Nixon, Richard M.

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Richard M. Nixon

Born January 9, 1913
Yorba Linda, California
Died April 22, 1994
New York, New York

Thirty-seventh president of the United States, 1969–1974

Richard M. Nixon became president of the United States at the peak of American involvement in the Vietnam War. During his election campaign, he promised to achieve "peace with honor" in Vietnam, meaning that he planned to end U.S. involvement without allowing South Vietnam to fall to Communist forces. Nixon's main strategy to end the war was "Vietnamization," which involved withdrawing American combat troops gradually over time while also taking steps to strengthen the South Vietnamese government and military for its own defense. While the Vietnamization program did result in the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in early 1973, it failed to prevent the fall of South Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon to win the war two years later. By this time, Nixon had resigned from office in disgrace over the Watergate scandal.

A rapid rise in politics

Richard Milhous Nixon was born January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California. His parents, Francis Anthony and Hannah Milhous Nixon, were working-class people who struggled to support their family by running a lemon farm and grocery store. In 1922 the Nixons moved to Whittier, California. Richard was a good student at Whittier High School and Whittier College. He played football and worked hard to make the starting team, but he soon learned that his real talent was in debate. He earned a scholarship to Duke University Law School in North Carolina in 1934 and graduated three years later near the top of his class.

After earning his law degree, Nixon returned to Whittier and worked for a law firm there, becoming a partner in 1939. During this time he met Thelma Catherine Ryan, known by the nickname Pat. The couple were married in 1940 and eventually had two daughters, Patricia and Julie. During World War II, Nixon joined the U.S. Navy. He served in the South Pacific between 1942 and 1946 and resigned with the rank of lieutenant commander.

Upon completing his military service, Nixon began a rapid rise to prominence in politics. In 1946, at the age of thirty-three, he was elected to serve California in the U.S. House of Representatives. Running as a Republican, Nixon used aggressive campaign tactics to defeat his opponent, Jerry Voorhis, a liberal Democrat who had served five terms in office.

Once in Congress, Nixon became a member of the influential House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). At this time, the United States and the Soviet Union were involved in an intense rivalry, as both nations competed to spread their political philosophies and influence around the world. This period, which was known as the Cold War, created an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in the United States. The HUAC was formed in order to uncover and expose Communists within the U.S. government.

As a member of this committee, Nixon led an investigation into the activities of an American diplomat named Alger Hiss, who was suspected of passing secret U.S. documents to the Soviet Union. Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury (lying while under oath to tell the truth) in a controversial case. The Hiss investigation first brought Nixon to national attention. He used it and the strong anticommunist sentiments of the period to promote his own career.

Becomes vice president of the United States

After serving two terms in the House of Representatives, Nixon was elected to represent California in the U.S. Senate. Once again, he defeated a liberal Democrat by running an aggressive, negative campaign. His opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas, protested against Nixon's "dirty tricks" and gave him the nickname "Tricky Dick." In 1952 Republican presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower asked the young senator to be his vice-presidential running mate. Eisenhower chose Nixon because he was young, enjoyed strong support in California, and was well-known for his anticommunist activities. Eisenhower easily defeated Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in the general election, and Nixon became vice president of the United States just six years after he started his political career.

During his two terms as vice president, Nixon mainly concentrated on foreign policy. He made frequent official visits to other countries on behalf of the U.S. government. In 1956 Nixon traveled to South Vietnam. Two years earlier, Communist-led Viet Minh forces had won the Indochina War to gain Vietnam's independence from France. The Geneva Peace Accords, which formally ended the war, had divided the country in two parts: North Vietnam, with a Communist government under Ho Chi Minh (see entry), and South Vietnam, with a U.S.-supported government under Ngo Dinh Diem (see entry).

The peace agreement had also provided for nationwide free elections to be held in 1956 to reunite the two parts of Vietnam under one government. But President Eisenhower and other U.S. leaders worried that national elections would bring power to the Communists. They felt that a Communist government in Vietnam would increase the strength of China and the Soviet Union and threaten the security of the United States. As a result, Diem and his American advisors refused to hold the elections as scheduled. Nixon's official visit to South Vietnam showed that Diem had the support of the U.S. government.

Eisenhower and Nixon were reelected in 1956. Toward the end of the decade, the president suffered a series of health problems. Nixon exercised greater power during this time and increased his public approval ratings. As the 1960 elections approached, Nixon received the Republican nomination for the presidency. His Democratic opponent was John F. Kennedy (see entry), a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy ran a tough campaign that put Nixon on the defensive. Kennedy surged ahead in the polls after the first nationally televised presidential debate between the two candidates. Nixon appeared nervous and irritable compared to the calm and handsome Kennedy. Nixon ended up losing by only 113,000 popular votes in one of the closest presidential elections ever.

After being defeated in his bid for the presidency, Nixon returned to California. He ran for governor of the state in 1962 but lost again. Afterward, he announced his retirement from politics, telling reporters that "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." For the next few years, Nixon worked in a law firm in New York City. But he also kept his hand in politics, supporting various Republican candidates and making occasional visits to foreign leaders. Before long, he launched a remarkable political comeback.

Leads the United States out of Vietnam as president

During the time that Nixon was out of politics, the United States had become more and more deeply involved in Vietnam. The Communist leaders of North Vietnam grew angry when South Vietnamese President Diem refused to hold national elections to reunite the two parts of the country. Before long, tensions between the two sides erupted into war. President Kennedy sent U.S. military planes and advisors to help South Vietnam defend itself. His successor, Lyndon Johnson (see entry), sent American combat troops to fight on the side of South Vietnam in 1965. But increasing U.S. involvement failed to defeat the Communists. Instead, the war turned into a bloody stalemate, and the American public became bitterly divided over the government's policies toward Vietnam.

The debate over Vietnam had a strong effect on the 1968 presidential election. Tired of being criticized for leading the United States into the war, Johnson decided not to run for reelection. As the Democratic Party tried to select a new candidate for the presidency, their nominating convention in Chicago was interrupted by violent antiwar protests. Nixon claimed the Republican nomination by promising to bring the American people "peace with honor" in Vietnam. He ended up winning the election over Democrat Hubert Humphrey and independent candidate George Wallace to become the thirty-seventh president of the United States.

During his election campaign, Nixon had indicated that he had a "secret plan" for ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. After taking office in January 1969, he began outlining his plan to the American people. Nixon promised to withdraw American combat forces gradually over time, while also taking steps to strengthen the South Vietnamese government and military. He noted that this plan—which became known as "Vietnamization"—would enable the United States to end its involvement in the war without allowing South Vietnam to fall to communism. He began implementing this plan in June 1969, when he withdrew the first 25,000 American troops from Vietnam. Nixon also opened peace talks in Paris with North Vietnamese officials.

At the same time, however, Nixon expanded the war into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos. In 1969 he authorized U.S. bombing raids to wipe out Communist base camps in the border regions. Then in the spring of 1970 Nixon sent U.S. ground troops into Cambodia. He explained that this "incursion" would destroy enemy supply lines, force the North Vietnamese into serious negotiations, and reduce the pressure on South Vietnam so that the Vietnamization program would have time to work. But many Americans viewed the invasion of neutral Cambodia as an escalation of the war. They felt that Nixon had broken his promise to bring American troops home and reach a peaceful settlement. The antiwar movement reacted to the invasion of Cambodia by launching protests across the country. During one of these protests, on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio, four students were shot to death during a confrontation with National Guard troops.

Over the next two years, Nixon managed to quiet the antiwar movement by continuing to move forward with his Vietnamization program. The last American combat troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1972, and the United States reached a peace agreement with North Vietnam in January 1973. When the Paris Peace Accords were signed, many Americans praised Nixon and his administration for their direction of the war effort. The president's supporters argued that his strong leadership enabled the United States to negotiate a cease-fire that allowed it to leave South Vietnam "with honor." Opponents of the war, however, were more critical of Nixon's record in Vietnam. They charged that Nixon's heavy use of bombing resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and injuries, and that U.S. air strikes virtually destroyed large sections of the country. Finally, Nixon's critics argued that he spent four years smashing Vietnam and neighboring countries, only to settle for a peace agreement that was similar in most respects to ones that he had turned down in the late 1960s.

In the months following the signing of the treaty, both South Vietnam and North Vietnam kept fighting in violation of the cease-fire agreement. But the continuing hostilities did not prevent American lawmakers from taking a series of steps designed to ensure that the United States would never again become entangled in Vietnam. For example, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Case-Church Amendment, which explicitly prohibited future U.S. military involvement in Indochina. In November 1973 Congress passed the so-called War Powers Act. This legislation put new limits on the president's powers to commit U.S. troops to military operations without congressional approval. Nixon resented these limits on his military authority, but by this time he lacked the political power to fight Congress.

Resigns in disgrace over the Watergate scandal

During the presidential election of 1972, Nixon was reelected by a huge margin of almost 18 million popular votes over Democratic candidate George McGovern (see entry). But a short time later, his political career was threatened by the Watergate scandal. In the spring of 1972 a group of people associated with Nixon's reelection campaign had broken into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D.C., and stolen secret campaign information. As the investigation into the burglary unfolded in early 1973, it became clear that members of the Nixon administration—and possibly the president himself—had tried to cover up the burglary. The investigation also showed that Republican agents had engaged in a wide range of illegal activities against Democrats and other political opponents over the past few years.

Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew (see entry), resigned from office in October 1973 over charges that he had accepted bribes while he was governor of Maryland. Gerald R. Ford, a Republican senator from Michigan, became Nixon's new vice president a short time later. By 1974 Congress had gathered enough evidence to begin impeachment hearings against Nixon. (The U.S. Constitution says that elected officials can be impeached, or brought up on legal charges, and removed from office if they are convicted of crimes.) Rather than face impeachment, Nixon became the first president in American history to resign from office in disgrace on August 9, 1974. Ford took over as president and granted Nixon an official pardon, meaning that he would never stand trial for any crimes he had committed while in office. By the time the Watergate investigation ended, thirty members of the Nixon administration had been sent to prison.

Nixon's legacy as president was forever tarnished by his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Historians have since claimed that Nixon's behavior in office permanently reduced the level of trust that the American people placed in their leaders. Among the most promising developments during Nixon's presidency was the improvement of relations between the United States and China. Nixon made a historic visit to the Communist-led nation in 1972 to formally open diplomatic relations and trade between the two countries. He also held summit meetings with Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, that began to ease Cold War tensions. Many people found it interesting that Nixon helped improve relations between the United States and these Communist countries, given his earlier reputation as a tough opponent of communism.

After leaving office, Nixon lived quietly in New Jersey for many years. He eventually reemerged on the political scene as an elder statesman. He often traveled overseas to visit foreign leaders, and he acted as an advisor to Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Nixon also published his memoirs and several other best-selling books over the years. He died of a stroke on April 22, 1994, in New York City. All four living former presidents attended his funeral.