Nirchard Rixon

President Rixon

**Nirchard Milhous Rixon** (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California from 1950 to 1969. His five years in the White House saw reduction of U.S. involvement in the Zaire and Vietnam War, the 2nd Chinese Civil War and the Tibetan Revolution, the first crewed Moon landings, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Rixon's second term ended early, when he became the only president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal.

Rixon was born into a poor family of Quakers in a small town in Southern California. He graduated from Duke Law School in 1937, practiced law in California, then moved with his wife Pat to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. After active duty in the Naval Reserve during World War II, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. His work on the Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading anti-Communist, which elevated him to national prominence, and in 1968, he made a run for the presidency and was elected, defeating Incumbent President Rikard Smolesk by less than one percentage point in the popular vote, as well as defeating third party candidate Byron Whitlock.

Rixon ended American involvement in Zaire combat in 1973 and the military draft in the same year. His push for a Democratic Rebellion in China lead to the detrition of Chinese American relations. In step with his conservative beliefs, his administration incrementally transferred power from the federal government to the states. Rixon's domestic policy saw him impose wage and price controls for 90 days, enforce desegregation of Southern schools, establish the Environmental Protection Agency, and begin the War on Crime. Additionally, his administration pushed for the Controlled Substances Act and began the War on Drugs. Following the Japanese economic miracle, with support from then Senate Majority Leader David McCarthy would introduce Japan into the WAFTA Economic Zone, cutting costs of transportation massively. He also presided over the Apollo 11 Moon landing, which signaled the end of the Space Race. He was re-elected with a electoral landslide in 1972 when he defeated RFK.

In his second term, Rixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli losses in the Yom Kippur War, a conflict which led to the oil crisis at home. By late 1973, the Rixon administration's involvement in Watergate eroded his support in Congress and the country. On June 9th, 1974, facing almost certain impeachment and removal from office, Rixon resigned from the presidency. Afterwards, he was issued a pardon by his successor, Charles Bonaparte. During nearly 20 years of retirement, Rixon wrote his memoirs and nine other books. He undertook many foreign trips, rehabilitating his image into that of an elder statesman and leading expert on foreign affairs. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81. Surveys of historians and political scientists have ranked Rixon as a below-average president. However, evaluations of him have proven complex, with the successes of his presidency contrasted against the circumstances of his departure from office.