Richard Milhous Nixon Life's Journey

Richard Milhous Nixon was born on 9 Born in January 1913, built on the lemon ranch his parents, Francis Anthony Nixon (1878-1956) and Hannah Milhous Nixon (1885-1967), in a house of his father in Yorba Linda, California. Richard was the second of five brothers: Harold (1909-1933), Donald (1914-1987), Arthur (1918-1925) and Edward (1930 -). His early life was marked by financial hardship and the death of his brothers Harold and Arthur marks. In 1922, after the failure of Nixon's' Ranch, the family moved closer to Hannah relatives in Whittier, California. There, Frank Nixon opened a combination grocery store and gas station, where Nixon spent the entire family to make ends meet.

Student, lawyer, and Sailor

 
Nixon enrolled at nearby Whittier College in September 1930. He has been an active student, pursuing his interests in student government, drama and football while living at home and help run the family store. Nixon won a scholarship to attend the Duke
University law school in May 1934, where he was president of the Student Union Bar Association and a member of the Law Review. He graduated in June 1937. Nixon returned to Whittier and joined the law firm Wingert and Bewley. On 16 January 1938 he met Thelma Catherine Ryan, playing a teacher universally known as "Pat," at a rehearsal for a community in which they were both working. Smitten, Nixon pursued Ryan, and they were on 21 June 1940, in the Presidential Suite of the Mission Inn in Riverside, California, married and their honeymoon in Mexico.
In January 1942 the Nixons moved to Washington, DC, where Nixon joined the Office of Price Administration. He soon left the bureaucracy and entered the Navy on 17 August 1942. riginally assigned to a naval base in Ottumwa, Iowa, Nixon asked and received a transfer to the South Pacific Theater, where he served with the Combat Air Transport Command on the island of New Caledonia and Bougainville in the Solomon Islands and later Green Iceland.

Early political career

 
Congressman

 
After the end of the war, prominent Republicans approached Nixon in Whittier to run for Congress in 1946. Nixon accepted the offer, and on 6th November 1946, defeated Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis of more than fifteen thousand votes. He moved to Washington with his wife Pat and their young daughter, Patricia (also known as "Tricia"), on 21 February 1946 had been born. (Their second daughter, Julie, was born in 1948 on July 5.)
As a congressman he was on the Education and Labor Committee and supported the adoption of the Taft-Hartley Act, which severely limited the powers of the unions. 1Nixon also served on the Herter Committee, which traveled to Europe to prepare a preliminary report on the Marshall Plan.
In 1948, as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), he played the leading role in the investigation against former State Department official Alger Hiss of
Spying for the Soviet Union before and during the Second World War. The case turned the young Congressman into a national figure and controversial, because many individuals claimed Hiss's innocence. Published until decades later, after the end of the Cold War, intelligence information from both the U.S. government and the Russian government confirm Hiss's guilt. 

Vice President

 Nixon's importance as an anti-communist soon brought him more national attention. General Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate for president in 1952, selected Nixon as his running mate on the Republican Convention in Chicago on 11 July 1952.Two months later the New York Post ran an article about this campaign donor bought influence with Nixon by roviding him with a secret cash fund for his personal expenses. Nixon defended himself against the allegations, noting that the fund was neither secret nor unusual, and produced an independent audit shows that the funds were used only for political purposes. In order to rebut his critics, Nixon appeared on television's biggest audience in history up to today. In the live, nationally broadcast, Nixon's personal financial history in detail and then outflanked his critics say that his family had accepted a campaign gift for yourself, a loved black and white cocker spaniel named Checkers she intended to keep. The speech was a great success, offshoring its support for the Republican Party base, demonstrating his appeal to the general public, and thus keeps him on the Republican ticket and proof of the importance of television as a political medium.In November 1952, Eisenhower and Nixon defeated the Democratic ticket for andi dates, presidential candidate Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson and Alabama Senator John Sparkman running mate of seven million votes. 2 And Eisenhower, Nixon, the vice president a visible and important position. Nixon under the chairmanship of the National Security Council meeting in the President's absence and made many goodwill tours of foreign countries in an effort to support for U.S. policy during the Cold War. On one such trip to Caracas, Venezuela, on 13 May 1958, protesters on the first Vice President and Mrs. Nixon at the airport spat. Later that day, rioters attacked Nixon's motorcade and injured Venezuelan foreign minister, and Pat Nixon and threatening with death. Nixon drew international attention for his composure in the face of anti-American demonstrations. 

In July 1959, Eisenhower sent Nixon to the Soviet Union to the United States at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, represented the Soviet capital. During a tour of the exhibition with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the couple stopped at a model of an American kitchen. There engaged in an impromptu discussion about the American standard of living, increased rapidly in an exchange on the two countries' ideological and military strength. Nixon's performance in the "kitchen debate" continued to increase his stature in the United States.
In 1960, facing little competition Nixon won the Republican nomination for president and chose former Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, for his running mate. The 1960 election was a hotly contested debate between Nixon and the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, who was also elected to Congress in 1946. Many observers then and later found that the turning point came at the very first elevised debates. Nixon wears little makeup, looked wan and uncomfortable, while Kennedy appeared to be cool, composed and confident. In November, Nixon lost to Kennedy by fewer than 120 000 votes or 0.2 percent of the vote. Rumors of election irregularities from Senator Kennedy's supporters from the competition seem even closer. 

Wilderness Years 

After the defeat of the Nixon family left Washington in January 1961 and returned to Southern California, where Nixon as a lawyer and wrote a best-selling memoirs, Six Crises. During 1961, the local and national Republican leaders encouraged Nixon for governor in 1962 running against Democratic incumbent Edmund G. "Pat" Brown, Sr., arguing that the stay on the sidelines would mean the end of Nixon's political life. Despite initial reluctance, Nixon entered the race. His campaign was a COMBINATION of the public suspicion that Nixon viewed the office as a springboard, the opposition of the extreme right of his own party and his own lack of interest in Governor hobbled. He lost to Brown by nearly 300,000 votes. Considered at the time, even Nixon's defeat as the end of his career in politics, told reporters on election night that "you do not have Nixon to kick around anymore because, entlemen, this is my last press conference." 

After his defeat of the Nixon family relocated to New York City, where Nixon back his practice as a lawyer. Later, after he became president, Nixon called this period his "wilderness years", his time compares to similar deposits from office in the lives of people such as Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle. lthough largely from the public eye, Nixon remained active in politics, said the policy of the Kennedy Johnson administrations and 3and campaigns for Republican candidates. Nixon retained the support of many Republicans around the country, his knowledge of politics and international affairs, a good reputation in 1967 by Nixon article "Asia After Vietnam" in the respected journal Foreign Affairs significant increase. Nixon's efforts on behalf of Republican congressman andi dates around the country in 1966 further strengthened his support among members of the party. 

President

1968 Campaign 

In January 1968, Nixon decided to once again seek the nomination of the Republican Party for president. Portraying himself as a figure of stability in a time of national upheaval, Nixon promised a return to traditional values and “law and order.” He fended off challenges from other candidates such as California Governor Ronald Reagan, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and Michigan Governor George Romney to secure
the nomination at the Republican convention in Miami. Nixon unexpectedly chose Governor Spiro Agnew of Maryland as his running mate.

Nixon’s campaign was helped by the tumult within the Democratic Party in 1968. Consumed by the war in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not seek re-election. On June 5, immediately after winning the California primaries, former attorney general and then-U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (brother of the late president John F. Kennedy) was assassinated in Los Angeles. The campaign of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee for president, went into a tailspin after the Democratic national convention in Chicago was marred by mass protests and violence. By contrast, Nixon appeared to represent a calmer society, and his campaign promised peace at home and abroad. Despite a late surge by Humphrey, Nixon won by nearly 500,000 popular votes. Third-party candidate George Wallace, the once and future governor of Alabama, won nearly ten million popular votes and 46 electoral
votes, principally in the Deep South. 

First Term 

 
Once in office, Nixon and his staff faced the problem of how to end the Vietnam War, which had broken his predecessor’s administration and threatened to cause major unrest at home. As protesters in America’s cities called for an immediate withdrawal from Southeast Asia, Nixon made a nationally televised address on November 3, 1969, calling on the “silent majority” of Americans to renew their confidence in the American
government and back his policy of seeking a negotiated peace in Vietnam. Earlier that year, Nixon and his Defense Secretary Melvin Laird had unveiled the policy of “Vietnamization,” which entailed reducing American troop levels in Vietnam and transferring the burden of fighting to South Vietnam; accordingly, U.S. troop strength in Vietnam fell from 543,000 in April 1969 to zero on March 29, 1973. Nevertheless, the
Nixon administration was harshly criticized for its use of American military force in Cambodia and its stepped-up bombing raids during the later years of the first term.Nixon’s foreign policy aimed to reduce international tensions by forging new links with old rivals. In February 1972, Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai in 4China for talks with Chinese leaders Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. Nixon’s trip was the first high-level contact between the United States and the People’s Republic of China in more than twenty years, and it ushered in a new era of relations between Washington and Beijing. Several weeks later, in May 1972, Nixon visited Moscow for a summit meeting with Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and other Soviet leaders. Their talks led to the
signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, the first comprehensive and detailed nuclear weapons limitation pact between the two superpowers. 

Foreign policy initiatives represented only one aspect of Nixon’s presidency during his first term. In August 1969, Nixon proposed the Family Assistance Plan, a welfare reform that would have guaranteed an income to all Americans. The plan, however, did not receive congressional approval. In August 1971, spurred by high inflation rates, Nixon imposed wage and price controls in an effort to gain control of price levels in the U.S.
economy; at the same time, prompted by worries over the soundness of U.S. currency, Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard and let it float against other countries’ currencies.  

On July 19, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Earth’s moon, while fellow astronaut Michael Collins orbited in the Apollo 11 command module. Nixon made what has been termed the longest-distance telephone call ever made to speak with the astronauts from the Oval Office. And on September 28, 1971, Nixon signed legislation abolishing the military draft.

In addition to such weighty affairs of state, Nixon’s first term was also full of lighterhearted moments. On April 29, 1969, Nixon awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Duke Ellington—and then led hundreds of guests in singing “Happy Birthday” to the famed band leader. On June 12, 1971, Tricia became the sixteenth White House bride when she and Edward Finch Cox of New York married in the Rose Garden. (Julie had wed Dwight David Eisenhower II, grandson of President Eisenhower, on December 22, 1968, in New York's Marble Collegiate Church, while her father was President-elect.) Perhaps most famous was Nixon’s meeting with Elvis Presley
on December 21, 1970, when the president and the king discussed the drug problem facing American youth.

Re-election, Second Term, and Watergate

 
In his 1972 bid for re-election, Nixon defeated South Dakota Senator George McGovern, the Democratic candidate for president, by one of the widest electoral margins ever, winning 520 electoral college votes to McGovern’s 17 and nearly 61 percent of the popular vote. Just a few months later, investigations and public controversy over the Watergate scandal had sapped Nixon’s popularity. The Watergate scandal began with the June 1972 discovery of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., but media and official investigations soon revealed a broader pattern of abuse of power by the Nixon administration, leading to his resignation. 

The Watergate burglars were soon linked to officials of the Committee to Re-elect the President, the group that had run Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. Soon thereafter, several administration officials resigned; some, including former attorney general John Mitchell, were later convicted of offenses connected with the break-in and other crimes and went to jail. Nixon denied any personal involvement with the Watergate burglary, but the courts forced him to yield tape recordings of conversations between the president and
his advisers indicating that the president had, in fact, participated in the cover-up, including an attempt to use the Central Intelligence Agency to divert the FBI’s investigation into the break-in.

Investigations into Watergate also revealed other abuses of power, including numerous warrantless wiretaps on reporters and others, campaign “dirty tricks,” and the creation of a “Plumbers” unit within the White House. The Plumbers, formed in response to the leaking of the Pentagon Papers to news organizations by former Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg, broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.

Adding to Nixon’s worries was an investigation into Vice President Agnew’s ties to several campaign contributors. The Department of Justice found that Agnew had taken bribes from Maryland construction firms, leading to Agnew’s resigning in October 1973 and his entering a plea of no contest to income tax evasion. Nixon nominated Gerald Ford, Republican leader in the House of Representatives, to succeed Agnew. Ford was confirmed by both houses of Congress and took office on December 6, 1973. 

Such controversies all but overshadowed Nixon’s other initiatives in his second term, such as the signing of the Paris peace accords ending American involvement in the Vietnam war in January 1973; two summit meetings with Brezhnev, in June 1973 in Washington and in June and July 1974 in Moscow; and the administration’s efforts to secure a general peace in the Middle East following the Yom Kippur War of 1973.

The revelations from the Watergate tapes, combined with actions such as Nixon’s firing
of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, badly eroded the president’s standing
with the public and Congress. Facing certain impeachment and removal from office,
Nixon announced his decision to resign in a national televised address on the evening of August 8, 1974. He resigned effective at noon the next day, August 9, 1974. Vice President Ford then became president of the United States. On September 8, 1974, Ford pardoned Nixon for “all offenses against the United States” which Nixon “has committed or may have committed or taken part in” during his presidency. In response, Nixon issued a statement in which he said that he regretted “not acting more decisively and forthrightly
in dealing with Watergate.”

After Public Office

 
Following his resignation, Nixon and his wife returned to their home in San Clemente, California, where they lived until moving to New York City in 1980. In 1981, they moved to northern Bergen County, New Jersey.

In retirement, Nixon traveled throughout the United States and dozens of countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Mideast. In 1981, Nixon joined former presidents Ford and Jimmy Carter as an official representative of the United States to the state funeral of Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat. On other trips, although formally a private citizen, Nixon’s reputation as an elder statesman won him audiences with world leaders,
including Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. In 1986, on one such private visit to Moscow, Nixon met with Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union. On his return, Nixon sent President Ronald Reagan a lengthy memorandum that contained Nixon’s impressions of Gorbachev and suggestions for future diplomatic interactions with the Soviets.

In addition to his travels, Nixon kept up a full schedule of speaking and writing, completing ten books during his post-presidential lifetime. He also helped plan and build his presidential library and birthplace memorial in Yorba Linda.
Pat Nixon died of lung cancer in the early morning of June 22, 1993, in Park Ridge, New Jersey, with her husband and two daughters at her side. Funeral services were held at the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California. Many notables, including California Governor Pete Wilson, Senator Robert Dole, and Rev. Billy Graham, spoke at her funeral. 

Nixon died on April 22, 1994, in New York City and was buried in Yorba Linda, California on April 27, 1994. The eulogists at his state funeral were President William J. Clinton, Senator Dole, Governor Wilson, and Nixon’s national security adviser and second secretary of state, Dr. Henry Kissinger.

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