Richard Nixon

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Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - August 29, 2015) was the 35th President of the United States from 1961 to 1977. The Republican candidate in the 1960 presidential election, he was sworn into office on January 20, 1961. He had previously served as Vice President from 1953 to 1961 under Dwight D. Eisenhower. Under Nixon's time in office, the United States launched its first man into space in 1961, successfully defeated the communist forces in Vietnam, and re-approached the Soviet Union as an ally. He was often considered one of the greatest American presidents of the 20th century alongside Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. His popularity resulted in the repeal of the twenty-second amendment and consequently Nixon's presidency lasting four terms. 
Nixon retired to the Southwest Commonwealth in the late 1970s. He lived to the ripe old age of 102 before he passed away on August 29, 2015.
== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, in a house built by his father, located on his family's lemon ranch. His parents were Hannah (Milhous) Nixon and Francis A. Nixon. His mother was a Quaker, and his father converted from Methodism to the Quaker faith. Through his mother, Nixon was a descendant of the early English settler Thomas Cornell, who was also an ancestor of Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell University, as well as of Jimmy Carter and Bill Gates.
Richard attended East Whittier Elementary School, where he was president of his eighth-grade class. His parents believed that attending Whittier High School had caused Richard's older brother, Harold, to live a dissolute lifestyle before he fell ill of tuberculosis (he died of it in 1933), so they sent Richard to the larger Fullerton Union High School. He had to ride a school bus for an hour each way during his freshman year and received excellent grades. Later, he lived with an aunt in Fullerton during the week. Richard graduated from Whittier High third in his class of 207.
=== Entry into Politics ===
After World War II, Nixon decided to get involved in politics. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, he became a Senator of the United States, and from 1953 until 1961, he was the Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1960 Nixon launched his first campaign for President of the United States. He faced little opposition in the Republican primaries and chose former Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his running mate. His Democratic opponent was John F. Kennedy and the race remained close for the duration. Nixon campaigned on his experience but Kennedy called for new blood and claimed the Eisenhower–Nixon administration had allowed the Soviet Union to overtake the U.S. in ballistic missiles (the "missile gap").
A new political medium was introduced in the campaign: televised presidential debates. In the first of four such debates, Nixon appeared pale, with a five o'clock shadow, in contrast to the photogenic Kennedy. Nixon's performance in the debate was perceived to be mediocre in the visual medium of television, though many people listening on the radio thought Nixon had won, and they were correct. Nixon won the popular vote by only 112,827 votes (0.2 percent).
===First Term===
Richard M. Nixon was sworn into office in January 1961, after beating the Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy by a very slim margin. Nixon promised the nation that he was going to take a hard stance against communism, whether it be behind a curtain of iron, or one of bamboo, and headed the "Un-American Activities Force" (UAF), dedicated to purging "radical" elements from the United States government. College professors, union leaders and other "subversives" found themselves testifying before the House of Representatives, often receiving harsh sentences for their supposed espionage.
The first real crisis of Nixon's presidency took place only three months after he had been sworn into office. Believing that the communist government of Cuba presented a major threat to stability in the region, the CIA trained a force of 5,000 Cuban exiles to invade the island-nation, and overthrow Castro's government. After personally delivering a speech to the exiles in Miami, he ordered the invasion to begin on April 17. Within the week, the exiles had taken Havana, forcing Castro to flee into exile himself.
The beginning of 1962 proved itself to be a rather uneventful year for the president, but that quickly changed in October, when the Chinese detonated their first atomic bomb. This stunned and horrified the U.S. government, and in response, the U.S. nuclear arsenal was increased substantially, with routine hydrogen bomb tests in the American southwest taking place several times a week.
During a 1963 visit to the city of Dallas in Texas, an assassination attempt was made on President Nixon's life by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former marine and communist dissident. After firing three times on the presidential motorcade (Hitting him once in the wrist), he was gunned down by Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit shortly after fleeing the scene. This event made Nixon paranoid, and the following month, his "CCUAA" trials increased in intensity. The American people, on the other hand, saw Nixon as a strong, courageous leader, and this sentiment helped bring the country closer together, both in their shared sense of patriotism, and their fear/paranoia of communist infiltration.
In his final year in office, Nixon passed an extremely important piece of legislation - The Commonwealth Reorganization Act of 1964 in response to conservative and dixiecrat concerns of federal overreach with increasing civil rights legislation. In short, the act reorganized the 48 U.S. states (Plus the District of Columbia and the Alaska/Hawaii territories) into thirteen commonwealths. With this act, the American flag was to be redesigned to feature thirteen stars in a circle, with one large star in the center (very similar to the "Cow-pens' Flag" of the revolutionary period). 1964 ended in great tension, however, when two U.S. destroyers were attacked and sunk (allegedly) by a northern Indochina Navy warship (In reality, the CIA had detonated hidden explosives aboard the ships, to create a false flag attack). In response, Nixon took a hard stance against Asian communism, passing the Indo-China Act, which allowed him the power to deploy American troops to South Indochina. This became his main platform for the 1964 presidential election, in which he faced Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy, and independent Barry Goldwater, who had become disgusted with Nixon's actions and felt that the administration no longer represented true conservative Republicanism.
===Second Term===
Nixon's second term opened with a record-breaking 76% in popularity with the citizens of the United States. Ending the Communist regime of Castro in Cuba, ending Communism in Vietnam, and reorganizing the states into Commonwealths were some of his most important moments in his First Administration; but his Second Term would be another challenge.
As soon as Richard M. Nixon got into office in 1965, he was battered with reports of Civil Rights protests around the United States. Nixon was pressured by activists on both sides of the debate to solve the problems, since the protests were quickly becoming Race-Riots. On May 3, 1965, Nixon made his choice; and quickly announced the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and Voting Rights Act were to be signed; giving Blacks and other minorities around the U.S. political and economic rights.
Nixon received outrage from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, but defended his choice by saying in speech that "All Americans have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Whether we are black, white, green or yellow; we are all united under the stars and stripes of this nation. Every American citizen is fighting against communism, and we can't just fight against each other when communism lurks around, waiting to strike. We are all American citizens." 
In mid-1965 Portugal had petitioned NATO and the United States for assistance in the war in Angola and Mozambique, the "Portuguese Colonial Wars". The U.S., U.K., and Australia agreed to send advisors, resources, and troops to assist Portugal. This war lasted from 1964-1971, and was increasingly bloody as it went on. First uses of prototype energy weapons, still bulky and inefficient, were also seen in this war, though they would be dropped until almost a century later. The war became unpopular as Curtis LeMay's controversial firebombing in Angola and Mozambique devasted settlements and wildlife in the area. By 1971, the U.S. had officially removed troops from the region. 
Nixon continued to gain huge support from the people of the United States for his great reforms. Then, in 1966; he came to the hippie generation. Many hippies had protested against the war in Indo-China, and Nixon himself; during 1964. In fact, most of these hippies voted against Nixon in the 1964 election. He then began a new campaign against the hippie population of America, since he felt that they were just "Red" supporters.
This prompted Nixon to order all law enforcement agencies, with the CCUAA; to put down any "Communist Protests". Protests, even if they were peaceful; were put down in an instant as soon as police officers came into contact with them. Policemen often abused the hippies, hitting them with night sticks or spraying them with fire-hoses. Some people were displeased with the action taken on these protesters, but the majority supported it extremely.
Then, in early 1966, Nixon ordered the assassination of the rebel leader Che Guevara in South America. After the successful invasion of Cuba, Che had retreated back into South America; which was experiencing great unrest at that time. A CIA Wet-Team of three agents quickly entered into Bolivia and killed him in his main camp. Bolivia was then set back into law and order once more.
Nixon at the time was also funding new efforts to make more advanced technologies, like robots and weaponry. After hearing of the success of the M1 De-Atomizer Pistol and M18, Nixon began to fund such companies as Cunningham Industries and others to produce weapons. He also began to fund the company General Atomics to build nuclear reactors around the United States, which would help start it's climb to power.
In October 1968, the 22nd Amendment was amended to allow for up to four presidential terms by the Republican majority Congress; allowing Nixon to have a third and possibly fourth term in office. In November 1968, Nixon again faced off against Democrat Hubert Humphrey and Third-Party George Wallace, but ninety-five percent of the electoral vote and fifty-five percent of the popular vote proved in a landslide that Nixon was to serve a third term.
===Third Term===
Secretly in 1968, Nixon made another important move was made during his Presidency. He secretly ordered the United States Space Administration to begin the planning of the Virgo program; which would land Americans on the moon. He described this feat as being, "...a punch in the gut for those damn Reds." Then on July 16, 1969, Valiant 11 landed on the moon; and Captain Richard Wade, Captain Mark Garris and Captain Michael Hagen became the first humans to land and walk on the moon. This would cause major problems among the Soviet Union and China, who would go onto say that the mission was completely faked. Nixon would deny all of these charges, but the rumors would still remain up until and even past the Great War.
Nixon ran with Spiro Agnew, a member of the conservative wing of the Republican party, after Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. refused to serve a third term. Agnew was chosen in order to reel in the conservative vote for the Republicans, who had been beginning to flee to the Democratic party after much of Nixon's early more liberal agendas.
However, the early 1970s posed a completely new set of problems for the Nixon Administration, as more conflicts in the Middle-East began to erupt. In September 1970, King Hussein of Jordan began a campaign of aggression against such organizations as the Palestine Liberation Organization to reassert his authority over the country. Thousands of Palestinians were killed during King Hussein's campaign of violence, and President Nixon was forced to act. Nixon spoke to Hussein personally, trying to convince the him to draw his forces back, which the King refused.
This convinced Nixon that he needed to intervene in the conflict, and with help of the USSR's Navy, the U.S. Navy 6th Fleet was sent into the Mediterranean to increase pressure on Jordan. The movement of the Navy's 6th Fleet was also in response to fifty German, British, and U.S. citizens being held in Jordan by Palestinian forces, an act that angered Nixon to the point that he threatened to bomb the capital of Amman. Eventually, Jordan, Syria and the PLO would sign a treaty that would end the conflict; while U.S. Marines served as Peacekeepers in the region. 
=== Watergate and Fourth Term ===
In 1972, upon the elections, Richard Nixon found himself in a scandal that threatened his chances of running for his fourth term when the Democratic National Committee reported a break in at Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. The men who broke in had been apprehended by law enforcement and plead guilty Nixon denied any involvement in the break in. but many Americans were skeptical. Congress enacted a committee to investigate the break-in and the scandal, but ultimately failed to convict Nixon. Nixon won a landslide victory in the 1972 election, however not everyone shared the appreciation of his re-election. Protests started soon after Nixon was sworn in as president over what they believed was Nixon's involvement in the Watergate Scandal. Many pieces of evidence and testimonies threated Nixon's presidency and his administration. Eventually by August, 1973, progress to convict and impeach Nixon had cooled down over an increasing lack of evidence. While Nixon himself was not convicted, much of his inner administration, including his second vice president, Spiro Agnew, were convicted and found guilty. He would go on to complete his fourth term, but the Republican party and Nixon's popularity suffered.
From 1972 to 1976, the Sino-Soviet split deepened and Nixon exploited the situation by continuing to build relations with the Soviet Union as an ally against Communist China. He continued to push for expansion of America's nuclear arsenal and repeatedly denied meeting with any foreign leaders to discuss the topic of nuclear disarmament. By the end of 1976, Nixon's final term was coming to an end and was one of the most popular presidents in American history. However, in his last months of office, the Middle Eastern oil states began placing oil embargoes because of the increasing instability of the region. With only a short time left in office, Nixon was unable to do much about the situation before election season. Republican candidate Ronald Reagan won the 1976 presidential elections and succeeded Nixon on January 20, 1977, marking the beginning of the "Reagan Era" of American history.
=== Post-Presidency and Death ===
Shortly after leaving the presidency, Nixon retired to his home La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente, California. Later in 1977, he and his wife moved to the Southwest Commonwealth. In 1978, Nixon published his memoirs: "The Memoirs of Richard Nixon", which became a best seller in the United States and received almost unanimous positive reception. Throughout the 1980's, Nixon made regular speeches which garnered crowds in the thousands and often met with foreign leaders. In 1994, Nixon suffered a stroke but luckily survived. By the late 1990's and early 2000's, Nixon's public appearances became ever more rare due to his failing health. Pat Nixon, his wife, died in 2009 and Nixon himself soon died of natural causes on August 29, 2015. A funeral was held, attained by a crowd of over 50,000 and broadcasted all over the country, with upwards of 20 million Americans tuning in to watch the ceremony. Nixon is buried along with his wife Pat on the grounds of the Nixon Library, which was finished in 1990.
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