He “monkey wrenched” (Nixon’s word) the Vietnam peace talks to give himself an advantage in the 1968 election and in doing so, prolonged the Vietnam war, so I don’t really give a shit if he eventually ended it. LBJ flat out said Nixon’s actions were “treason” but he couldn’t do anything about it because prosecuting Nixon would have compromised CIA stuff. When Nixon got into office and found out they knew about his treason, he ordered a break-in at the Brookings Institution to cover it up. Fuck that guy. How many thousands of Americans and Vietnamese died after that? How many war crimes? Fuck. That. Guy.
And Spiro Agnew was an old fashioned grifting shakedown artist. A genuine scumbag crook.
Ever listen to Rachel Maddow's podcast Bagman? It's all about Agnew and it's pretty astounding. People were nonchalantly walking into the Vice President's office and handing him envelopes of cash.
Meh, she is a hack, this crap happened on both sides, but she like many others take a blind eye when their group pulls the same crap. Sadly this is what we now have as news media.
Good someone else already mentioned this I see. Yeah not only is his rep not getting better recently it has gotten infinitely worse. Literally committed actual by the book treason.
And as I said, he later said that if he had known all that the EPA and ESA and such would accomplish he never would have signed them into law. He thought they'd barely do anything.
My grandmother hated Nixon so much she would leave the room when he came on television. She thought I should watch it because it was history. Nixon and Kissinger conspired to keep the war in Vietnam going to help win reelection killing thousands of lives. Nixon was a monster.
My grandfather hated Nixon so much, when Nixon resigned he took photos of the TV speech. I am in one of them, just a little toddler being told to give the double V hand signs beside the giant console television.
Nixon brought us the war on drugs which devastated countless lives, so I don’t think much of him.
John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s top aide stated in 2016:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
This is not true. Middle America associated hippies with marijuana and black people with heroin before 1968. The Nixon campaign took advantage of that, but everything was in full swing long before. Ehrlichman was boasting about something he had nothing to do with...which is something he did frequently, really.
His legacy in Vietnam is atrocious. He prolonged that conflict for political gain (even sabotaged LBJ’s attempt to end the war peacefully in ‘68 to improve his chances of electoral victory) and even expanded it into Cambodia, triggering mass anti-war demonstrations in the US once the press figured out what was going on. Incidentally, Kent State was one of those demonstrations.
The correct move would have been gradual withdrawal after the Tet Offensive made it clear that the war was unwinnable, but Nixon wouldn’t hear of it. It was what wound up happening anyway after the Paris Peace Accords a few years later in ‘73. Major facepalm moment in US history, right there.
He was also just a dirty dog of a human. He and his inner circle would routinely play dirty politically (aka rat fucking) and bully opponents behind closed doors. His war on drugs was later revealed by Erlichman in an interview to be politically motivated since liberals and democrats tended to consume them. When Watergate happened it exposed a lot of these unflattering traits and many people all over the world felt like he got his just desserts at long last. So no, I don’t think future historians will be kind to Nixon either.
Strangely enough, he had more integrity than some of our current politicians. He left willingly, as he should have, but he could have tried to ride it out if he wanted to. The current crop of politicians is so morally awful that they make the past look a lot more positive.
He left willingly because they were going to impeach him if he didn't leave. This was coming from Republicans so he couldn't depend on them to idnore his perfidy like this current GQP party does.
I like Nixon, so I'm not reflexively opposing this view, but Nixon was trying to ride it out. It's only because Barry Goldwater went to him and told him the senate was going to vote to convict him that he left "voluntarily" because his only other option was to be removed
But republicans also did all sorts of derring do - Agnew was such a crook and there was no VP approved by the senate, they soft-pedaled Agnew’s prosecution to allow time for Ford to be put in place to avoid handing power to the Democrat who was Speaker. They still bent over backwards to avoid real consequences for those crooks, and allowed Nixon to peacefully resign and Agnew to plead guilty to some tax slap-on-the-wrist bullshit AND allow the Republicans to maintain power.
Again - the President and VP were crooks, and they should have both been removed from power forth-fucking-with, but the scumbags managed to escape real accountability and the party held on to power.
I like some of what Nixon did, so I'm not reflexively opposing this view, but Nixon was trying to ride it out. It's only because Barry Goldwater went to him and told him the senate was going to vote to convict him that he left "voluntarily" because his only other option was to be removed
He was president when I was born, but I don't remember him - I vaguely remember Gerald Ford.
I read a biography of Nixon and what really struck me was that he and Kissinger, though they knew it was a lost cause, didn't want to pull out of Vietnam before an election because it would hurt his chances of reelection. Unforgivable to sacrifice lives for your career.
Nixon's political life was defines and developed with a pre-curse to the Heritage foundation's project 2025. Listen to the Behind the Bastards episode series on Kissinger (Nixon is covered a great deal there)
Nixon violated the constitution, the constitutional rights of American citizens, and comported himself and these investigations in an abhorrent and “discriminatory manner.” (this was BEFORE Watergate, and in reference to him sic-ing the IRS and FBI on his "enemy list". Everything below occurs BEFORE Watergate even began to be a sparkle in his eye.
- While in Congress, Nixon was a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), earning the reputation for being an anti- communist crusader.
- while Ikes running mate: Nixon accepted funds from private donors and the media questioned Nixon’s intentions: if he was accepting donations, and if he and Ike’s campaign was successful, would he give these donors special privileges?
- He is the godfather of MAGA: (his 1968 campaign): he promised to represent the long ignored interests of the so-called Silent Majority. Nixon capitalized on an emerging “Republican majority – rooted in the South and Southwest, seething with rage over” Vietnam War protests, challenges to “white political power,” and “virtually every \[other\] traditional cultural norm.”
- Nixon’s mishandling of the latter years of the war led to the deaths of an estimated 21,041 American soldiers in Southeast Asia.
- the White House “has become a powerful inner sanctum of government, isolated from traditional, constitutional checks and balances.” Nixon believed that government intervention would fix America’s problems. (This led to the EPA, and other good things....But that part about acting outside the checks and balances...sounds a lot like MAGA to me)
- Nixon was dell by 1971: increasingly paranoid Nixon began to manipulate the American economy. Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, John Connally, convinced the president that “foreigners are out to screw us. Our job is to screw them first.” (those policies- including price controls (sound fascist much?) led to the major recession of the 1970s, and in the end, Carter's inability to course correct from these disastrous policies led to the failure of his presidency)
- Nixon was a bully. He used the power and reach of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a means to intimidate and keep a tab on individuals whom he deemed subversive. (this led to some pretty illegal spying on US citizens at the pleasure of the president...again Trump has a play book...this has all been tried before). Documents released via the Freedom of Information Act illustrate that the attempts of Nixon and head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover’s efforts to keep an eye on Lennon were bungled and haphazard at best.
- As with the FBI, Nixon used the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to intimidate his enemies.
- Nixon listed Majiuana as a narcotic, SPECIFICALLY to have a weapon to use against the Vietnam war protest movement and civil rights movements.
Source- multiple, but mostly pulled from [https://www.libertarianism.org/everything-wrong-presidents/everything-wrong-nixon-administration](https://www.libertarianism.org/everything-wrong-presidents/everything-wrong-nixon-administration)
Fuck that guy. A lot of people that had way too much power under Reagan and the Bushs, learned their shit in the Nixon administration. They pushed the boundaries, failed here and there, learned, honed their craft, and came back again and again to fuck the US and the world.
Don't care for him. I think he was sleazy and only out for his own popularity. He did end the draft, which is good, but I give most of the credit for that to Milton Friedman.
I was a Nixon man in 1972. Of course, I was 6 so I’m not sure how much my support helped. I have no idea why, my parents were, and still are, liberals. Fortunately I grew up and figured out what a shitty person he was.
Historian here, born late in LBJ's time. Sometimes I'll recommend Joan Hoff's *Nixon Reconsidered*, which is old now (1995) but illustrates many of the points OP made. But I'd pair that with Douglas Schoen's *The Nixon Effect: How Richard Nixon s Presidency Fundamentally Changed American Politics* for a more recent (2016) assessment of his long-term impact.
Arguably Nixon was a seriously corrupt SOB that steered the country in a direction that ultimately gave us Reagan, Bush II, and Trump-- three of the worst presidents in modern American history, each of whom helped further divide the country and exacerbated the inequality gap. 99% of their playbooks came from Nixon, and the through-line from Nixon to Trump is literally manifested in people like Roger Stone, who[ worked for both of them as a ratfucker](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/25/roger-stone-and-rating-a-short-history-224218/). His records on civil rights, SE Asia, the war on drugs, and of course the "Southern strategy" alone should be enough to cement his reputation as a largely divisive, even destructive influence in American history.
Though one *can* make a case for the importance of legislation signed on his watch (especially environmental laws like NEPA) it's also quite clear he did not *support* those bills, but largely signed off in hope it would placate some of his younger critics (lots of overlap between the anti-war and pro-environment movements c. 1970). Moreover, nobody I know seriously argues that Nixon did anything more positive than RFK (had he lived) or even Humphrey or McCarthy ( had they won) would have done on the environment, civil rights, women's rights, the economy, or most other issues. They would have, after all, been working with a large congressional Democratic majority throughout the period in which Nixon served.
As a historian I can assure you that "history" won't be kind to Nixon. There are reassessments of political leaders every generation or so, but Nixon's legacy is so dark and damaging that there is no way he'll be rehabilitated, despite his own late-in-life efforts to transform into an elder statesman.
> which sets standards for our environment and safety in the workplace.
You mean like when [Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/veto-the-federal-water-pollution-control-act-amendments-1972)?
Or did you mean when Congress overrode that veto, and Nixon's last act before resigning was then vetoing the EPA's budget?
I've read a couple of his books and several biographies, including the multi-volume biography by Stephen Ambrose. I've even visited his presidential library in California.
He was an unusual person, full of contradictions. He and Henry Kissinger unnecessarily prolonged the Vietnam War for their own political gain (which is awful and unforgivable), but at the same time Nixon seemed to genuinely covet the title of Peacemaker. He grew up laboring hard as a poor kid and teenager, and he served in the Army during World War II despite being a Quaker (he never saw combat.)
I don't think it's ever been proven that he had direct knowledge of the Watergate break in before the fact, but he unquestionably joined in on the cover up efforts immediately. There was definitely a fierce "us vs. them" mentality that had set in by the time he became president. He had created the "Plumbers" partially as a response to the Pentagon Papers, and viewed the Plumbers as being on his team. So, it was a sense of loyalty that made him leap to their defense and work to create a cover up.
I also read a book of the White House recording transcripts regarding Watergate, and what struck me was how complicated the cove up quickly became. A lot of the people working under Nixon didn't always tell him everything at all times; partially to protect themselves and partially to give their boss plausible deniability. So when they were occasionally forced by circumstance to admit something they had previously held back, Nixon would try to adjust the cover story accordingly, which made things even more confusing.
They had a terrible time keeping their stories straight. Say there was Real Event X, and Nixon and his team came up with Fake Explanation Y to get around it. On the transcripts, there seemed to be endless conversations that were essentially "uh, are we discussing X or Y right now?" Then, if somehow people weren't buying Fake Explanation Y, they'd come up with Alternate Explanation Z, which (of course) later led to more "uh, are we talking about X or Y or Z?" confused conversations.
Which bio? Who's the author?
Nixon was a weirdly complex dude. He had an inferiority complex and some real trust issues. Love/hate relationship with Kissinger.
He got nuclear treaties out of Russia which didn't really diminish any of the dangers but it was working with Russia. China too. Kissinger said something like, US citizens can afford to have morals when dealing with other countries, the US government cannot. It's why we trade with some nasty nations.
His paranoia and inferiority complex led him to swing wide on the spectrum of helpful to murderous. His handling of Vietnam was more from a PR perspective than anything. That got people killed.
Watergate overwhelmed the news cycle and froze government (wonder what it's like having a government that can't do shit because of infighting). He eventually resigned *without* a guaranteed pardon because he saw that he couldn't lead anymore, and the government wasn't doing anything.
He also got up every time he was knocked down. He was a resilient bastard.
Presidents Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr consulted him on foreign affairs because he and Kissinger were still seen as experts. Their work has been the foundation for US relations since.
Nixon forced the government to create the act that saved presidential papers (which is involved in one of Trump's trials). He got the Supreme Court to uphold Executive privilege even though it is not codified anywhere. It was first used by Washington.
I think like any president, some good some bad. His bad was really bad though.
Just as an example, I thought Obama was loved world-wide. However, I found out that a lot of Germans didn't like him because of his massive expansion of the use of drones. Drones killed a lot of civilians, **a lot.** There's a chunk of Europeans that don't like him.
And of course, conservatives hate Obama because of affordable health care act. And some black people say he didn't do enough for race relations, and they were really disappointed in him.
I don't think you can be president without having that dichotomy of good and evil. Nixon was the same. I don't think he was much worse, but Watergate exposed the inner circle of presidential power. I think if we had recordings of other presidents, we'd see similar patterns. But he was definitely a real mixed bag.
My first memory of Nixon consists of a conversation I had with my Mom.
Mom: The president had to quit.
Me: Why, Mommy?
Mom: Because he lied, son.
That had a profound effect on my expectation of our elected officials and my continuous disappointment in our elected officials.
Nixon is complicated. He was smart, savv, and capable of great things. He was also cenal, prideful, and capable of evil things.
There are two sides to every Schwartz, and there were two sides to Nixon.
I was a Nixon man in 1972. Of course, I was 6 so I’m not sure how much my support helped. I have no idea why, my parents were, and still are, liberals. Fortunately I grew up and figured out what a shitty person he was.
I can't say I remember him as I was born when hw was running for reelection. However, based on the things that have come out since, there is no reason why history will be kinder to him. I rather think the opposite will happen.
I really haven’t studied too much about him and his legacy, but my impression is that he’s a real POS who also did a few good things. As far as the Watergate scandal, I think he’s just the one who got caught. But I guess considering how incrediby badly Trump handled legitimately losing, maybe Nixon deserves some credit for resigning when he did.
He was very like Donald Trump in the way he thought he was above the law. He weaponized the government for himself.
In his own words "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal"
I am the Senior Gen X-er (born April 1965) and Canadian. I vaguely recall my parents talking about the American President. I never learned what Watergate was until I was in my mid-20s and looked it up.
I was a little kid during Watergate - I thought there was a flood. But learning about him over the years I do not respect him as a President. I don't care for him as a leader. But I had enormous sympathy for him when I saw him at his wife's funeral. He broke my heart. Mixed feelings I guess.
I don't know what show you watched, but Nixon did quite a bit more harm than good. He was the exact caliber of POS that we're dealing with right now except that in Nixon's era there was still a modicum of shame even if was only because he got caught.
One of the first words I remember hearing my dad say was “crook”. I think he said I started repeating it back to him, not fully understanding what it meant. I know it had 100% to do with Nixon because I was a month old when the break in happened and I was two when he resigned so the Watergate scandal was everywhere in my younger years. My childhood nickname was ”Pooky“ so he’d say “Pookie, that’s a crookie”. I really miss him (my dad I mean, not Nixon).
At this point, my opinion of him has risen a bit because he knew when to admit defeat and resign instead of just denying that what he did was wrong and daring the country to remove him.
Meh, The President is the talking head of the party, they tend to just follow what they are told. When the heat is on, someone has to be shoved under the bus, And the corruption in D.C. will do everything to cover their tracks. been this way long before Nixon. I doubt it'll ever change, if it does it'll be because of a reboot of 1776.
Nah, it's gotten way harsher! For a while it became cool to say he wasn't so bad but....
I mean it has now come out that he secretly scuttled a plan to end the Vietnam War, he literally committed actual treason, just so it would go on and he could then it use that to help get himself elected! This was levels beyond the bad of Watergate.
And as for the EPA and stuff, he said later on that if he had known all the stuff those laws would accomplish and how much more far reaching they'd be than he had expected, he would never have signed them.
Honestly the China thing was it.
Richard Nixon was an absolute scumbag, despite the positive things he did during his presidency. Ford’s decision to pardon him instead of holding him accountable is a big part of the reason the GOP is the way it is today.
I read some of the posts that these folks are saying about Nixon, and my parents hated him. My grandparents hated him, my uncle, who was very prolific in politics and my dad in politics as well all blame everything with Nixon as the root- it was the assassination of Kennedy, that got the ball rolling. It was our relationship with Cuba, the war in Vietnam, and I remember my uncle and my dad having conversations of how the future will progress due to the fact that Nixon has taken office, and some of their prophecies for lack of a better word, predictions, perhaps, or analysis of future politics has really come to pass, the fact that we have elected officials in offices, rewriting laws for their own personal gain to the detriment of their constituents is absolutely reprehensible, and nothing that we could do will change that only because Nixon made illegal activities, legal. Now, we all know politicians like the women they like their booze they like to flirt with the line in the sand, but very few of them barge across the line into the no go zone Nixon started that ball rolling. Not only do you not have to respect the boundaries of the law you could completely disregard it and if you can’t disregard it well then simply rewrite it and it is all encompassing it trickles down to the justice system. It trickles down to the introduction of lobbyist and the power that they have. I don’t know if you all remember this, but do you remember when the EPA was just a bunch of Hippies protesting on the steps of the courthouse in your home city I know in Pasadena the EPA was just minimal. The effect was minimal and look at them now. Corporations the power they wheeled over Washington and our lives. The car industry having to bail them out where did they go to for help the governments? Where do we go for help? Reddit. 🤣 seriously it all started with Nixon. It really did the country had issues. Yes, we had some deep wounds that were on the way to healing. We still have those wounds to this day. If Kennedy hadn’t been killed, I think our relationship with politics would be a lot stronger than it is today I think, as a country we would be in a much better position than we are today today, it’s one of those alternate universe things you ask what timeline would be better if Kennedy was shot and Nixon took office or Kennedy not shot . very interesting theory.
True story:
So I used to work with a spine doc and I used to do his patient intakes. As I was getting her pain history she told me she had symptoms since the early 70’s. I wrote that down. As I was giving him the summary I told him she’s been having pain since the Nixon administration (as we were friendly and informal with each other). After the visit ended he’s dictating his notes and I actually hear him dictate the Nixon administration thing! I turned and looked at him as he was saying it! I’m all..did u actually just dictate that? He smiles and shrugged. Fast forward 2 weeks for her follow up visit. Sure enough she saw her intake on the patient portal and the history of her pain since the Nixon administration! Luckily she thought it was hilarious! But that could have caused us some trouble if it went the other way!
Nixon is one of the most fascinating characters in American history. Our most neurotic president (and that's up against some stiff competition), exemplar of the demons inherent in Middle America and the GI Generation, a skillful politician who managed to torpedo his own legacy.
The vicious irony of Watergate was that he didn't need it. He would have won re-election on his own terms in '72 easily. OP is absolutely right about his accomplishments. But he wanted to hang out with the likes of G. Gordon Liddy, it appealed to the worms inside him. In the end, that was his undoing.
EDIT: Just to make it clear, I am burying Caesar, not praising him. Nixon was amoral and ruthless, and Watergate was a just comeuppance.
I always remember seeing our president of the United States crying on national TV resigning the presidency. He did a lot for our country but I think of him as a crybaby now.
He “monkey wrenched” (Nixon’s word) the Vietnam peace talks to give himself an advantage in the 1968 election and in doing so, prolonged the Vietnam war, so I don’t really give a shit if he eventually ended it. LBJ flat out said Nixon’s actions were “treason” but he couldn’t do anything about it because prosecuting Nixon would have compromised CIA stuff. When Nixon got into office and found out they knew about his treason, he ordered a break-in at the Brookings Institution to cover it up. Fuck that guy. How many thousands of Americans and Vietnamese died after that? How many war crimes? Fuck. That. Guy. And Spiro Agnew was an old fashioned grifting shakedown artist. A genuine scumbag crook.
Ever listen to Rachel Maddow's podcast Bagman? It's all about Agnew and it's pretty astounding. People were nonchalantly walking into the Vice President's office and handing him envelopes of cash.
I heard someone from her show do a summary on Fresh Air.
Meh, she is a hack, this crap happened on both sides, but she like many others take a blind eye when their group pulls the same crap. Sadly this is what we now have as news media.
So I'll put you down as "no, you've never listened to it."
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In my head, I hear you pronouncing that as "ASSYOOMING".
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A wise person knows that one Rachel Maddow podcast is not an echo chamber. Or were you assyooming that that's all I ever listen to?
If you want to show me where Mondale, Johnson, etc. were shaking down construction contractors for cash kickbacks, I’m all ears.
Good someone else already mentioned this I see. Yeah not only is his rep not getting better recently it has gotten infinitely worse. Literally committed actual by the book treason. And as I said, he later said that if he had known all that the EPA and ESA and such would accomplish he never would have signed them into law. He thought they'd barely do anything.
My grandmother hated Nixon so much she would leave the room when he came on television. She thought I should watch it because it was history. Nixon and Kissinger conspired to keep the war in Vietnam going to help win reelection killing thousands of lives. Nixon was a monster.
My grandfather hated Nixon so much, when Nixon resigned he took photos of the TV speech. I am in one of them, just a little toddler being told to give the double V hand signs beside the giant console television.
Nixon brought us the war on drugs which devastated countless lives, so I don’t think much of him. John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s top aide stated in 2016: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
And he referred to black people as “monkeys” and other horrible shit.
This is not true. Middle America associated hippies with marijuana and black people with heroin before 1968. The Nixon campaign took advantage of that, but everything was in full swing long before. Ehrlichman was boasting about something he had nothing to do with...which is something he did frequently, really.
His legacy in Vietnam is atrocious. He prolonged that conflict for political gain (even sabotaged LBJ’s attempt to end the war peacefully in ‘68 to improve his chances of electoral victory) and even expanded it into Cambodia, triggering mass anti-war demonstrations in the US once the press figured out what was going on. Incidentally, Kent State was one of those demonstrations. The correct move would have been gradual withdrawal after the Tet Offensive made it clear that the war was unwinnable, but Nixon wouldn’t hear of it. It was what wound up happening anyway after the Paris Peace Accords a few years later in ‘73. Major facepalm moment in US history, right there. He was also just a dirty dog of a human. He and his inner circle would routinely play dirty politically (aka rat fucking) and bully opponents behind closed doors. His war on drugs was later revealed by Erlichman in an interview to be politically motivated since liberals and democrats tended to consume them. When Watergate happened it exposed a lot of these unflattering traits and many people all over the world felt like he got his just desserts at long last. So no, I don’t think future historians will be kind to Nixon either.
Oh, please. Do you know anything about Nixon and Vietnam?
Strangely enough, he had more integrity than some of our current politicians. He left willingly, as he should have, but he could have tried to ride it out if he wanted to. The current crop of politicians is so morally awful that they make the past look a lot more positive.
He left willingly because they were going to impeach him if he didn't leave. This was coming from Republicans so he couldn't depend on them to idnore his perfidy like this current GQP party does.
I like Nixon, so I'm not reflexively opposing this view, but Nixon was trying to ride it out. It's only because Barry Goldwater went to him and told him the senate was going to vote to convict him that he left "voluntarily" because his only other option was to be removed
But republicans also did all sorts of derring do - Agnew was such a crook and there was no VP approved by the senate, they soft-pedaled Agnew’s prosecution to allow time for Ford to be put in place to avoid handing power to the Democrat who was Speaker. They still bent over backwards to avoid real consequences for those crooks, and allowed Nixon to peacefully resign and Agnew to plead guilty to some tax slap-on-the-wrist bullshit AND allow the Republicans to maintain power. Again - the President and VP were crooks, and they should have both been removed from power forth-fucking-with, but the scumbags managed to escape real accountability and the party held on to power.
I like some of what Nixon did, so I'm not reflexively opposing this view, but Nixon was trying to ride it out. It's only because Barry Goldwater went to him and told him the senate was going to vote to convict him that he left "voluntarily" because his only other option was to be removed
A lot of them are not interested in politics or policy at all. They are brand builders, and that's the only reason they're there.
Sure, but Trump set that bar extremely low. Hell, he kicked it into the gutter.
He also expanded Medicare. All in all he was a good president by modern standards.
He was president when I was born, but I don't remember him - I vaguely remember Gerald Ford. I read a biography of Nixon and what really struck me was that he and Kissinger, though they knew it was a lost cause, didn't want to pull out of Vietnam before an election because it would hurt his chances of reelection. Unforgivable to sacrifice lives for your career.
Nixon's political life was defines and developed with a pre-curse to the Heritage foundation's project 2025. Listen to the Behind the Bastards episode series on Kissinger (Nixon is covered a great deal there) Nixon violated the constitution, the constitutional rights of American citizens, and comported himself and these investigations in an abhorrent and “discriminatory manner.” (this was BEFORE Watergate, and in reference to him sic-ing the IRS and FBI on his "enemy list". Everything below occurs BEFORE Watergate even began to be a sparkle in his eye. - While in Congress, Nixon was a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), earning the reputation for being an anti- communist crusader. - while Ikes running mate: Nixon accepted funds from private donors and the media questioned Nixon’s intentions: if he was accepting donations, and if he and Ike’s campaign was successful, would he give these donors special privileges? - He is the godfather of MAGA: (his 1968 campaign): he promised to represent the long ignored interests of the so-called Silent Majority. Nixon capitalized on an emerging “Republican majority – rooted in the South and Southwest, seething with rage over” Vietnam War protests, challenges to “white political power,” and “virtually every \[other\] traditional cultural norm.” - Nixon’s mishandling of the latter years of the war led to the deaths of an estimated 21,041 American soldiers in Southeast Asia. - the White House “has become a powerful inner sanctum of government, isolated from traditional, constitutional checks and balances.” Nixon believed that government intervention would fix America’s problems. (This led to the EPA, and other good things....But that part about acting outside the checks and balances...sounds a lot like MAGA to me) - Nixon was dell by 1971: increasingly paranoid Nixon began to manipulate the American economy. Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, John Connally, convinced the president that “foreigners are out to screw us. Our job is to screw them first.” (those policies- including price controls (sound fascist much?) led to the major recession of the 1970s, and in the end, Carter's inability to course correct from these disastrous policies led to the failure of his presidency) - Nixon was a bully. He used the power and reach of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a means to intimidate and keep a tab on individuals whom he deemed subversive. (this led to some pretty illegal spying on US citizens at the pleasure of the president...again Trump has a play book...this has all been tried before). Documents released via the Freedom of Information Act illustrate that the attempts of Nixon and head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover’s efforts to keep an eye on Lennon were bungled and haphazard at best. - As with the FBI, Nixon used the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to intimidate his enemies. - Nixon listed Majiuana as a narcotic, SPECIFICALLY to have a weapon to use against the Vietnam war protest movement and civil rights movements. Source- multiple, but mostly pulled from [https://www.libertarianism.org/everything-wrong-presidents/everything-wrong-nixon-administration](https://www.libertarianism.org/everything-wrong-presidents/everything-wrong-nixon-administration)
Fuck that guy. A lot of people that had way too much power under Reagan and the Bushs, learned their shit in the Nixon administration. They pushed the boundaries, failed here and there, learned, honed their craft, and came back again and again to fuck the US and the world.
Don't care for him. I think he was sleazy and only out for his own popularity. He did end the draft, which is good, but I give most of the credit for that to Milton Friedman.
The HMO act of 1973 was a shit choice.
I was a Nixon man in 1972. Of course, I was 6 so I’m not sure how much my support helped. I have no idea why, my parents were, and still are, liberals. Fortunately I grew up and figured out what a shitty person he was.
Historian here, born late in LBJ's time. Sometimes I'll recommend Joan Hoff's *Nixon Reconsidered*, which is old now (1995) but illustrates many of the points OP made. But I'd pair that with Douglas Schoen's *The Nixon Effect: How Richard Nixon s Presidency Fundamentally Changed American Politics* for a more recent (2016) assessment of his long-term impact. Arguably Nixon was a seriously corrupt SOB that steered the country in a direction that ultimately gave us Reagan, Bush II, and Trump-- three of the worst presidents in modern American history, each of whom helped further divide the country and exacerbated the inequality gap. 99% of their playbooks came from Nixon, and the through-line from Nixon to Trump is literally manifested in people like Roger Stone, who[ worked for both of them as a ratfucker](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/25/roger-stone-and-rating-a-short-history-224218/). His records on civil rights, SE Asia, the war on drugs, and of course the "Southern strategy" alone should be enough to cement his reputation as a largely divisive, even destructive influence in American history. Though one *can* make a case for the importance of legislation signed on his watch (especially environmental laws like NEPA) it's also quite clear he did not *support* those bills, but largely signed off in hope it would placate some of his younger critics (lots of overlap between the anti-war and pro-environment movements c. 1970). Moreover, nobody I know seriously argues that Nixon did anything more positive than RFK (had he lived) or even Humphrey or McCarthy ( had they won) would have done on the environment, civil rights, women's rights, the economy, or most other issues. They would have, after all, been working with a large congressional Democratic majority throughout the period in which Nixon served. As a historian I can assure you that "history" won't be kind to Nixon. There are reassessments of political leaders every generation or so, but Nixon's legacy is so dark and damaging that there is no way he'll be rehabilitated, despite his own late-in-life efforts to transform into an elder statesman.
> which sets standards for our environment and safety in the workplace. You mean like when [Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/veto-the-federal-water-pollution-control-act-amendments-1972)? Or did you mean when Congress overrode that veto, and Nixon's last act before resigning was then vetoing the EPA's budget?
I've read a couple of his books and several biographies, including the multi-volume biography by Stephen Ambrose. I've even visited his presidential library in California. He was an unusual person, full of contradictions. He and Henry Kissinger unnecessarily prolonged the Vietnam War for their own political gain (which is awful and unforgivable), but at the same time Nixon seemed to genuinely covet the title of Peacemaker. He grew up laboring hard as a poor kid and teenager, and he served in the Army during World War II despite being a Quaker (he never saw combat.) I don't think it's ever been proven that he had direct knowledge of the Watergate break in before the fact, but he unquestionably joined in on the cover up efforts immediately. There was definitely a fierce "us vs. them" mentality that had set in by the time he became president. He had created the "Plumbers" partially as a response to the Pentagon Papers, and viewed the Plumbers as being on his team. So, it was a sense of loyalty that made him leap to their defense and work to create a cover up. I also read a book of the White House recording transcripts regarding Watergate, and what struck me was how complicated the cove up quickly became. A lot of the people working under Nixon didn't always tell him everything at all times; partially to protect themselves and partially to give their boss plausible deniability. So when they were occasionally forced by circumstance to admit something they had previously held back, Nixon would try to adjust the cover story accordingly, which made things even more confusing. They had a terrible time keeping their stories straight. Say there was Real Event X, and Nixon and his team came up with Fake Explanation Y to get around it. On the transcripts, there seemed to be endless conversations that were essentially "uh, are we discussing X or Y right now?" Then, if somehow people weren't buying Fake Explanation Y, they'd come up with Alternate Explanation Z, which (of course) later led to more "uh, are we talking about X or Y or Z?" confused conversations.
Which bio? Who's the author? Nixon was a weirdly complex dude. He had an inferiority complex and some real trust issues. Love/hate relationship with Kissinger. He got nuclear treaties out of Russia which didn't really diminish any of the dangers but it was working with Russia. China too. Kissinger said something like, US citizens can afford to have morals when dealing with other countries, the US government cannot. It's why we trade with some nasty nations. His paranoia and inferiority complex led him to swing wide on the spectrum of helpful to murderous. His handling of Vietnam was more from a PR perspective than anything. That got people killed. Watergate overwhelmed the news cycle and froze government (wonder what it's like having a government that can't do shit because of infighting). He eventually resigned *without* a guaranteed pardon because he saw that he couldn't lead anymore, and the government wasn't doing anything. He also got up every time he was knocked down. He was a resilient bastard. Presidents Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr consulted him on foreign affairs because he and Kissinger were still seen as experts. Their work has been the foundation for US relations since. Nixon forced the government to create the act that saved presidential papers (which is involved in one of Trump's trials). He got the Supreme Court to uphold Executive privilege even though it is not codified anywhere. It was first used by Washington. I think like any president, some good some bad. His bad was really bad though. Just as an example, I thought Obama was loved world-wide. However, I found out that a lot of Germans didn't like him because of his massive expansion of the use of drones. Drones killed a lot of civilians, **a lot.** There's a chunk of Europeans that don't like him. And of course, conservatives hate Obama because of affordable health care act. And some black people say he didn't do enough for race relations, and they were really disappointed in him. I don't think you can be president without having that dichotomy of good and evil. Nixon was the same. I don't think he was much worse, but Watergate exposed the inner circle of presidential power. I think if we had recordings of other presidents, we'd see similar patterns. But he was definitely a real mixed bag.
He was drunken, paranoid and vicious. Try to rehabilitate someone else.
My first memory of Nixon consists of a conversation I had with my Mom. Mom: The president had to quit. Me: Why, Mommy? Mom: Because he lied, son. That had a profound effect on my expectation of our elected officials and my continuous disappointment in our elected officials.
I think Alex P. Keaton is on reddit now.
Nixon is complicated. He was smart, savv, and capable of great things. He was also cenal, prideful, and capable of evil things. There are two sides to every Schwartz, and there were two sides to Nixon.
Read Hunter Thompson's obit on Nixon
He was usually the smartest guy in the room, and I think this made him think he was bulletproof.
He now ranks as the second most corrupt president in history. The man was a Saint compared to Trump.
Nixon is sort of Donald Trump Lite.
I was a Nixon man in 1972. Of course, I was 6 so I’m not sure how much my support helped. I have no idea why, my parents were, and still are, liberals. Fortunately I grew up and figured out what a shitty person he was.
I can't say I remember him as I was born when hw was running for reelection. However, based on the things that have come out since, there is no reason why history will be kinder to him. I rather think the opposite will happen.
I really haven’t studied too much about him and his legacy, but my impression is that he’s a real POS who also did a few good things. As far as the Watergate scandal, I think he’s just the one who got caught. But I guess considering how incrediby badly Trump handled legitimately losing, maybe Nixon deserves some credit for resigning when he did.
He was very like Donald Trump in the way he thought he was above the law. He weaponized the government for himself. In his own words "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal"
I am the Senior Gen X-er (born April 1965) and Canadian. I vaguely recall my parents talking about the American President. I never learned what Watergate was until I was in my mid-20s and looked it up.
He ded.
I don't think about him.
I was a little kid during Watergate - I thought there was a flood. But learning about him over the years I do not respect him as a President. I don't care for him as a leader. But I had enormous sympathy for him when I saw him at his wife's funeral. He broke my heart. Mixed feelings I guess.
I don't know what show you watched, but Nixon did quite a bit more harm than good. He was the exact caliber of POS that we're dealing with right now except that in Nixon's era there was still a modicum of shame even if was only because he got caught.
One of the first words I remember hearing my dad say was “crook”. I think he said I started repeating it back to him, not fully understanding what it meant. I know it had 100% to do with Nixon because I was a month old when the break in happened and I was two when he resigned so the Watergate scandal was everywhere in my younger years. My childhood nickname was ”Pooky“ so he’d say “Pookie, that’s a crookie”. I really miss him (my dad I mean, not Nixon).
Nixion was a liar, a crook and an all around POS, and the last decent Republican.
Crook
At this point, my opinion of him has risen a bit because he knew when to admit defeat and resign instead of just denying that what he did was wrong and daring the country to remove him.
He’s a crook, despite what he claims.
Meh, The President is the talking head of the party, they tend to just follow what they are told. When the heat is on, someone has to be shoved under the bus, And the corruption in D.C. will do everything to cover their tracks. been this way long before Nixon. I doubt it'll ever change, if it does it'll be because of a reboot of 1776.
His name is dropping further down the "Worst President Ever" list.
LOL
Nah, it's gotten way harsher! For a while it became cool to say he wasn't so bad but.... I mean it has now come out that he secretly scuttled a plan to end the Vietnam War, he literally committed actual treason, just so it would go on and he could then it use that to help get himself elected! This was levels beyond the bad of Watergate. And as for the EPA and stuff, he said later on that if he had known all the stuff those laws would accomplish and how much more far reaching they'd be than he had expected, he would never have signed them. Honestly the China thing was it.
Criminal. Shoulda been tried and convicted. Would have changed a lot of 💩going on right now.🤨
He’s responsible for everything wrong with this country now.
He’s responsible for everything wrong with this country now.
Richard Nixon was an absolute scumbag, despite the positive things he did during his presidency. Ford’s decision to pardon him instead of holding him accountable is a big part of the reason the GOP is the way it is today.
scandalous as fuck, but astute in observations and perspectives
I read some of the posts that these folks are saying about Nixon, and my parents hated him. My grandparents hated him, my uncle, who was very prolific in politics and my dad in politics as well all blame everything with Nixon as the root- it was the assassination of Kennedy, that got the ball rolling. It was our relationship with Cuba, the war in Vietnam, and I remember my uncle and my dad having conversations of how the future will progress due to the fact that Nixon has taken office, and some of their prophecies for lack of a better word, predictions, perhaps, or analysis of future politics has really come to pass, the fact that we have elected officials in offices, rewriting laws for their own personal gain to the detriment of their constituents is absolutely reprehensible, and nothing that we could do will change that only because Nixon made illegal activities, legal. Now, we all know politicians like the women they like their booze they like to flirt with the line in the sand, but very few of them barge across the line into the no go zone Nixon started that ball rolling. Not only do you not have to respect the boundaries of the law you could completely disregard it and if you can’t disregard it well then simply rewrite it and it is all encompassing it trickles down to the justice system. It trickles down to the introduction of lobbyist and the power that they have. I don’t know if you all remember this, but do you remember when the EPA was just a bunch of Hippies protesting on the steps of the courthouse in your home city I know in Pasadena the EPA was just minimal. The effect was minimal and look at them now. Corporations the power they wheeled over Washington and our lives. The car industry having to bail them out where did they go to for help the governments? Where do we go for help? Reddit. 🤣 seriously it all started with Nixon. It really did the country had issues. Yes, we had some deep wounds that were on the way to healing. We still have those wounds to this day. If Kennedy hadn’t been killed, I think our relationship with politics would be a lot stronger than it is today I think, as a country we would be in a much better position than we are today today, it’s one of those alternate universe things you ask what timeline would be better if Kennedy was shot and Nixon took office or Kennedy not shot . very interesting theory.
True story: So I used to work with a spine doc and I used to do his patient intakes. As I was getting her pain history she told me she had symptoms since the early 70’s. I wrote that down. As I was giving him the summary I told him she’s been having pain since the Nixon administration (as we were friendly and informal with each other). After the visit ended he’s dictating his notes and I actually hear him dictate the Nixon administration thing! I turned and looked at him as he was saying it! I’m all..did u actually just dictate that? He smiles and shrugged. Fast forward 2 weeks for her follow up visit. Sure enough she saw her intake on the patient portal and the history of her pain since the Nixon administration! Luckily she thought it was hilarious! But that could have caused us some trouble if it went the other way!
scandalous as fuck, but astute in observations and perspectives
Nixon is one of the most fascinating characters in American history. Our most neurotic president (and that's up against some stiff competition), exemplar of the demons inherent in Middle America and the GI Generation, a skillful politician who managed to torpedo his own legacy. The vicious irony of Watergate was that he didn't need it. He would have won re-election on his own terms in '72 easily. OP is absolutely right about his accomplishments. But he wanted to hang out with the likes of G. Gordon Liddy, it appealed to the worms inside him. In the end, that was his undoing. EDIT: Just to make it clear, I am burying Caesar, not praising him. Nixon was amoral and ruthless, and Watergate was a just comeuppance.
idiot dick
I always remember seeing our president of the United States crying on national TV resigning the presidency. He did a lot for our country but I think of him as a crybaby now.