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Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh President of the United States. On August 9, 1974, as a result of the Watergate affair, Richard Nixon resigned during his second term, becoming the only President in history to leave office in this manner.
Richard Milhous Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California, on January 9, 1913. Soon after his family moved to Whitter, California. Nixon's childhood years were not unusual for someone growing up in two small towns near Los Angeles.
His parents, Frank and Hannah Nixon, were Quakers. Because his father wasn't a smart business man, Nixon grew up relatively poor. But due to this hard times it established a quality of determination and hard work in Nixon. A good student and a hard worker, Nixon excelled scholastically at both Whitter High School and Whitter College. After earning a scholarship to Duke University Law School in 1934, Nixon worked even harder, graduating third in his law school class. He did not, however obtain a offer from a law firm, so he returned to Whitter, where he practiced law fron 1937 until 1942.
His 1938 meeting of Thelma Catherine (Pat) Ryan and their courtship and marriage in 1940 created one of the few memorable events in Nixon's life before entering politics in 1946. The outbreak of World War II placed Nixon in the South Pacific serving in the military as a lieutenant commander between the times of 1942 and 1946. Like most politicians, Nixon's views on government and domestic and foreign policy apperar to have been strongly influenced by his adult experience in the Great Depression and in World War II than by childhood experiences.
Nixon's political career prior to accepting the presidency was controversial. Elected to the 18th Congress in 1946 at the age of 33, he served two terms, then ran successful for the Senate in 1950. By 1952 at the age of 39, he was elected Vice President, and he only narrowly missed being elected for President in 1960, when he was 47. Eight years later Nixon won the presidency in a close contest. In 1972, he was reelected by a landside vote.
In 1948, Nixon, as a Member of the House Un-American Activites Committe, initiated the successful attemp to end the diplomatic and governmental career of Alger Hiss by expossing Hiss's connections with the Communist Party in the 1930's. In the same year he proposed the Mundt-Nixon bill, which would require individual communists and communists organizations to register with the federal government. These actions forever identified Nixon as a hard-line anticommunist.
During his years as Dwight D. Eisenhower's Vice President, Nixon campaigned widely for Republican candidates and in the process obtained the reputation of being the party hatchet man. Although Eiserhower gave him few formal responsibilities, Nixon permanently upgraded the office of Vice President and gave it a much more meaningful role. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1956 and a stroke in 1957. President Eisenhower worked with Nixon to create the office of Acting President in the event he became incapacitated from illness. The formal agreement authorized the Vice President to govern when the President could not discharge the powers and duties of his office.
Nixon's unsuccessful presidential campaign against Kennedy in 1960 provided political lessons he would never forget. Nixon learned the hard was that television would play a significant role in the 1960 election. He lost to Kennedy by only 112,000 popular votes, and ther was strong evidence that the Democrats did not wil legally. Nixon did not challenge the 1960 results.
By 1968, Nixon was once again positioned to win his party's nomination for the presidency. This time unlike 1960, he faced a Democratic Party badly divided over the Vietnam War. In 1972, Nixon won by a land side, with 520 electoral votes and a margin of almost 18 million popular votes. He finally made it to become our 37th President.
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