Richard Nixon's high school senior picture, 1930.
Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, south-western California, on January 9, 1913. His parents, Frank and Hanna Nixon, were poor and had no famous ancestors, neither of them was rich. There was not a political leader among them. Nixon had four brothers, two of them, Arthur and Harold, suffered from tuberculoses and died during his early years. Richard grew up and began grade school in 1918. When he was nine years old the family moved to Whittier in California. He was no good in sports, his co-ordination was poor but he had a talent for music. At seven he learnt to play the piano and the violin. He liked to read and was a gifted student, graduating in 1934 as second in his class at Whittier College in his hometown Whittier, California and third in his class at Duke University Law school in 1937. All this time he had to work to pay for the expensive annual fees for the university. Many of his classmates didn't have to work because they had rich parents. After his graduation at Duke University Law School he didn't succeed in finding a practice in a New York law firm. Nixon returned to Whittier to practise. There he met Thelma Catherine (Pat) Ryan, a teacher at Whittier College and daughter of a truck driver. He married her in 1940. Two years later in 1942 he was enlisted in the United States Navy as a supply officer in the South Pacific during World war II. He was very popular among his men and left service as a lieutenant commander.
He went back in Whittier in 1946 and persuaded by a group of southern California Republicans to challenge Democratic congressman Jerry Voorhis. Nixon campaigned vigorously and accused the liberal Voorhis for being a dangerous left-winger. He won the election by 16,000 votes.
In 1948 and 1949 Nixon became widely known by the American public. He was in the United States House of representatives as a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities during its investigation of what became known as the Hiss Case. A defected member of the Communist Party (CP), journalist Whittaker Chambers, had told the FBI of the existence of a Communist cell inside the government. Chambers accused Alger Hiss of being a communist spy and showed evidence in form of microfilms with top secret government documents on. Hiss got sentenced for many years in prison for espionage.
Richard Nixon and an investigator
inspect microfilm known as the "pumpkin papers" in the
Alger Hiss spy case.
In 1950 Nixon ran for the United States Senate against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. He called her the "Pink Lady" and accused her of having pro-Communist sympathies.
He won the election but was criticized for his campaign tactics. He was called tricky-Dick by his opponents after this campaign.
VICE PRESIDENT
Nixon was nominated in 1952 to be the running mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was nearly dropped from the ticket when it was found by a newspaper, The New York Post, that Nixon as a senator had accepted an $18,000 fund for "political expenses" from California businessmen. The fund was neither secret nor private. It was for political expenses for the campaign but the damage was already made. Nixon was forced to explain his role and did it in a nation-wide televisionspeech. The speech was called the "Checkers"speech because he told the TV-audience that the only gift he had accepted was a dog called Checkers.
This speech saved his political life and Nixon became vice president to Eisenhower.
Nixon was vice president for two terms and in 1960 he easily won the presidential nomination.
He lost to John F Kennedy with only 113,000 votes in 1960 years election.
Nixon then returned to California and challenged Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown in the 1962 gubernational race. Nixon was defeated and had a meeting with the press announcing his withdrawal from active politics. He said to the press: "You don´t have Nixon to kick around anymore".
PRESIDENT
Six years later Nixon made a remarkable comeback and became president of the United States.He defeated the democrat Hubert H. Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election with about 500,000 votes.
President Nixon organized the White House to protect his time and energy. Routine matters and administrative affairs he left to H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and Charles Colson.
Together with Henry A Kissinger his foreign policy advisor he redefined the American role in the world. He ordered a gradual withdrawal of the 500,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam.The withdrawal took four years. During this time the war raged and U.S. casualties raised.Nixon ordered a U.S. incursion in Cambodia in 1970 and the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong Harbour in 1972. All U.S. forces were withdrawn and all known U.S prisoners of war were released before the end of March 1973.
Nixon's 1972 summit meeting in People's Republic of China was a diplomatic triumph that left his critics off-balance. They remembered his fervent anti-Communism.He was the first American president to go there.
A few weeks after his visit in Peking Nixon went to Moscow to negotiate the first step in a strategic arms limitation agreement.
Nixon also established links with Egypt and replaced the USSR as the dominant influence in Egypt.
WATERGATE AND RESIGNATION
Nixon was up for reelection and his popularity was at its peak. He defeated the Democratic senator George S. McGovern by one of the largest majorities in U.S. history. Only one small cloud appeared on the horizon. The newspapers reported on a mysterious burglary at the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The burglars tried to install wiretapping equipment in the building when they got caught by a security guard. The burglars were not regular burglars. They were as it later appeared hired by some of Nixon's closest advisers. A special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, was appointed for this case in May 1973. During the investigation it was known that president Nixon had taped all the conversations at his office by concealed microphones. Archibald Cox asked Nixon to release these vital tapes. He refused and had Cox dismissed in October 1973. The vice president Agnew was charged for bribery and resigned in the same month. The new vice president became Gerald R. Ford of Michigan a popular U.S. congressman. Ford was sworn in on December 6, 1973.
The Watergate investigation continued under supervision by attorney Leon Jaworski
who replaced Cox as special Watergate prosecutor. Jaworski continued to press for the White House tapes, while the House Judiciary Committee began to investigate the case for impeachment. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court demanded Nixon to turn over the last tapes. He did it eventually, and on one of these tapes there was evidence of Nixon's rule in a cover-up on the Watergate break-in. Nixon's closest advisors, Mitchell, Haldeman, Erlichman, and four other White House officials were indicted by a grand jury for their part in the Watergate cover-up. Rather than face almost certain impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. The folloving day vice president Gerald Ford took over as the United States president.
Richard Nixon reads his resignation
as President of the United States, August 8, 1974.
One month later president Ford pardoned Nixon in a controversial act for his role in the Watergate affair. Nixon left the White House for retirement in California. He wrote nine books after his retirement and travelled a lot all around the world.
Nixon had a stroke and died in April 1994.
He was buried next to his wife near the Richard Nixon Library
in Yorba Linda, California.
Sources:
Microsoft Encarta 1995
Time Almanacs 90's
NIXON, volume 1 by Stephen E. Ambrose
NIXON, Ruin and recovery by Stephen E. Ambrose
CBS documentary on Nixon part 1-3
Stefan Ohlsson, 1995 E-mail to Stefan Ohlsson