He prevailed in the U. Nixon took office at a time of upheaval and change in the U. In January , Nixon administration officials reached a peace agreement with Communist North Vietnam. The last American combat troops left Vietnam in March of that year. The hostilities continued, however, and in North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam and reunited the country under Communist rule.
He reduced tensions between these Communist nations and the U. Nixon also signed important treaties to limit the production of nuclear weapons. While Nixon was running for re-election in , operatives associated with his campaign broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate complex in Washington , D. Facing impeachment by Congress, Nixon resigned from office on August 9, He was replaced by Vice President Gerald Ford , who a month later pardoned Nixon for any wrongdoing.
A number of administration officials were eventually convicted of crimes related to the Watergate affair. After leaving the White House, Nixon retired to California he and his wife later moved to New Jersey and quietly worked to rehabilitate his image, writing books, traveling extensively and consulting with Democratic and Republican presidents.
By the time he died on April 22, , at age 81 in New York City, after suffering a stroke, some people viewed him as a respected elder statesman. Other Americans, however, rejected efforts to paint him as anything but a disgraced criminal. Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A.
Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Bush Bill Clinton George W. Help inform the discussion Support the Miller Center. University of Virginia Miller Center. Richard Nixon: Campaigns and Elections. Breadcrumb U. Presidents Richard Nixon Richard Nixon: Campaigns and Elections Although it was a close race with respect to the popular vote, Nixon won the electoral college by a 3 to 2 margin.
The Election of Richard Nixon's presidential defeat in and gubernatorial defeat in gave him the reputation of a loser. The Election of In hindsight, the magnitude of Richard Nixon's reelection victory in —the largest Republican landslide of the Cold War—leads some to ask why the President ever got involved in the Watergate cover-up. Richard Nixon Essays Life in Brief. Life Before the Presidency. Campaigns and Elections Current Essay. Domestic Affairs.
Foreign Affairs. Life After the Presidency. Family Life. Impact and Legacy. In-Depth Exhibits Scroll left to right to view a selection of exhibits. Nixon and the Pentagon Papers. Nixon proposed a controversial strategy of withdrawing American troops from South Vietnam while carrying out Air Force bombings and army special-ops operations against enemy positions in Laos and Cambodia, both of which were officially neutral at the time.
He established what became known as the Nixon Doctrine also called "Vietnamization" , replacing American troops with Vietnamese soldiers. From to , troop withdrawals were estimated to be , soldiers. While Nixon's campaign promise in was to draw down the size of the U. When Nixon made a televised speech announcing the movement of U. Beyond all the strife, the war in Vietnam had caused domestic inflation to grow to nearly 6 percent by To address the problem, Nixon initially tried to restrict federal spending, but beginning in , his budget proposals contained deficits of several billion dollars, the largest in American history up to that time.
Though defense spending was cut almost in half, government spending on benefits to American citizens rose from a little over 6 percent to nearly 9 percent. To control increasing inflation and unemployment, Nixon imposed temporary wage and price controls, which achieved marginal success, but by the end of , inflation returned with a vengeance, reaching 8.
With the war in Vietnam winding down, Nixon in defeated his Democratic challenger, liberal senator George McGovern, in a landslide victory, receiving almost 20 million more popular votes and winning the Electoral College vote to Nixon looked invincible in his victory.
It seems odd, in retrospect, that his re-election campaign, the Committee to Re-Elect the President also known as CREEP was so concerned about Democrats opposition that it reverted to political sabotage and covert espionage.
Public opinion polls during the campaign indicated President Nixon had an overwhelming lead. The entry of independent candidate Wallace ensured some Democratic support would be taken from McGovern in the South, and for most of the American public, Senator McGovern's policies were just too extreme. During the campaign in June , rumors began to circulate about White House involvement in a seemingly isolated burglary of the Democratic National Election Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.
Initially, Nixon downplayed the coverage of the scandal as politics as usual, but by , the investigation initiated by two cub reporters for the Washington Post , Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had mushroomed into a full-scale inquest. White House officials denied the press's reporting as biased and misleading, but the FBI eventually confirmed that Nixon aides had attempted to sabotage the Democrats during the election, and many resigned in the face of criminal prosecution.
A Senate committee under Senator Sam Ervin soon began to hold hearings. Eventually, White House counsel John Dean gave evidence that the scandal went all the way to the White House, including a Nixon order to conceal wrongdoing. Nixon continued to declare his innocence, though, repeatedly denying previous knowledge about the campaign sabotage and claiming to have learned about the cover-up in early Nixon responded directly to the nation by staging an emotional televised press conference in November , during which he famously declared, "I'm not a crook.
Facing increased political pressure, Nixon released 1, pages of transcripts of conversations between him and White House aides but still refused to release all of the recordings. The House Judiciary Committee, controlled by Democrats, opened impeachment hearings against the president in May In July, the Supreme Court denied Nixon's claim of executive privilege and ruled that all tape recordings must be released to the special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski.
Once the recordings were released, it didn't take long for Nixon's house of cards to teeter: One of the secret recordings confirmed the allegations of the cover-up, indicating that Nixon was looped in from the beginning.
In late July , the House Judiciary Committee passed the first of three articles of impeachment against Nixon, charging obstruction of justice. Upon the threat of a likely post-impeachment conviction, Nixon resigned from the office of the presidency on August 9, He was succeeded by Gerald Ford , whom Nixon had appointed vice president in after Spiro Agnew resigned his office amid charges of bribery, extortion and tax evasion during his tenure as governor of Maryland.
Nixon was pardoned by President Ford on September 8, After his resignation, Nixon retired with his wife to the seclusion of his estate in San Clemente, California, where he spent several months distraught and disoriented.
Gradually he regrouped, and by he began forming a public-relations comeback. In August , Nixon met with British commentator David Frost for a series of interviews during which Nixon sent mixed messages of contrition and pride, while never admitting any wrongdoing. While the interviews were met with mixed reviews, they were watched by many and positively contributed to Nixon's public image.
In , Nixon published RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon , an intensely personal examination of his life, public career and White House years; the book became a best-seller.
He also authored several books on international affairs and American foreign policy, modestly rehabilitating his public reputation and earning him a role as an elder foreign-policy expert. On June 22, , his wife Pat died of lung cancer. Nixon took the loss hard, and on April 22, , just 10 months after his wife's death, Nixon died of a massive stroke in New York City. President Bill Clinton was joined by four former presidents to pay homage to the 37th president.
His body lay in repose in the Nixon Library lobby, and an estimated 50, people waited in heavy rain for up to 18 hours to file past the casket and pay their last respects.
He was buried beside his wife at his birthplace, in Yorba Linda, California. Often caricatured in media, Nixon has proved a source of fascination for his experiences that seemingly captured the best and worst of life as a public figure. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! On November 5, , Franklin Delano Roosevelt is re-elected for an unprecedented third term as president of the United States.
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