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Richard M. Nixon Born: January 9, 1913 Died: April 22, 1994 Political Party: Republican Terms in Office: 1st term: 1969-1973 2nd term: 1973-1974 Vice President by years: Spiro Agnew: 1969- December 1973 Gerald Ford: 1974

Its not that President Nixon was bad at his job, it was that he lied to the American people, and that is what got him the D- that he deserves. However, up until the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon was a very good president. Some of his goals were to end the war in Vietnam, unite America once again, have a detente relationship with the soviets, and put limitations on the amount of nuclear warheads. But it was his involvement in the Watergate scandal that would lead to his demise. It is possible to say that Richard Nixon had completed most of his presidential goals before he resigned from office in 1974. He was able to complete his goals by pulling all American ground troops out of Vietnam by 1973 due to the Paris Peace Conference, this also helped him become more friendly with the Soviets at the time. He was able to limit the number of nuclear warheads during the SALT Talks, which reduced the number of warheads and helped create a type of detente with the Soviets and other communist nations.

President Nixon's relationship wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst either. Nixon, the republican president, was able to overwhelm the Democratic Congress with some of his better ideas that he had come up with. A few of the things that he was able to push through Congress was mostly dealing with the environment and the American work force. Nixon was able to pass the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA for short, the Clean Air Act, the Supplemental Security Income, and the Endangered Species Act. Most of the reasoning for the environmental legislation was so there wouldn't be liberal environmental protection. Nixon also passed the most economic legislation since the days of the New Deal and Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Nixon was just as good on the home front as he was on the foreign front.

The best thing that Nixon could've done during his presidency would've been the removal of the United States from the Vietnam War. This was appealing to many Americans because many people were against the war since the beginning. It was also one of the smartest things that Nixon did because it would end the losing of lives in a foreign war. However, I believe that the SALT Talks are very close to being the best thing that Nixon did in his presidency. First off they reduced the number of nuclear warheads that could be obtained by nations. It would also lead to the end of the Cold War in the Bush Administration.

The worst thing that Nixon did during his presidency would've been getting involved in the Watergate Scandal and lying to the American public. This led to the distrust of political leaders after Nixon resigned from office. He commited the worse crime of a president for lying to the American public. If Nixon may have come out and confessed to his mistakes, he might have been left off the hook.

President Nixon had one of the biggest impacts on the future of America by a president. President Nixon in his SALT Talks started to lead the nation towards the end of the Cold War. Another good thing that he helped do was the EPA, which now takes care of the environment and regualtes what is going on with pollution and car emissions. He was able to affect the nation in the worst way ever by cheating the american people. By him lying to them about the Watergate Scandal, he casued the public to distrust any political figure that would assume a leadership role for a few decades.

For all of the good things that Nixon was able to accomplish, the Watergate Scandal brought him down among the ranks of the worst president ever. if he would've had more control of his administrators, maybe Nixon could've been the hero that America was looking for at the time. However, due to the Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon deserves the grade of a D-.

Works Cited:

__American Pageant : Advanced Placement__. Boston: Houghton Mifflin College Division, 2001.

"Impeachment: Richard Nixon." __The History Place__. 08 Jan. 2009 .

"Richard M. Nixon." __Welcome to the White House__. 08 Jan. 2009 .

"Richard Nixon - Mahalo." __Mahalo.com: Human-powered Search__. 08 Jan. 2009 .

"Biography of Richard Nixon." __Watergate.info - The Scandal That Destroyed President Richard Nixon__. 08 Jan. 2009 .