called “strict constructionists,” brought
a more conservative cast to the Court. They were Chief Justice Warren
Burger and Justices Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, Jr., and William
Rehnquist.
Up for reelection in 1972, Nixon was fresh from the Beijing
and Moscow triumphs and enjoying the peak of his popularity. He
defeated the Democratic senator George S. McGovern by one of the
largest majorities in U.S. history. Only one small cloud appeared
on the horizon. The attempted burglary and wiretapping of the Democratic
National Committee headquarters on June 17, 1972, at the Watergate
complex had been traced to men hired by some of the president’s
closest advisers. Newspaper reporters took the slender thread found
at the Watergate burglary and followed it to the White House. Through
determined reporting, a larger picture of political corruption was
uncovered. Illegal campaign contributions, political “dirty
tricks,” and irregularities in Nixon’s income
taxes were unearthed as the story grew during 1973. Testimony before
the Senate Select. Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities,
chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. (1896–1985), revealed
that extensive tape recordings existed of conversations held in
Nixon’s office. The various investigations, including that
by Archibald Cox (1912–2004), who
was appointed special prosecutor for the case in May 1973, began
to focus on the release of these vital tapes.
Public trust in Nixon’s leadership plummeted after
he had Cox dismissed in October 1973. To compound the president’s
problems, Vice-President Agnew, facing bribery charges, resigned
in the same month. In his choice of a replacement, Nixon settled
on a popular U.S. congressman certain of quick confirmation: Gerald R.
Ford of Michigan, who was sworn in as vice-president on Dec. 6,
1973.
A federal grand jury named the president in March 1974 as
an unindicted coconspirator in a conspiracy to obstruct justice
in the Watergate investigation. Attorney Leon Jaworski (1905–82),
who replaced Cox as special Watergate prosecutor, continued to press
for the White House tapes, while the House Judiciary Committee began
to investigate the case for impeachment.
Nixon tried to reestablish his authority with trips to the
Middle East and the Soviet Union in the summer of 1974. But the
Watergate net closed tighter upon his return. On July 24, the Supreme
Court unanimously ruled that the president had to turn over the
last tapes. One of these, recording his order to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation to halt its investigation of the Watergate break-in,
was conclusive evidence—the so-called smoking gun—of
Nixon’s primary role in a cover-up. The Judiciary Committee
recommended impeachment to the full House of Representatives. On
the evening of August 8, Nixon went on television to announce his decision,
unprecedented in U.S. history, to resign. At noon on August 9, Gerald
Ford took the oath of office.
Pardoned by his successor “for all offenses against
the United States which he . . . committed or may have committed” in
office, Nixon in retirement initially kept a low profile. Gradually,
however, through a succession of TV interviews, memoirs, and writings
on world affairs, he rebuilt his reputation as a political analyst
and foreign policy expert. He died in New York City on April 22,
1994, and was buried at Yorba Linda.