Richard Nixon, born on 9 January 1913, was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. He is the only US president to resign from office.
Richard Milhous Nixon was born on 9 January 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, in a house built by his father on the family’s lemon ranch. His parents were Francis A. Nixon and Hannah (Milhous) Nixon. His mother was a Quaker, and his father converted from Methodism to the Quaker faith. The family was poor, and his upbringing was shaped by Quaker observances. He graduated from Whittier College with a bachelor’s degree in 1934 and from Duke University School of Law in 1937, and practised law in California.
In 1942 he moved with his wife, Pat, to Washington, D.C., to work for the federal government, then served in the Naval Reserve in World War II. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946, and his work on the Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist. He won election to the Senate in 1950 and was Dwight Eisenhower’s running mate in 1952 and 1956, serving as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961.
He narrowly lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and lost the 1962 race for governor of California, after which he announced his retirement from politics. He ran again in 1968 and defeated the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
His presidency saw a reduction in US involvement in the Vietnam War, with combat involvement ending in 1973 along with the military draft, though he also ordered military operations and carpet bombing in Cambodia. His 1972 visit to China led to diplomatic relations between the two countries, and he reached détente with the Soviet Union and finalised the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He oversaw the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
At home he created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed laws including the Endangered Species and Clean Air Acts. He implemented the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, ended the direct convertibility of the dollar to gold in 1971, imposed wage and price controls for 90 days, and launched the war on cancer and the war on drugs. He won re-election in 1972 over George McGovern in one of the largest landslides in American history.
In his second term he ordered an airlift to resupply Israel in the Yom Kippur War, a conflict that led to an oil crisis at home. From 1973, revelations about his administration’s involvement in Watergate, a break-in at the Democratic National Committee office ordered by administration officials and followed by a cover-up of which he was aware, eroded his support. On 9 August 1974, facing almost certain impeachment and removal, he resigned, and on 8 September his successor, Gerald Ford, gave him a controversial pardon.
In nearly 20 years of retirement he wrote nine books and made many foreign trips, rehabilitating his image into that of an elder statesman and foreign-affairs expert. He suffered a stroke on 18 April 1994 and died four days later.
Image: Richard Nixon with Prince Charles in the Oval Office (file photo). Photo: White House Photo Office / US National Archives / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
