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Richard M. Nixon __**// January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994 // //Political Party: Republican // //Terms of Office: January 20, 1969 – January 20, 1973 (1st term); January 20, 1973 – August 9, 1974 (2nd term, resigned) // //Vice Presidents: Spiro T. Agnew (1969 – 1973, resigned); Gerald Ford (1973 – 1974, appointed; after Nixon’s resignation, sworn in as president)//
 * __[[image:http://www.alan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/nixon.jpg width="338" height="410"]]

Richard Nixon was actually a pretty decent president up until all the scandals, specifically Watergate, took place within his presidency. He actually eased tensions with the Soviet Union and even aimed for world peace. Without the major black marks of the scandals on his record, Nixon probably would have earned a B-, but all things considered, he deserves a D+, mostly because he was dishonest and was **forced** to resign from his post.

Nixon had one very large, central goal as president; he wanted world peace, or something extremely close to it. He aimed to “open the world;” mainly having in mind China and the Soviet Union. He definitely temporarily helped the Soviet Union – United States issue, by gaining a time period of détente with them. Nixon helped negotiate arms reduction and other peace measures, particularly the Antiballistic Missile Defense System Treaty, through various visits to and agreements with the Soviet Union. Evidently, this eased the tensions with USSR, but only for a short time. It wasn’t until the Reagan and Bush presidencies that the relations became better for a longer period of time. Nixon achieved the beginnings of his goal with China. It began with him referring to the country by its actual name: the People’s Republic of China. Relations improved in 1971 when Mao Zedong (ruler of China at the time) invited an American table tennis team to their country for a few games. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger thus initiated secret meetings with Chinese executives. It was thought that Nixon held much of the power in the future of relations between the two nations. He therefore took a trip to Beijing and set a smoother course for future years. The last part of this goal involved the Vietnam War. At this point in 1969, the United States was basically fighting South Vietnam’s war for them. In a hope to stop the war, Nixon first spread it to Cambodia and Laos, where the North Vietnamese was supposedly storing weapons. Next, Nixon proposed Vietnamization, which involved withdrawing American troops and turning over the war for the South Vietnamese to fight for themselves. Nixon tried all of these ideas, and each individual one turned out well for him and foreign relations. However, his overall goal of world peace, as one can see from today, failed. It was especially more difficult for him due to the fact that he could not sway Congress sometimes because of the majorities. Basically, total world peace was what one could call an impossible feat for Nixon to accomplish while in office.

The relationship between Nixon and his Congress was definitely not as good as it could have been. In all his years as president, Nixon’s Congress majorities were always the Democrats. Because he did not work very well with the congressmen, he couldn’t pass as much legislation that he wanted and did not further the domestic policy as much as he could have. Despite this, he and his Congress ended up passing bills such as the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972, which helped to ban unsafe products from stores. He ended up vetoing 43 pieces of proposed legislation; of those vetoes, seven were overridden. The most important legislation that was overridden by congress was the War Powers Act of 1793 which restricted the powers of the president to keep the country at war without the approval of Congress. Nixon tried to pass something known as the Family Assistance Program. He successfully got it through the House, but failed to get the senators to pass it. He did not know how to deal with a Democratic-ruled Congress and thus failed to pass the legislation he wanted. Relations took an even further turn for the worst in 1973 when the Watergate Scandal broke out, due to suspicions that Nixon, despite his denial, was involved in it somehow. Obviously, the relationship between Nixon and his Congress was tense for the approximately 5 years he was in office.

The most positive outcome of Nixon’s administration would have to be the foreign policies with Russia. He smoothed over relations with the Soviets starting officially with the Seabed Treaty in 1970. This treaty stated that nuclear weapons were forbidden on the ocean floor of international waters, hence starting the receding of the Cold War and initiating a time period of détente. Then, in 1971, the Chemical Weapons Treaty was agreed upon. This treaty began the destroying of chemical and biological weapon stockpiles and prohibited any additional advancement in the subject area. The SALT Agreement in 1972 was also a huge step forward from the previous Cold War issues between the two nations even though there was no way of truly enforcing the new laws. The SALT Agreement was comprised of two separate agreements; that each of the nations were limited to two antiballistic missile sites, and they agreed to stop the number of strategic offensive ballistic missiles where it was currently. Obviously Nixon knew what he was doing when it came to the foreign relations of the country. However, his largest negative outcome greatly overshadowed any previous success stories he may have had.

Clearly, the most negative outcome of Nixon’s presidency was the Watergate Scandal. On June 17, 1972, five agents from CREEP (Committee to Reelect the President) snuck into the Democratic National Headquarters, and were accused of burglary. What seemed at first like a normal burglary turned into the biggest presidential scandal thus far and even a forced a resignation by President Nixon. They installed eavesdropping devices in the Watergate building, federal officials paid hush money, attempted to cover up criminal acts, and even created an Enemies List, which they planned on using federal power to give issues to their political enemies. Nixon completely denied taking any part of the scandal, until the judiciary in charge of the case asked for tapes that were recordings of Nixon talking about the break-in and confirming his involvement in the scandal. When he finally turned over the tapes, there was approximately an 18 ½ minute gap in the tapes. Nixon claimed it was part of his rights as president to withhold information from Congress and the country. However, eventually he did turn over the tapes. He was henceforth impeached, but before Congress could remove him from office, he resigned. Evidently, considering Nixon lied to the country and broke into a Federal political party office to win an election, this was the most negative outcome of his entire presidency.

One of the largest impacts that occurred during Nixon’s presidency was putting a man on the moon on July 20th, 1969. This man was named Neil Armstrong, Commander of //Apollo 11//. He was the very first man to achieve such a feat. He began the whole idea of space study by going actually to the moon and planets. At this point, the United States and the USSR were in a “battle” over who could get the most technological society in the world, especially pertaining to space exploration. In December of 1972, the last of the moon missions landed involving Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt who spent 75 hours on a lunar surface and collected 250 pounds of moon rock samples. Clearly, one can see that Nixon’s space actions had a far reaching stretch, even today,

Nixon was not a horrible president as many might think. The Watergate scandal was definitely the largest shame on Nixon’s record. Unfortunately, that’s the event that he is most known for. He accomplished many other things before the scandal broke out, but people still perceive him as awful. All things taken into consideration, the grade of a D+ remains the one assigned to Nixon.

Works Cited

"American President: Richard Milhous Nixon." //Miller Center of Public Affairs//. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2010. .

Degregorio, William A. //The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, Seventh Edition (Complete Book of Us Presidents)//. 7 ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009. Print.

"Presidential Vetoes, 1789–2010 — Infoplease.com." //Infoplease: Encyclopedia, Almanac, Atlas, Biographies, Dictionary, Thesaurus. Free online reference, research & homework help. — Infoplease.com//. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2010. . Top of Form  "The Richard M. Nixon Administrations." //Presidential Administration Profiles for Students//. Online Edition. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. [|http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/HistRC/]

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