Richard Nixon

I

Introduction

Richard Nixon (1913-1994), 37th president of the United States (1969-1974), and the only president to have resigned from office.

He was elected president of the United States in 1968 in one of the closest presidential elections in the nation’s history and in 1972 was reelected in a landslide victory. Nixon’s second administration, however, was consumed by the growing Watergate scandal, which eventually forced him to resign to avoid impeachment. Nixon was the second youngest vice president in U.S. history and the first native of California to become either vice president or president.

II

Early Life

Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, the second of five sons of Francis Anthony Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon. The Nixons were Scots-Irish and the Milhouses, of Irish and English descent, were members of the Society of Friends, more commonly known as Quakers.

Richard Nixon attended public schools in Whittier, California, and went to Whittier College, a Quaker institution, where he majored in history. He won a scholarship to Duke University Law School and received his law degree in 1937. Nixon joined an established law firm in Whittier and there met his future wife, Thelma (“Pat”) Ryan. They married on June 21, 1940, and had two daughters: Patricia, born in 1946, and Julie, born in 1948.

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Early in World War II (1939-1945), Nixon worked for six months in the Office of Emergency Management, an experience that, he later said, disillusioned him with bureaucracy. He then joined the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant, was assigned to the Naval Air Transport Command, and spent most of his service on a South Pacific island. He left the service in 1946 as a lieutenant commander.

III

Early Political Career

A

United States Congressman

In 1946 Nixon was persuaded by California Republicans to be their candidate to challenge the popular Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis for his seat in the United States House of Representatives. Nixon’s campaign was an example of the vigorous and aggressive style characteristic of his political career. He accused Voorhis of being “soft” on Communism. In 1946, when the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was just beginning, the charge that Voorhis did not sufficiently oppose Communism was damaging. The two men confronted each other in a series of debates, and Voorhis was forced into a defensive position. Nixon won the election by a vote of 65,586 to 49,994.

As a new member of the Congress of the United States, Nixon gained valuable experience in international affairs while serving on a special committee that helped establish the European Recovery Program. Under this program, also known as the Marshall Plan, the United States helped pay for a cooperative, long-term rebuilding program in Europe following the war. Nixon also served on the House Education and Labor Committee, where he helped draft the Taft-Hartley Act on labor-management relations. The act outlawed union shops (workplaces where everyone had to join the union); prohibited such union tactics as secondary boycotts; forbade unions to contribute to political campaigns; established loyalty oaths for union leaders; and allowed court orders to halt strikes that could affect national health or safety (see National Labor Relations Act).

As a member of the Un-American Activities Committee, Nixon personally pressed the investigation of Alger Hiss, a high State Department official. Hiss had been accused of being a Communist by writer and editor Whittaker Chambers, who testified before the committee in 1948. Chambers said that he himself had been a Communist in the 1920s and 1930s and a courier in transmitting secret information to Soviet agents. Chambers charged that Hiss was also a Communist, and that he had turned classified documents over to Chambers to be sent to the USSR. Hiss denied the charges, but Chambers produced microfilm copies of documents that were later identified as classified papers belonging to the Departments of State, Navy, and War, some apparently annotated by Hiss in his own handwriting. The Department of Justice conducted its own investigation, and Hiss was indicted for perjury, or lying under oath. The jury failed to reach a verdict, but Hiss was convicted after a second trial in January 1950 (see Hiss Case). During the investigation Nixon gained a national reputation as a dedicated enemy of Communism and in 1948, he was reelected to Congress after winning both the Republican and Democratic nominations.

B

United States Senator

In 1950 the Republicans chose Nixon as their candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. His opponent was the liberal Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. In another bitterly fought campaign, Nixon linked her voting record with that of the American-Labor-Party congressman from New York, Vito Marcantonio, who was widely regarded as pro-Communist. Nixon won the election by 680,000 votes.

In 1952 Nixon was selected to be the running mate of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had won the Republican presidential nomination. Shortly after Nixon’s vice-presidential nomination, however, it was reported that a fund had been collected to meet his expenses as a senator. His critics implied that he was supported by “favor-seeking millionaires.” No evidence was produced that Nixon had misused the fund or given special favors to contributors, but many of Eisenhower’s advisers wanted Nixon to resign his candidacy. In response Nixon made an impassioned reply on national television in a speech known as the “Checkers” speech because it contained a sentimental reference to Nixon’s dog, Checkers. The speech included a full disclosure of his personal finances, and Eisenhower then kept him as his running mate. In the campaign that followed, Nixon once again attacked the Democrats and their presidential candidate, Illinois Governor Adlai E. Stevenson, as soft on Communism. The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket won a resounding victory. In 1956, Eisenhower and Nixon were reelected, after Nixon survived an attempt by some Republicans to replace him.