Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon I INTRODUCTION Richard Nixon (1913-1994), 37th president of the United States (1969-1974), and the only president to have resigned from office. He was elected president of the United States in 1968 in one of the closest presidential elections in the nation's history and in 1972 was reelected in a landslide victory. Nixon's second administration, however, was consumed by the growing Watergate scandal, which eventually forced him to resign to avoid impeachment. Nixon was the second youngest vice president in U.S. history and the first native of California to become either vice president or president. II EARLY LIFE Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, the second of five sons of Francis Anthony Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon. The Nixons were Scots-Irish and the Milhouses, of Irish and English descent, were members of the Society of Friends, more commonly known as Quakers. Richard Nixon attended public schools in Whittier, California, and went to Whittier College, a Quaker institution, where he majored in history. He won a scholarship to Duke University Law School and received his law degree in 1937. Nixon joined an established law firm in Whittier and there met his future wife, Thelma ("Pat") Ryan. They married on June 21, 1940, and had two daughters: Patricia, born in 1946, and Julie, born in 1948. Early in World War II (1939-1945), Nixon worked for six months in the Office of Emergency Management, an experience that, he later said, disillusioned him with bureaucracy. He then joined the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant, was assigned to the Naval Air Transport Command, and spent most of his service on a South Pacific island. He left the service in 1946 as a lieutenant commander. III EARLY POLITICAL CAREER A United States Congressman In 1946 Nixon was persuaded by California Republicans to be their candidate to challenge the popular Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis for his seat in the United States House of Representatives. Nixon's campaign was an example of the vigorous and aggressive style characteristic of his political career. He accused Voorhis of being "soft" on Communism. In 1946, when the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was just beginning, the charge that Voorhis did not sufficiently oppose Communism was damaging. The two men confronted each other in a series of debates, and Voorhis was forced into a defensive position. Nixon won the election by a vote of 65,586 to 49,994. As a new member of the Congress of the United States, Nixon gained valuable experience in international affairs while serving on a special committee that helped establish the European Recovery Program. Under this program, also known as the Marshall Plan, the United States helped pay for a cooperative, long-term rebuilding program in Europe following the war. Nixon also served on the House Education and Labor Committee, where he helped draft the Taft-Hartley Act on labor-management relations. The act outlawed union shops (workplaces where everyone had to join the union); prohibited such union tactics as secondary boycotts; forbade unions to contribute to political campaigns; established loyalty oaths for union leaders; and allowed court orders to halt strikes that could affect national health or safety (see National Labor Relations Act). As a member of the Un-American Activities Committee, Nixon personally pressed the investigation of Alger Hiss, a high State Department official. Hiss had been accused of being a Communist by writer and editor Whittaker Chambers, who testified before the committee in 1948. Chambers said that he himself had been a Communist in the 1920s and 1930s and a courier in transmitting secret information to Soviet agents. Chambers charged that Hiss was also a Communist, and that he had turned classified documents over to Chambers to be sent to the USSR. Hiss denied the charges, but Chambers produced microfilm copies of documents that were later identified as classified papers belonging to the Departments of State, Navy, and War, some apparently annotated by Hiss in his own handwriting. The Department of Justice conducted its own investigation, and Hiss was indicted for perjury, or lying under oath. The jury failed to reach a verdict, but Hiss was convicted after a second trial in January 1950 (see Hiss Case). During the investigation Nixon gained a national reputation as a dedicated enemy of Communism and in 1948, he was reelected to Congress after winning both the Republican and Democratic nominations. B United States Senator In 1950 the Republicans chose Nixon as their candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. His opponent was the liberal Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. In another bitterly fought campaign, Nixon linked her voting record with that of the American-Labor-Party congressman from New York, Vito Marcantonio, who was widely regarded as pro-Communist. Nixon won the election by 680,000 votes. In 1952 Nixon was selected to be the running mate of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had won the Republican presidential nomination. Shortly after Nixon's vicepresidential nomination, however, it was reported that a fund had been collected to meet his expenses as a senator. His critics implied that he was supported by "favorseeking millionaires." No evidence was produced that Nixon had misused the fund or given special favors to contributors, but many of Eisenhower's advisers wanted Nixon to resign his candidacy. In response Nixon made an impassioned reply on national television in a speech known as the "Checkers" speech because it contained a sentimental reference to Nixon's dog, Checkers. The speech included a full disclosure of his personal finances, and Eisenhower then kept him as his running mate. In the campaign that followed, Nixon once again attacked the Democrats and their presidential candidate, Illinois Governor Adlai E. Stevenson, as soft on Communism. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket won a resounding victory. In 1956, Eisenhower and Nixon were reelected, after Nixon survived an attempt by some Republicans to replace him. C Vice President Much of Nixon's time as vice president was spent in representing the president before Congress and on trips abroad as a goodwill ambassador. On these tours Nixon was occasionally the target of anti-U.S. feelings. During a tour of South America in May 1958, for example, the cars carrying Nixon and his escort were assaulted by stone-throwing Venezuelans near the Caracas airport. Nixon's most dramatic confrontation abroad took place when he visited the USSR in July 1959 to open a U.S. exhibition in Moscow. Nixon escorted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev through a model U.S. kitchen. In front of the television cameras, Khrushchev then found himself in a debate with Nixon over the relative merits of the United States and Communist systems. Parts of what became known as the "kitchen debate" were later broadcast on television in both the USSR and the United States. On the final day of his visit, Nixon made an unprecedented address on Soviet television. D Election of 1960 As President Eisenhower neared the end of his second term, his vice president emerged as his logical successor, and the president endorsed Nixon in March. Nixon received an impressive vote in party primaries, and at the Republican National Convention, held in Chicago in July, he received all but ten of the delegates' votes on the first ballot. Nixon chose as his running mate the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. An unusual feature of the campaign was a series of four televised face-to-face discussions between Nixon and his Democratic opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Kennedy was widely regarded as the winner of the debates, which helped him win the election. Even with the debates, the popular vote in November was extremely close. Both candidates received more than 34 million votes, and Kennedy beat Nixon by only 112,803. Because of the way the popular vote was distributed, however, the vote in the electoral college was 303 for Kennedy to 220 for Nixon. IV ROAD TO THE PRESIDENCY A California Campaign of 1962 After losing the presidential election, Nixon returned to California, and in 1962 became the Republican candidate for governor, opposing the Democratic incumbent, Edmund G. ("Pat") Brown. Again the campaign was bitter, and Nixon argued that Democrats were not sufficiently concerned about the threat that Communism posed around the world and at home. He also asserted that California did not enforce its laws strictly enough. This time the strategy did not work; Brown won easily. At first Nixon refused to acknowledge Brown's victory. When he did so at a televised news conference, he used the opportunity to attack the press, who he felt had treated him unfairly in the campaign. Most political observers believed that Nixon's political career was ended. B Election of 1968 After his defeat, Nixon moved to New York City, where he joined a large law firm. He remained in close touch with national Republican leaders and campaigned for Republican candidates in the 1964 and 1966 elections. By February 1, 1968, he had sufficiently recovered his political standing to announce his candidacy for president. In seeking the nomination in 1968, Nixon had certain handicaps to overcome. For one thing, he had not won an election on his own since 1950. Moreover, he had no state in which to base his candidacy: His former state, California, had rejected him in 1962, and his current state, New York, was the home ground of another possible candidate, Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. In addition, Nixon could count on few Republican governors for support, and they would lead the delegations from their states at the Republican National Convention. On the other hand, Nixon did have wide support in Congress and with other politicians whom he had helped in their campaigns. In addition, he seemed to occupy a middle position in policies and ideas between the conservative wing of the party, then led by Governor Ronald W. Reagan of California, and the Northeastern liberal wing, which preferred Governor Rockefeller. Polls indicated clearly that Nixon was the favorite of regular party members. With their backing Nixon easily won the nomination on the first ballot at the convention held in Miami Beach, Florida, in August. For his running mate he chose Spiro T. Agnew, the governor of Maryland. His Democratic opponent, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, had to contend with serious divisions within his party and was on the defensive because Nixon placed particular stress on the unsuccessful war in Vietnam and the growing antiwar protests at home. The election was complicated by a third party headed by former Alabama governor George C. Wallace. Nixon and Humphrey each gained about 43 percent of the popular vote, but the distribution of Nixon's nearly 32 million votes gave him a clear majority in the electoral college. V A PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Vietnam War The most important issue Nixon faced when he became president was the Vietnam War. The war had begun in 1959 when Communist-led guerrillas in South Vietnam, backed by the Communist government of North Vietnam, launched an attempt to overthrow the government of South Vietnam. The struggle widened into a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam and ultimately into a limited international conflict in which the burden of the war fell mainly on civilians. The United States first sent military advisers to South Vietnam in the 1950s. After a report in 1964 that the North Vietnamese had attacked U.S. vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, Congress had authorized President Lyndon Johnson to increase U.S. military involvement. The Johnson administration authorized the bombing of North Vietnam, and the first U.S. combat troops arrived in South Vietnam in 1965. By 1968 there were more than 500,000 U.S. troops there. Antiwar sentiment developed at home, and demonstrations against the war became a daily occurrence, particularly on university campuses. Nixon had campaigned against the war, saying that he would bring U.S. soldiers back home. The protests, however, did not decrease with Nixon's election, even though he began withdrawing U.S. combat troops from South Vietnam, in accordance with a policy announced in 1969 while he was in Guam on an Asian tour. Called the Guam, or Nixon, doctrine, the policy stated that the United States would continue to help Asian nations combat Communism but would no longer commit U.S. troops to land wars in Asia. Nixon announced that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by August 1969. Another cut of 65,000 troops was ordered by the end of the year. Nixon's program, known as Vietnamization of the war, emphasized the responsibilities of the South Vietnamese in the war. However, Nixon expanded the Vietnam War. In April 1970 he authorized the invasion of Cambodia to pursue North Vietnamese troops there. The authorization was met with protest demonstrations around the country. In 1971 the United States assisted a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos. The air war was also intensified as U.S. bombing missions were increased over Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. Through the later months of 1971, American withdrawal from Vietnam continued, but with little apparent effect. Casualty figures in 1971 reflected the intensification of South Vietnam's own fighting efforts against the Communists. While U.S. deaths in Vietnam declined dramatically to 1380, compared to 4221 in 1970, the South Vietnamese forces, on the other hand, suffered about 21,500 dead, some in Cambodia and Laos but the majority in South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese claimed the enemy death toll to be 97,000. A1 Quang Tri Offensive The tide of the war took a turn for the worse on March 30, 1972. North Vietnam launched a massive offensive south into Quang Tri province. In April, the United States retaliated with the first deep-penetration bombing raids over the north since 1967. On May 8 Nixon ordered the mining of major ports of North Vietnam, notably Haiphong, to destroy enemy supply routes. Air strikes were directed against North Vietnamese railroad lines, causing serious economic problems. Quang Tri City, after being held by the Communists for four and one-half months, was recaptured by South Vietnamese forces on September 15. A2 Peace Talks As the war continued into the second half of 1972, secret peace meetings were held between Henry A. Kissinger, assistant to the president for national security affairs, and the North Vietnamese delegate Le Duc Tho, beginning on October 8. A breakthrough was achieved when, for the first time, the Communist side expressed acceptance of a peace plan separating the military from the political settlement of the war, relinquishing its demand for a coalition government in South Vietnam, and agreeing to a formula for simultaneous discussion of the situation in Laos and Cambodia. However, the talks abruptly collapsed on December 16, and the following day Nixon ordered further massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Subsequent night raids were perhaps the most severe aerial assaults in history, and the sudden reescalation of the conflict was criticized by many people in the United States and elsewhere. The air attacks also resulted in the loss of 15 B-52s and in the loss or capture of 93 U.S. Air Force personnel. A3 Relations with China and the USSR Nixon was more successful in other areas of foreign policy. Nixon pursued a policy of improving relations with China and the USSR. In February 1972 he traveled to Beijing, and in May 1972 he visited Moscow. He signed trade agreements with both countries and a treaty with the USSR to limit the deployment of antiballistic missile systems. In June, the USSR completed an agreement with the United States that enabled it to make huge purchases of U.S. wheat. B Domestic Affairs Nixon adopted conservative domestic policies, in part to win support in the South, where voters favored such policies. Although two of his nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States were rejected by the Senate, Nixon appointed appeals judge Warren E. Burger to the Supreme Court in 1969; federal judge Harry A. Blackmun from Minnesota in 1970; and Virginia lawyer Lewis F. Powell and Assistant Attorney General William H. Rehnquist of Arizona in 1971. Together they shifted the Supreme Court toward more conservative positions. Nixon also tried to slow the pace of integration of black students into white schools. Separate schools were common across the country, but they had been the norm in the South until the Supreme Court declared the practice illegal in 1957. Nixon did not aggressively prosecute segregated school districts, and Nixon opposed the use of public buses to transport students to integrated schools. Nixon also faced economic problems. Inflation (a rapid rise in prices) combined with high unemployment caused hardship for many people. The president tried to slow inflation by raising interest rates, which, in theory, ought to have reduced the amount of money in circulation and thereby lowered prices. Unfortunately the tactic failed, and in August 1971 Nixon began instituting wage and price controls. At the same time, to promote U.S. exports and discourage imports, he devalued the dollar, which lowered the cost of U.S. goods in other countries. C Election of 1972 By 1972, when Nixon and Agnew sought reelection, inflation had slowed and the international position of the U.S. economy had improved. Although the Vietnam War continued, the mining of North Vietnamese harbors had gone unchallenged by North Vietnam's main allies, and in October it was announced that peace in Vietnam was "at hand." Aided by prospects of peace and by improvements in the economy, as well as by division within the Democratic Party, Nixon won easily over his Democratic opponent, South Dakota Senator George S. McGovern, obtaining 47,169,911 popular votes and 520 electoral votes to McGovern's 29,170,383 popular votes and 17 electoral votes. Almost unnoticed during the campaign was the arrest of five men connected with Nixon's reelection committee. The five had broken into the Democratic Party's national headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to steal documents and place wiretaps on the telephones. VI SECOND TERM AS PRESIDENT A Cease-fire in Vietnam With the beginning of the second Nixon administration, the secret peace meetings between Vietnam and the United States resumed in Paris. Sensing progress in the first days, Nixon ordered a halt to all bombing, mining, and artillery fire in North Vietnam. After six days of discussions, Kissinger and Tho met once again on January 23, 1973, and, on that evening, President Nixon announced over nationwide television that agreement on all terms for a formal cease-fire had finally been reached. The cease-fire officially went into effect on January 28. Nixon's popularity seemed then to be at a peak, but soon his prestige began to crumble because of domestic problems and scandals. B Inflation at Home The economy once again began to experience severe inflation, largely as a result of massive grain sales to the USSR the previous summer and the need to devalue the dollar a second time in February 1973. Nixon attempted to slow the inflation by cutting government spending on domestic social programs, such as education, urban renewal, and antipoverty programs, while resisting congressional attempts to reduce military spending. His already strained relations with Congress deteriorated further when he impounded funds appropriated by Congress for these programs and vetoed new social legislation. C Watergate and Resignation Nixon's popularity was further eroded by the Watergate scandal. By March 1973 questions had arisen in the trial of burglars who had broken into the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Investigative reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reporters for the Washington Post, and persistent questioning by U.S. District Court Judge John J. Sirica showed that a cover-up had concealed the scope of the burglars' activities. There were indications that the burglars were connected to high government officials and the president's closest aides. Soon after, a Senate committee on Watergate headed by Sam Ervin of North Carolina and an investigation led by special prosecutor Archibald Cox slowly revealed that the Watergate incident was just one of many scandals, including four years of political espionage and sabotage by Nixon loyalists. The actions had been directed against Democrats and a variety of critics and financed in part by secret illegal campaign contributions from political favor seekers. These revelations embarrassed and forced the resignation of all but one of Nixon's closest aides and officials. In April 1973 White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, White House Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst all resigned. In addition, Nixon dismissed White House Counsel John Dean. These discoveries also raised questions about Nixon's knowledge of the activities and his participation in their cover-up. In July 1973 White House aide Alexander Butterfield disclosed the existence of a taping system that Nixon had ordered installed in the White House. This taping system automatically recorded all conversations, which meant that the tapes would tell investigators if Nixon was involved in the burglary and the cover-up. Nixon refused to release the tapes, claiming executive privilege, which allowed him to withhold certain documents because of the importance of the presidency. This refusal increased doubts about Nixon's integrity. On October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire special investigator Cox over the issue of access to the tapes. However, Richardson refused and resigned in protest, as did Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. In the end, Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Cox. This series of resignations and firings became known as the Saturday Night Massacre and outraged the public. On October 22 the House Judiciary Committee was ordered to look into the possible impeachment, or legal removal, of Nixon. The next day he agreed to produce the subpoenaed material, but soon after, it was revealed that some of the tapes had been edited and the key part of one had been erased. Nixon tried again to appease Congress and the public by appointing a new special investigator, Leon Jaworski. The Watergate inquiry also led to an investigation of a burglary ordered by Nixon aides to obtain information about Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret study on U.S. policy during the Vietnam War (1954-1975), to the public in 1971. Investigators found that a White House team had placed illegal wiretaps on Ellsberg's telephone and had broken into his psychiatrist's office in search of information that would discredit Ellsberg. Other inquiries that resulted from the Watergate scandal included one regarding possible income tax evasion by Nixon, and another surrounding his misuse of government funds to enhance his homes in Key Biscayne, Florida, and San Clemente, California. A report released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in early 1974 revealed that Nixon owed $432,787 in back taxes for the years 1969 to 1972. In an unrelated scandal, Vice President Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, following revelations of his financial improprieties. Nixon nominated Gerald R. Ford, a conservative Michigan Republican congressman, to succeed Agnew. On March 1, 1974, Ehrlichman, Haldeman, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell; and two other men were indicted in connection with the Watergate cover-up; Nixon was named as an "unindicted co-conspirator." Special investigator Jaworski and the Judiciary Committee subpoenaed more of Nixon's tapes, but Nixon refused to surrender them. When it became evident that tapes already supplied to the courts would be made public in the trials, Nixon released edited transcripts of some taped conversations. But they did not allay suspicions about his role in the cover-up. Nixon's refusal to comply with subpoenas for tapes early in 1974 led Jaworski to appeal to the Supreme Court. On July 24, 1974, in an 8-0 decision, the Court ruled in the United States v. Nixon against Nixon's claims of executive privilege. Also in July, the Judiciary Committee voted to introduce three impeachment articles. They accused Nixon of obstructing justice, abusing presidential power, and refusing to obey subpoenas by the House. On August 5 Nixon released tapes showing that he had participated in the Watergate cover-up as early as June 23, 1972. His supporters in Congress felt betrayed, and it seemed clear that Nixon would be impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate. On August 8 Nixon announced, without admitting guilt, that he would resign. He left office the next day, and Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as president. VII LAST YEARS On September 8, 1974, President Ford unexpectedly issued a pardon to Nixon for all federal crimes he may have committed while president. In retirement, Nixon wrote and traveled widely and gradually regained some public respect, especially as a foreign policy expert. He was often called upon to discuss Cold War foreign policy, and his expertise on China remained well regarded. He wrote several books on political affairs, including No More Vietnams (1985), In the Arena (1990), and Beyond Peace (1994). Nixon died of a stroke on April 22, 1994, and was buried next to his wife on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.