nixon mission parts quotation

9 January 1913 – 22 April 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign the office. Nixon had previously served as a Republican U.S. representative and senator from California and as the 36th vice president of the United States from 1953 to 1961.

I leave you gentleman now. You will now write it; you will interpret it; that"s your right. But as I leave you I want you to know.... just think how much you"re going to be missing. You don"t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference, and I hope that what I have said today will at least make television, radio, the press recognize that they have a right and a responsibility, if they"re against a candidate give him the shaft, but also recognize if they give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who"ll report what the candidate says now and then. Thank you, gentlemen, and good day.

Press conference after losing the election for Governor of California (November 7, 1962); most reports used an official "Transcript of Nixon"s News Conference on His Defeat by Brown in Race for Governor of California", as published in The New York Times (November 8, 1962), p. 18, also used in RN : The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (1978) and most published accounts which ended "You don"t have Nixon to kick around any more because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you."

President Nixon"s remarks to employees at the Department of Interior. (February 7, 1969). Source: Remarks to Participants in the 1969 Senate Youth Program, The American Presidency Project.

President Nixon"s remarks to employees at the Department of Interior. (February 19, 1969). Source: Remarks to Employees at the Department of the Interior, The American Presidency Project.

I want to emphasize what the Secretary has said--the fact that this is the last department I have visited does not indicate that it is the last in terms of the importance of your assignment and of my respect for you, those of you who have given so much of your lives to this Department. I speak with particular feeling about this Department because I, of course, come from the West and although I have lived in most parts of the Nation--and not as much as I would have liked in the West, having come from the West, having known it as a Congressman and as a Senator and also as Vice President, having often spoken of the Western part of the country, its interests which are in many respects the responsibility of this Department--I have an especially close relationship with you.

Now, a second point I want to make has to do with your responsibility. And it allows me to impose upon you one of my favorite quotations and one that I often rise. Edmund Burke, a great Irish-English philosopher, often used to say that when we speak of patriotism we must look to its root phrases which develop the word. And literally patriotism, when you translate it, means love of country. Then he went on to say that if we are to love our country, our country must be lovely. I don"t think there is any better way to describe the mission of this Department. We all, I know, have a deep feeling of patriotism for this Nation. We all have a deep feeling and sense of history about this Nation, and that feeling of patriotism comes from that.

President Nixon"s remarks at the American Embassy in Paris. (March 2, 1969). Source: Remarks at the American Embassy in Paris, The American Presidency Project.

I know you worked many hours overtime. And I am speaking now not simply of the officers of the Embassy, the Ambassador, of course, who has been so cooperative, and Bob Blake [Deputy Chief of Mission]. I rather grew up with him in Whittier. He is a little after my time. I should say, I knew his parents. But, nevertheless, I want you to know that not only the officers, but everybody in all the offices--as I went down the halls today, I saw girls typing out schedules, and I know that you have got to run them through the mimeograph machines and-or, no, you put them through some other kind of a machine now to get them multilithed. And that is just part of it. But the immense amount of logistical detail that is involved in a visit by a President and a Secretary of State is something that places an immense burden on the Embassy. I express appreciation for that. Beyond that, however, I want to tell you that the visit has been handled in this very brief time that we have been here with great precision.

I have been trying to think of something that I could pick out as a mistake, you know, so that we could do better next time. But I found only one thing: I found on one of my schedules---I don"t know who happened to prepare this, but nevertheless, the schedule said, with regard to the first dinner, the dinner that President de Gaulle was the host--the second one, as you know, was in Ambassador Shriver"s residence, and I was the host there--but at the first dinner where he was the host, he was supposed to make a toast and I was supposed to prepare one to him. On my schedule it said: "President Nixon will speak for 10 minutes and then his speech will be translated into English." I knew I had troubles in communicating, but not that much. But whether it was my French or English or whatever the case might be, that was the only thing I could find--and we need to have a little humor in a trip. I think it was put in deliberately for that very purpose. But could I go one step further? Also, in this room are people who have dedicated their lives to the service of the Government of the United States, some in the Foreign Service and some in other branches of the service. You have been in this post; you have been in many others.

I am sure there must be times when you wonder whether you made the right decision. There must be times when the boredom of what your job is, the failure to get the promotion that you think you should have had, the failure to have the responsibility which you think you might be capable of--these are the things we all feel from time to time--all of these things must run through your minds. And, also, perhaps, in the positions that you have you wonder if the country really appreciates people in Government. I can simply tell you that I, as one who has had the opportunity of traveling now to 73 countries and have seen our embassies abroad and our other missions in most of those countries, I appreciate what you are dang, both as the President of the United States and as an individual. I know how dedicated you are. I know, in many cases, what a sacrifice it is for you to continue in public service, as you have. I know that many of you probably figure you could have done better economically if you had been in some other branch. But whatever the case might be, let me give you this one word of reassurance with regard to the decision you made sometime in your life to come into public service.

I think I can best bring that home by what Colonel Frank Borman said when I presented an award to him at the White House a few weeks ago, shortly after I was inaugurated. I congratulated him. He accepted the award and he said: I accept it not only for my two colleagues on the voyage to the moon, but for 400,000 Americans who, one way or another, worked on this project. And then he made a significant point: that in that Apollo there are 2 million parts, and if something went wrong with one of those parts, who knows whether or not the project would have succeeded. I realize that the success of our efforts at the highest post in Government depends upon how every person in Government does his job. And I am very proud to have the opportunity to serve in the highest post, but I am even prouder to have supporting me, in that search for peace and freedom that we all want, a fine group of career officers and thousands of people like yourselves in this room who have dedicated your life to public service in the Government of the United States. All of you count--every one. And I know it. And I know that even the tiniest slip on your part might make a difference at the highest level at some point or other, or something that you do may make us do a better job.

President Nixon"s remarks at the second annual meeting of the National Alliance of Businessmen. (March 15, 1969). Source: Remarks at the Republican Victory Dinner, The American Presidency Project.

President Nixon"s remarks to the Annual Republican Women"s Conference at the Sheraton Park Hotel. (April 16, 1969). Source: Remarks at the 17th Annual Republican Women"s Conference, The American Presidency Project.

I think you should know that the first Women"s Conference actually occurred in 1953. That was the first one, 17 years ago. Mrs. Eisenhower hosted the women at that conference. That was the first time in 20 years that the Republican Women had been visitors at the White House in that capacity. This year Pat Nixon hosted you. We hope to make it an annual event for as many years as you will allow us to do so. Now if I could express a personal word--I can"t often do this at home--but I understand that you are going to honor my wife and my two daughters for their role in the campaign. Believe me, they deserve it. Any wife who can do as my wife has, listen to my speeches through campaigns, at home and abroad in over 60 countries for 23 years, and sit there transfixed, as if she is hearing it for the first time, believe me, that is service far beyond the call of duty. But beyond that, I want you to know that in this last campaign I was proud of what all the Republican women did, the marvelous work you did all over this country. I was proud of what the women of my family did, my wife making appearances on her own in so many places, as did the wives of the Cabinet who are up here today, and my two daughters going out and making appearances all over the country. People ask me about the fan mail we get. We get more for them than we do for me, believe me. We get more invitations for them, I think, than we do for me. That is fine.

President Nixon"s remarks at the Republican Victory Dinner at the Hilton Hotel. (May 7, 1969). Source: Remarks at the Republican Victory Dinner, The American Presidency Project.

I first want to begin with a personal note, responding to the very gracious remarks that have been made to me and about me by the Governor and by Karl Mundt, and, as I respond to them I want you to know that I feel very much at home here. I feel at home here because I, too, grew up in a small town. I attended a small college, about the size of this one; and when I was in law school, at a much larger university, one of the ways that I helped work my way through that law school was to work in the law school library. So I feel very much at home here before a great, new library, on the campus of a small college which is growing larger, and in a small town in the heartland of America. I would like to relate what I have said a little more, perhaps, closely to this State. I suppose the best thing I could say would be that I was born in South Dakota. I was not. I was born in California. I could also say, possibly, that Mrs. Nixon was born in South Dakota. She was not. She was born in Nevada. But I can go very close to that, because my wife"s mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas [William] Ryan, were married and lived in their early years, before they moved to Nevada, in Lee, South Dakota. So we have a South Dakota background. I should also point out that in the small estate that her father left was a mining claim in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We paid taxes on that in California for many, many years, and so we were South Dakota taxpayers. No gold was ever discovered there, but when I returned to South Dakota as a candidate in 1960, I was presented with some Black Hills gold cuff links, and I am wearing them today to show my relationship to South Dakota. Now an occasion like this does call for more than the usual informal remarks which, I think, are usually quite welcomed by an audience.

Address to the nation on the situation in Southeast Asia (April 30, 1970); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970, p. 410

Address to the nation on the situation in Southeast Asia (April 30, 1970); in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970, p. 409

Informal conversation with one of a group of employees who had gathered in a corridor to greet him at the Pentagon (May 1, 1970), reported in The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon, 1970, p. 417, footnote 1.

Just after a broadcast interview with four newsmen (January 6, 1971), according to Howard K. Smith, one of the interviewers. "Nixon Has Shifted to Ideas of Keyness: ABC Commentator"

Conversation with Charles W. Colson, February 13, 1973, as quoted in "In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks", by Adam Nagourney, The New York Times (December 10, 2010)

Conversation with secretary Rose Mary Woods on tapes recorded February-March 1973 on tapes recorded February-March 1973; as quoted in "In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks", by Adam Nagourney, The New York Times (December 10, 2010); with sound recording.

Conversation with Mr. Colson, on tapes recorded February-March 1973; as quoted in "In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks", by Adam Nagourney, The New York Times (December 10, 2010)

Interview with David Frost (May 19, 1977); printed in The New York Times (May 20, 1977), p. A16; also in "Nixon"s Views on Presidential Power: Excerpts from an Interview with David Frost [Archive]", referring to the Huston Plan and views of presidential authority.

I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I"ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We"ll just slip the word to them that, for God"s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can"t restrain him when he"s angry and he has his hand on the nuclear button and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.

I wouldn"t put out a statement praising it, but we"re not going to condemn it either. [Nixon"s comment about the atrocities and genocide committed by the West Pakistan government against Bangladesh during the Bangladesh Liberation War]

Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume XI, South Asia Crisis, 1971, [1], and The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass

Nixon: Within groups, there are geniuses. There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups ... This is knowledge that is better not to know.

Nixon: I"m not saying that blacks cannot govern. I"m saying that they had a helluva time. Now that must demonstrate something. Now, having said that, let"s look at Latin America. Latin America has had 150 years of trying at it and they don"t have much going down there, either. Mexico is a one-party government; Colombia, they trade it off every two years, Venezuela is tipty toe, and the rest are dictatorships, except for [President Salvador] Allende [of Chile], which is a communist dictatorship. Elected but communist.

Nixon: The French have had a helluva time and they"re half-Latin, and all of Latin America is not any good at government. They either go to one extreme or another. It"s either a family, ah, three extremes: family, oligarchy, or a dictatorship; or a dictatorship on the right, or one on the left, very seldom in the center. Now, having said all that, however, as you compare the Latin dictatorships, governments, etc., and their forms of government, they at least do it in their way. It is an orderly way which works relatively well. They have been able to run the damn place. Looking at the black countries, of course, there are only two old ones—Haiti is an old one and Liberia is a very old one.

Nixon: Now you look at Asia and you can say, well, what about there, you don"t have democracies. Of course, you don"t, except Japan, where we imposed it, and the Philippines, and it"s a helluva mess. But, on the other hand, Thailand with its oligarchy has the right kind of government for Thailand. And we have to say, too, that Iran, with the benevolent shah, with the benevolent shah, that"s the right thing for those folks.

Nixon: What I"m getting back, the long way around, is this: I think something that is eventually going to come out here is this, and it"s right beneath the surface, this whole black-white deal, is going to come out is the fact that Asians are capable of governing themselves, one way or another. We Caucasians have learned it after slaughtering each other in religious wars and other wars, including in the last century.

Nixon: You look at the World Series World Series, for God"s sake, and what would either of these teams, what would Pittsburgh be without a helluva lot of blacks? And music, and the dance. Are these things just to be pissed upon? Hell, no. They are important. And in certain areas, poetry, etc., they have a free-and-easy style that adds enormously to our culture. But on the other hand, when you get to some of the more profound, rigid disciplines, basically, they have a helluva time making it. . . . In terms of good lawyers, even though a lot of them go to law schools, it really is not their dish of tea. See?

(March 21, 1973). Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, "Nixon Debated Paying Blackmail, Clemency", The Washington Post (May 1, 1974). Walter Rugaber "Close‐ Up View of Nixon Under Pressure Emerges From the Transcripts", The New York Times (August 9, 1974).

In Congressional testimony prior to release of the tapes H.R. Haldeman incorrectly testified that Nixon said "we can do that, but it would be wrong" about obtaining hush money to pay the conspirators. Ken Hughes,

Nixon: The only place where you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You"re so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don"t give a damn. I don"t care.

the truth, after all, is that the United States was the richest country and the dominant power after the end of World War II, and that today, a mere quarter of a century later, Mr. Nixon"s metaphor of the "pitiful, helpless giant" is an uncomfortably apt description of "the mightiest country on earth."

In 1972, Americans watched in disbelief as the Nixon Presidency was virtually brought to collapse, not because of the Watergate "break-in," but by the cover-up and its entanglements. What if the Watergate Scandal had been handled differently? The illegal activities of a few bungling second-story men pale in comparison to the colossal management blunders by the White House inner circle.

The Teapot Dome Scandal involved a plot of federal land in Wyoming that derives its unusual name from the fact that, if viewed from a certain angle, it appears to be shaped like a scandal. The government had placed a large amount of oil under this land for safekeeping, but in 1921 it was stolen. The mystery was solved later that same evening when an alert customs inspector noticed former Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall attempting to board an oceanliner with a suitcase containing 3.256 trillion barrels of petroleum products, which he claimed had been a "gift" from a "friend." At this point, President Harding, showing the kind of class that Richard Nixon can only dream about, died.

Going into the race, Eisenhower had a strong tactical advantage stemming from the fact that nobody, including himself, knew what hs views were. But his campaign quickly became enmeshed in scandal when it was discovered that his running mate, Senator "Dick" Nixon, had received money from a secret fund. Realizing that his career was at stake, Nixon appeared on a live television broadcast and told the American people, with deep emotion in his voice, that if they didn"t let him be the vice president, he would kill his dog. This was widely believed to be the end of his career.

In 1960 the Democratic candidate was the rich witty graceful charming and of course boyishly handsome Massachusetts senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who gained voter recognition by having his face on millions of souvenir plates and being married to the lovely and internationally admired Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Kennedy"s major political drawback was that the nation had never elected a Roman Catholic; on the other hand, the nation had never elected a total dweeb, either, and the Republicans had for some reason nominated "Dick" Nixon. So it was a very close race. The turning point was a series of nationally televised debates, in which Kennedy, who looked tanned and relaxed, seemed to have an advantage over Nixon, who looked as though he had been coached by ferrets. Kennedy held a slight lead going into the bonus round, where he chose Category Three (Graceful Handsome Boyish Wittiness) and won the matching luggage plus Texas plus Illinois, thus guaranteeing his victory in the November election. This was widely believed to be the end of Nixon"s career.

So by 1968 things were pretty bad. They were so bad that it seemed impossible for them to get worse, unless something truly horrible happened, something so twisted and sinister and evil that the human mind could barely comprehend it. THE NIXON COMEBACK. Yes. One day we turned on our televisions, and there he was, "Dick" Nixon, looking stronger than ever despite the holes in his suit where various stakes had been driven into his heart. He was advertised as a "new" Nixon with all kinds of amazing features, including an illuminated glove compartment and a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam, but of course he couldn"t tell the voters what it was, because then it wouldn"t have been a secret plan. Nixon"s running mate was an individual named Spiro Agnew, whose principal qualification was that when you rearranged the letters of his name, you got "grow a penis." (Dick Cavett discovered this. Really.) Their campaign theme- we are not making this up- was "Law and Order."

Nixon"s first official act as president was to sneak out behind the White House and bury his secret peace plan to ensure that nobody would ever find out what it was, which would have been a breach of national security. With that important task accomplished, he swung into action, working feverishly to accomplish his most important objective, to realize the cherished dream that had driven him through all these years of disappointment, to reach the long-sought goal that, thanks to his election, was finally within his grasp, namely: getting reelected.

Nixon appeared to have only two options left: Option One: He could boldly remain as president and defend himself in the now-inevitable impeachment proceedings. Option Two: He could spare the country further trauma by resigning in a dignified manner. Those of you who are well-schooled students of "Dick" Nixon will not be surprised to learn that, after carefully weighing the alternatives, he decided to go with Option Three: to stand in the Rose Garden and make a semicoherent speech about his mother that may well rank as the single most embarrassing moment in American history. Thoroughly humiliated, Nixon then went off to live in a state of utter disgrace (New Jersey). This was widely believed to be the end of his career.

Although Johnson was done in by Vietnam, his domestic liberalism was as popular in 1968 as the New Deal had been in 1952. Nevertheless, conservatives deluded themselves that Nixon would repeal the Great Society. But just as Eisenhower cemented the New Deal in place, Nixon accepted the legitimacy of the Great Society. His goal was to make it work efficiently and shave off the rough edges. Nixon even expanded the welfare state by expanding its regulatory reach through the Environmental Protection Agency and other new government agencies. Conservatives were infuriated by Nixon’s betrayal, but lacking control of Congress they were stuck with him just as they had been with Eisenhower. Not very many were upset when Watergate pushed Nixon out of office.

Thus Obama took office under roughly the same political and economic circumstances that Nixon did in 1968 except in a mirror opposite way. Instead of being forced to manage a slew of new liberal spending programs, as Nixon did, Obama had to cope with a revenue structure that had been decimated by Republicans. Liberals hoped that Obama would overturn conservative policies and launch a new era of government activism. Although Republicans routinely accuse him of being a socialist, an honest examination of his presidency must conclude that he has in fact been moderately conservative to exactly the same degree that Nixon was moderately liberal.

Nixon and Kissinger bear responsibility for a significant complicity in the slaughter of the Bengalis. This overlooked episode deserves to be a defining part of their historical reputations. But although Nixon and Kissinger have hardly been neglected by history, this major incident has largely been whitewashed out of their legacy—and not by accident. Kissinger began telling demonstrable falsehoods about the administration’s record just two weeks into the crisis, and has not stopped distorting since. Nixon and Kissinger, in their vigorous efforts after Watergate to rehabilitate their own respectability as foreign policy wizards, have left us a farrago of distortions, half-truths, and outright lies about their policy toward the Bengali atrocities... For all the very real flaws of human rights politics, Nixon and Kissinger’s support of a military dictatorship engaged in mass murder is a reminder of what the world can easily look like without any concern for the pain of distant strangers.

From 1969 through 1973, it was Kissinger, along with President Nixon, who oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos — killing perhaps one million during this period. He gave the order for the secret bombing of Cambodia. Kissinger is on tape saying, “[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn"t want to hear anything about it. It"s an order, to be done. Anything that flies on anything that moves.”

On evenings such as these, Deep Throat had talked about how politics had infiltrated every corner of government — a strong-arm takeover of the agencies by the Nixon White House. He had once called it the "switchblade mentality" and had referred to the willingness of the President"s men to fight dirty and for keeps.

In his memoirs Nixon declared that to achieve his ends the "institutions" of government had to be "reformed, replaced or circumvented. In my second term I was prepared to adopt whichever of these three methods, or whichever combination of them, was necessary."

It"s too early to say how most of my decisions will turn out. As president, I had the honor of eulogizing Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. President Ford"s pardon of Richard Nixon, once regarded as one of the worst mistakes in presidential history, is now viewed as a selfless act of leadership. And it was quite something to hear the commentators who had once denounced President Reagan as a dunce and a warmonger talk about how the Great Communicator had won the Cold War.

Richard Nixon was a really, really bad guy. It’s worth noting this fact because Nixon has become a kind of domestic analogue to Hitler, invoked as a comparison by everybody, all the time — not just conservatives but also liberals, including a good chunk of Hollywood. Nixon’s administration ordered a break-in to the headquarters of the opposition party and then destroyed evidence of the crime. He ordered the firebombing of the Brookings Institution! If you find yourself tempted to compare a president you don’t like to Nixon, ask yourself, Is this pretty much how I’d react if he had a gang of goons break into the opposition party’s headquarters or told his subordinates to destroy the American Enterprise Institute? If not, you probably need a new comparison.

How can we narrow the gap between the wealthy and the poor in this country? What concrete steps can be taken now to abolish poverty in America? There are a number of things that President Nixon could do immediately, if he wanted to. In terms of our own grape pickers" strike, he could tell the Pentagon to stop shipping extraordinary amounts of grapes to Vietnam-the Government"s most obvious tool in its attempt to break our strike. And he could improve the lot of all the farmworkers in the Southwest-easily, under existing legislation-by putting an end to the importing and exploitation of cheap foreign labor.

The cost of living is first on all of our minds this important year. Yet the President [Nixon] has decided that it is a year for travel. I ask–when is he going to make a "Trip to Peking" in regard to the basic problems facing us in the United States this year? He is willing to go halfway "round the world--yet he doesn"t have time to walk ten blocks from the White House in Washington and look at the lives people are living under Phase II. I know a lot of Americans who would be glad to settle for better bus service from their home to their jobs, or from poor neighborhoods to areas of the city where jobs are to be found. Repeated studies of riots in urban ghettos show that lack of adequate transportation was a big factor in the discontent and bitterness which caused riot conditions to erupt, but President Nixon"s answer is to build a space shuttle or an SST with precious public funds, to serve a tiny elite of the population or to stimulate the economy of a state or region by creating massive and useless technological publicworks projects.

Mr. Nixon had said things like this: "If our cities are to be livable for the next generation, we can delay no long. er in launching new approaches to the problems that beset them and to the tensions that tear them apart." And he said, "When you cut expenditures for education, what you are doing is shortchanging the American future.” But frankly. I have never cared too much what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.

President Nixon opened his memoirs with a simple sentence: "I was born in a house my father built." Today, we can look back at this little house and still imagine a young boy sitting by the window of the attic he shared with his three brothers, looking out to a world he could then himself only imagine. From those humble roots, as from so many humble beginnings in this country, grew the force of a driving dream — a dream that led to the remarkable journey that ends here today where it all began. Beside the same tiny home, mail-ordered from back East, near this towering oak tree which, back then, was a mere seedling. President Nixon"s journey across the American landscape mirrored that of this entire nation in this remarkable century. His life was bound up with the striving of our whole people, with our crises and our triumphs. As it is written in the words of a hymn I heard in my church last Sunday: "Grant that I may realize that the trifling of life creates differences, but that in the higher things, we are all one." In the twilight of his life, President Nixon knew that lesson well. It is, I feel certain, a faith he would want us all to keep. And, so, on behalf of all four former presidents who are here — President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President Bush — and on behalf of a grateful nation, we bid farewell to Richard Milhous Nixon.

President Bill Clinton eulogizing Nixon at his funeral on April 27, 1994 in Yorba Linda, California. Quoted in In Tribute: Eulogies of Famous People (1999) by Ted Tobias ISBN 0810835371, 9780810835375, pp. 126-28

I have tender feelings for Nixon, because everybody has warm feelings about their childhood. Actually, I didn"t like the Watergate trials "cause they interrupted Kerry couldn"t even run on that today.

Richard Nixon is one man, so intimately and thoroughly known to me, that without any hesitation I can personally vouch for his ability, his sense of duty, his sharpness of mind, and his wealth of wisdom. Through eight years, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, and in weekly sessions of the Cabinet and the National Security Council, he sat directly across the table from me — a mere few feet away. There I came to know him as a man who can never be known from headlines about him or speeches by him. My knowledge of him — first-hand, immediate, the product of my own close scrutiny — grew in times of crisis and of progress towards their solution; in times of decisive action and of an increase in America"s leadership of free nations — in every discussion our single guide was the welfare and security of the United States. Throughout all these meetings, I could watch Dick Nixon; absorbed in the thoughtful and sober weighing of every word and idea. No man of Dick Nixon"s intellectual capacity, conscientious stewardship, and superb leadership should be permitted to stand on the sidelines.

The truth is that I spoke clearly to Mr. Nixon [about the situation of the Bangladesh Liberation war]... I told him without mincing words that we couldn"t go on with ten million refugees on our backs, we couldn"t tolerate the fuse of such and explosive situation any longer. Well, Mr. Heath, Mr. Pompidou, and Mr. Brandt had understood very well. But not Mr. Nixon. The fact is that when the others understand one thing, Mr. Nixon understands another. I suspected he was very pro-Pakistan. Or rather I knew that the Americans had always been in favor of Pakistan—not so much because they were in favor of Pakistan, but because they were against India.

He was the most dishonest individual I ever met in my life. President Nixon lied to his wife, his family, his friends, longtime colleagues in the US Congress, lifetime members of his own political party, the American people and the world.

Nixon"s a fool and he comes out with this stuff so heavily. What happens? China was admitted to the United Nations. And what happens? Just because some delegates clapped and cheered in the United Nations, Nixon comes out with a statement and he says that every one of those countries who clapped and cheered, we"re gonna cut off your economic aid. That"s what he said, I read that, check it out. I mean, he"s so blatant with this stuff. That"s what makes the United States such a hated country in the world. Wherever you go among the people of the world, the United States government is hated. It"s that kind of behavior that"s caused so much misery and oppression in the world.

Check out Hitler, what did Hitler say to the German people in the middle of depression? What did he say were the causes of the problem in German? He said it was the Jews, he said it was the communists, and he said it was the people who sold out in the World War 1. Those were the three forces responsible for the downfall of Germany. What are Nixon and the other neo-fascists saying nowadays? What is the cause of the crisis that we have in our country and the United States and Puerto Rico and Hawaii? What are the causes? Well, it"s the communists, it"s the Third World people instead of the Jews this time, and it"s the peace people. Same lines. Fascism always has the same lines. Fascism is a dictatorship, a capitalistic dictatorship. When things fall apart they started a dictatorship.

The Nixon/Obama parallels are instructive. Richard Nixon was, and Barack Obama is, a loner with many admirers and few friends. Both preferred to speak to the electorate in heavily scripted settings. Both were lawyers. Both were also charged — nearly every week — with violating the Constitution. Both tolerated substantial cuts in U.S. military spending while inflating social-welfare and environmental obligations. And both did whatever they had to do to appeal to a consistent enemy of the United States and its key allies.

In 1969 — President Nixon’s first year — the Soviet Union proposed that the U.S. and U.S.S.R conspire to eliminate Mainland China’s nuclear forces. Nixon said back to the Kremlin: Don’t even think about it. In 2009 — President Obama’s first year — a fraudulent presidential election kept Iran’s extreme Islamists in power. Thousands took to the streets. Obama gave them zero support. Forty years apart, Nixon and later Obama sent early and strong signals: "Count on the new guy to head off anything that will rock your boat…."

Lyndon B. Johnson, when asked why he had not replied to a speech by then-Vice President Nixon. Quoted in Merle Miller, Lyndon, An Oral Biography (1980), p. 542

Nixon"s comments about Jews were sort of — there was a huge disparity between the comments he made about Jews and the large number of Jews he had in his administration. And it is hard to believe in one sense. I don"t really think Nixon was anti-Semitic. He had sort of standard phrases.

Revolutionary Chicanas want the liberation of our people and of all oppressed peoples. We do not want to become page-girls in President Richard Nixon"s Congress the most recent bone tossed to "women"s liberation."

It was ironic that President Nixon, in a memo released by the National Archives, complained that his commanders had played "how not to lose" that they had forgotten "how to win." To render justice to the generals, I agree with General Westmoreland that the U.S. needed to rethink its Viet Nam policies. It had to do away with the "status quo" and resolutely carry he war to the North. Although President Nixon later ordered B-52 runs on North Viet Nam, this move was not so much to win the war, but to induce the enemy to sit at the negotiation table.

Even if you just think he"s a character on Futurama, you"ve probably heard of Richard Nixon. The 37th president of the United States was a crook, a liar, and a raging anti-Semite. He deliberately sabotaged the Vietnam peace process, launched the expensive failure known as the "War on Drugs", and famously ordered his goons to try to burgle the Democratic Party"s headquarters. Oh, and he did all this while being one of the greatest presidents the U.S. has ever known.

Mike Mansfield (Senate Democratic Leader), in U.S. News and World Report (December 6, 1971), on Nixon"s pending trip to China; the phrase later became popular as "Only Nixon could go to China".

Meanwhile, Trump revelled in the mob. He exalted in the mob, hoping that his shock troops would succeed where Pence had failed: prevent Congress from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to certify the election of the new and real president. Again, Trump was the fifth column. If Richard Nixon had an illegitimate heir – it would be Donald Trump. Like Nixon, Trump – motivated by hate and vengeance – was intent on using the powers and authority of the presidency to pervert what he was obliged to protect: the US Constitution. Like Nixon, Trump treated Congress and the constitution as inconveniences to his dangerous, disfiguring will and parochial designs. Like Nixon, Trump was more potentate than president. Like Nixon, Trump orchestrated a pervasive assault on the constitution, convinced that the president and his enablers were above the law, safe from the retributive arm of the law. Like Nixon, Trump was impeached for just cause – in his disgraceful case, twice. And, like Nixon, Trump has escaped the dock. That is the test and challenge confronting America today.

Nixon has the audacity to tell me to do nothing in the interest of my country until he dictacts where that interest lies. At the same time he threatens me that failure to follow his so-called advice will be to jeopardize the special relations between our two countries. I say to hell with such special relations.

Former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, as quoted in Richard M. Nixon 1969-1974, by Tom Wicker, in Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 26, No. 1, The Nixon Presidency (Winter 1996), pp. 249-257

He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. If the right people had been in charge of Nixon"s funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.

Hunter S Thompson, "He was a crook"; Hunter S. Thompson on the death of Richard Nixon Thompson, Hunter S. (June 15, 1994) ""He was a crook"; Hunter S. Thompson on the death of Richard Nixon" Archived October 7, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Rolling Stone.

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he"d lie just to keep his hand in.

Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddamn liar. He"s one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.

It struck me from time to time that Nixon, as a character, would have been so easy to fix, in the sense of removing these rather petty flaws. And yet, I think it"s also true that if you did this, you would probably have removed that very inner core of insecurity that led to his drive. A secure Nixon almost surely, in my view, would never have been president of the United States at all.

I finally arrived here in 1968. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire. The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, I said, "What party is he?" My friend said, "He"s a Republican". I said, "Then I am a Republican". And I have been a Republican ever since.

Imagine a man. A mean man. A mendacious man. In many ways, a mad man. A man who mocked minorities, including African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, and gay people. A man who cynically capitalized on the racism of Southern whites in the course of his campaigns. A man who cheated in an election he was already going to win by covering up a break-in at the Watergate hotel. Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, won his first election in the shadow of the death of Robert Kennedy. His second election, a landslide win over liberal George McGovern, felt like one last boot stomp on the ashes of the sixties. And, of course, Nixon resigned office in the greatest presidential scandal of the 20th century. Yet, in between those curtains of American despair, Nixon ended up accomplishing a whole lot. He did the unexpected—his executive orders and his legislation helped the poor, minorities, women, the environment, and the world. Nixon, dare I say it, was progressive. He was conservative, and he clothed his ideas in conservative rhetoric, but he was progressive.

There are moral intentions and there are moral consequences. The floral consequences of Richard Nixon’s presidency—most of which are overshadowed by Watergate—contradict his intentions. Would the opposite be any better? The revolutions of the 20th century—of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin—attest to the grotesque transformations of the most moral intentions. The unrelenting ocean of history washes away our motives, our hopes, our dreams. All that remains is our actions. And we will remember Nixon’s actions: his biggest mistake, the scandal which will forever define his presidency and life. But if we dig through his legacy, we would find gems which shine brighter in today’s light.

Today is a time of much historical revisionism. We look for sins in the lives of saints. I understand this tendency—greatness doesn’t excuse evil. To worship another human is to forget who a human being is in the first place. But the truth goes both ways. What about finding the good in disgraced figures? What moral lessons might we gleam from such an exercise? I am not talking about dictators, or mass murderers, or perverse evildoers. I am talking about Richard Nixon. I am talking about our presidents, our parents, our favorite characters, our friends, our artists, and our acquaintances. People who make great mistakes but also do great good. People who say prejudiced things and then do justice. People who are human. What are we to make of such people? Richard Nixon, by many accounts, was a mean man. But there was good in him. More importantly, there was good he did. And that’s worth remembering.

Forty years ago public outrage about the actions of President Richard Milhous Nixon, lead by his long time liberal critics, forced him to be the first U.S. chief executive to resign the presidency. Critics screamed about Nixon’s extra-legal and extra-constitutional conduct as protestors ringed the White House chanting "Jail to the Chief." Nixon’s men had spied on their fellow citizens, allegedly used the IRS to harass their political enemies, waged war without the consent of Congress and used the CIA in an effort to hide their crimes. No man, Nixon’s critics assured us, was above the law. For his transgressions, Richard Nixon was forced from office, evading prosecution only because of a presidential pardon. Yet by any reasonable measure, Nixon’s sins seem venal compared to those of President Barack Obama.

Nixon’s men illegally wiretapped his political opponents -- and they went to jail for it. When the FBI used warrantless surveillance to wiretap and intercept the mail of anti-war radicals, those who did so were charged, tried and convicted. Obama has used the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to guarantee any surveillance the government wants without probable cause. Nixon spied on a virtual hand-full. Barack Obama’ s NSA wire-taps the entire nation and monitors the e-mails of thousands. Nixon talked about using the IRS to harass his opponents but there is no evidence that he successfully did so, yet illegal use of the IRS was among the Articles of Impeachment voted by the House of Representatives. Obama’s IRS has actually used the IRS to harass conservative groups. Can you imagine the liberal outcry if IRS officials under Nixon referred to liberals as “a—holes’ and “crazies”?

The White House tapes show Nixon attempting to use the CIA to impede the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in. This pales in comparison to the CIA spying on members of the US Senate charged with investigating the Agency"s illegal activities. Where is liberal outrage over Obama’s Justice Department spying on reporters? What would have happened if Nixon"s Justice Department had opened the mail and tracked the movements of Walter Cronkite as Obama’s Justice department did with Fox’s News" James Rosen?

Nixon’s impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress’ sole authority to declare war by bombing Cambodia. Yet in Libya Obama said that only he had the inherent authority to decide what is a “war” and that no congressional approval was necessary. He proceeded to bomb Libya, destroy its military and spend more than a billion dollars in borrowed money in support of one side, who was not aligned with the United States, in a civil war. Nixon’s men considered the murder of investigative journalist Jack Anderson. That’s nothing compared with Obama’s assertion that he has right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction.

While Nixon was known for his “Enemies List,” the former head of the National Security Agency’s global digital data gathering program says that Obama also has an enemies list stored by keyword, which has been used to take down perceived political enemies such as General Petraus. During his re-election campaign Obama even brazenly posted his enemies list on-line as a not-so-subtle threat not to donate to his opponents. How Nixon’s critics would have howled if he had publicly targeted Sen. George McGovern’s donors. Because of Obama’s iconic status on the left, liberals are silent as Obama shreds the Constitution in ways Richard Nixon would have marveled at. Democrats scoff at the notion of the impeachment of Obama for crimes far more serious and reaching than of those committed by Richard Nixon.

Commentators portray Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a more organized and calculating Donald Trump. In reality, DeSantis most resembles Richard Nixon -- disciplined, stiff and intense. Both lack Trump"s charisma and ease before voters. Also unlike Trump -- but very much like Nixon -- DeSantis effectively deploys powers of the state for political gain. And DeSantis also mimics Nixon"s cruelty, his willingness to place constituents in harm"s way in the pursuit of political gain.

The good news for DeSantis is that Nixon won election as president despite also having a combative and unlikable personality. The bad news for him is that voters in 1968 were unaware of Nixon"s cruel streak. Fearful that his opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, would gain from peace in Vietnam, Nixon secretly derailed peace talks then underway in Paris. His cynical act prolonged the war by five years, ruthlessly adding more than 20,000 additional American deaths, plus hundreds of thousands of additional Vietnamese deaths. In contrast to Nixon, DeSantis" cruel streak is already evident to voters. It includes demonizing LGBTQ youths. He is mimicking Russia"s Putin, Hungary"s Viktor Orban and others throughout history who similarly sought political advantage attacking the vulnerable -- the Irish, Rohingyas, Jews, African Americans, Uyghurs and now the LGBTQ community.

Principled Republicans were pivotal in rejecting the amorality of Richard Nixon, ejecting him from the White House in 1974. In contrast, only a handful of today"s House or Senate Republicans supported Trump"s impeachment for the attempted decapitation of American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021. That shift signals that Nixon"s dark amorality now permeates the party, a mania enabled by conservative billionaires and Rupert Murdock"s laudatory Fox News and Wall Street Journal. Like Richard Nixon, today"s Republican leaders refuse to draw red lines, cruelly accepting avoidable deaths among the party faithful as merely a price to be paid for political gain. Thousands of party leaders are mimicking the cruelty and pathologies of Nixon in seeking political advantage -- but on a far larger scale that dwarfs his Vietnam brutality. DeSantis certainly reflects this generalized devolution. But history suggests that DeSantis may well fade like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and others, his front-runner status only temporary. The real challenge for America is how to purge the Republican Party of Richard Nixon.

Nixon had the quality that...he thought of himself as acting best in crisis. And there was a lot in that. But it reached the point where one sometimes had the impression that he invited crisis and that he couldn"t stand normalcy.

I don"t think Nixon has a friend. I"ve known him for a long time. I"ve interviewed him many times, in one of which, at the very end of the interview, I asked him, "Mr. Nixon, can you ever relax with anyone?" And he said—it was rather pathetic, to me, Dick—he said, "No, I never can. I can never really let my hair down with anybody." And then I said, "Not even with Pat?" And he thought for a moment and he said, "No, not even with Pat.""

In his 1970 State of the Union address, Richard Nixon said:  "Clean air, clean water, open spaces - these should once again be the birthright of every American."  My friend Erika Zucker was the first to identify this quote when I put it up on Facebook.  And although Nixon is reported to have said that the environmental movement is "crap" for "clowns," he signed the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and NEPA, and he signed the legislation creating the EPA.

Ultimately, Nixon resigned in disgrace.  In the famous interview with David Frost, Nixon said that "if the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."  Not so, Tricky Dick.   Neither you nor powerful industries are above the law - including the Clean Air Act that you signed.  NRDC is working to make sure that Nixon"s promise from 38 years ago comes true.

Nixon Power Services designs, installs and services power systems. We are the world’s largest distributor of Kohler industrial generators and have earned the prestigious Kohler Distributor of the Year honor eleven times. We are headquartered in Nashville, TN with seven branch locations throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.

"Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We"re breathing again. Thanks a lot." — Mission Control after Armstrong confirmed landing.

"For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one." President Richard Nixon, in telephone call to Armstrong and Aldrin while they were on the moon.

Forty years ago today President Richard M. Nixon told the nation that he had decided to resign from office, effective at noon, Aug. 9, 1974. The long-building scandal of Watergate had finally cost Nixon the White House, the political prize he had sought all his adult life.

Today’s voters, inured by years of partisan strife, a 2000 presidential election decided in the courts, and the impeachment of President Clinton, might find it hard to imagine the turmoil then roiling the US electorate. Vietnam, and then Watergate, had split the nation more deeply than anything since the civil war. Nixon’s televised farewell address to the nation began at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, and when he uttered the fateful line “I shall resign the presidency at noon tomorrow,” the roar from protesters gathered in Lafayette Square was so loud that reporters watching the feed of the speech in the White House basement could not hear the next line.

Nixon’s resignation speech was sober and largely unemotional. He said, in essence, that he had lost the congressional support necessary to carry on the work of his administration, and that to spare the country further drift and turmoil, he would go. This underplayed the facts of the scandal, but many commentators found the address helpful, given the circumstances.

But the television address was not Nixon’s real farewell. It was not his personal goodbye, in any case. That came the next day, Aug. 9. Nixon spoke before several hundred staffers, supporters, and friends in the East Room of the White House before boarding the helicopter that was to whisk him to political exile.

Nixon had prepared these remarks that morning, drawing on a number of sources, including the personal papers of one of his tough political heroes, Theodore Roosevelt. Unpolished by staff, the speech was rambling, raw, and emotional – perhaps too emotional.

Nixon saluted his parents – his father was a “great man," the soon-to-be-ex-president said, and his mother was “a saint."  He said he had made mistakes, but never for personal gain. He talked about the White House itself – a house with a “great heart,” though not the biggest or finest residence in the world for a head of state.

—Richard Nixon, Republican candidate for the presidency, on the TV show, “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In.” The line had become a running gag on the irreverent, unconventional comedy program. Nixon’s five-second video announcement was all the funnier given his reputation for being stuffy and humorless.

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper"s writer Dan Baum

Ehrlichman"s comment is the first time the war on drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House

One of Richard Nixon’s top advisers and a key figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created as a political tool to fight blacks and hippies, according to a 22-year-old interview recently published in Harper’s Magazine.

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

Ehrlichman’s comment is the first time the war on drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House.

It’s a stark departure from Nixon’s public explanation for his first piece of legislation in the war on drugs, delivered in message to Congress in July 1969, which framed it as a response to an increase in heroin addiction and the rising use of marijuana and hallucinogens by students.

However, Nixon’s political focus on white voters, the “Silent Majority,” is well-known. And Nixon’s derision for minorities in private is well-known from his White House recordings.

Baum equated Ehrlichman’s admission with traumatic war stories that often take decades for veterans to talk about and said it clearly took time for Ehrlichman and other Nixon aides he interviewed to candidly explain the war on drugs.

The Nixon administration marked the end of America"s long period of post-World War II prosperity and the onset of a period of high inflation and unemployment-"stagflation." Unemployment was unusually low when Nixon took office in January 1969 (3.3 percent), but inflation was rising. Nixon adopted a policy of monetary restraint to cool what his advisers saw as an overheating economy. "Gradualism," as it was called, placed its hopes in restricting the growth of the money supply to rein in the economic boom that occurred during Lyndon Johnson"s last year in office.

But gradualism, as its name implied, did not produce quick results. As the congressional election year of 1970 began, Nixon, according to Haldeman"s diary, repeatedly asked the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers "to explain why we hadn"t solved the inflation problem." The President also said "that he never heard of losing an election because of inflation, but lots were lost because unemployment or recession. Point is, he"s determined not to let the war on inflation get carried to the point that it will lose us House or Senate seats in November." Political concerns would play an overriding role in the economic decisions of Nixon"s first term.

Nixon"s fears proved well-founded. By the end of 1970, unemployment rose to the politically damaging level of 6 percent. In that year, Nixon appointed his chief economic adviser, Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve; Burns quickly asserted his independence by giving the President an ultimatum: if Nixon failed to hold federal spending under $200 billion, Burns would continue to keep the money supply tight to fight inflation. Nixon acceded to Burns demands. To save money, he delayed pay raises to federal employees by six months. One result was a strike by the nation"s postal workers. Although Nixon used the U.S. Army to keep the postal system going, he ultimately yielded to the postal workers" wage demands, undoing some of the budget-balancing that Burns demanded.

Nixon found himself entering the congressional campaign season faced with unemployment, inflation, and Democratic demands for an "incomes policy" to check spiraling prices and wages. Some called for wage and price controls. In the fall, Republicans picked up two seats in the Senate but lost nine in the House, a development that Nixon blamed on the economy.

The economy continued to deteriorate. By the middle of 1971, unemployment reached 6.2 percent while inflation raged unchecked. Nixon decided his administration needed a single economic spokesman and tapped Treasury Secretary John Connally as its mouthpiece. Connally made sweeping statements about the President"s intentions: "Number one, he is not going to initiate a wage-price board. Number two, he is not going to impose mandatory price and wage controls. Number three, he is not going to ask Congress for any tax relief. And number four, he is not going to increase federal spending."Within a matter of weeks, the Treasury Secretary and the President would reverse course. In August 1971, Nixon gathered all of his economic advisers at Camp David and emerged with a New Economic Policy that stood the old one on its head. The NEP violated most of Nixon"s long-held economic principles, but he was never one to let principle stand in the way of politics, and his dramatic turnaround on economic issues was immediately and enormously popular. One participant in the Camp David meeting, Herb Stein, thought the assemblage of advisers "acquired the attitude of scriptwriters preparing a TV special to be broadcast on Sunday evening." The announcement had to be as dramatic as possible. "After the special," as Stein put it, "regular programming would be resumed."Nixon came up with a smash hit. He announced a wage-and-price freeze, tax cuts, and a temporary closure of the "gold window," preventing other nations from demanding American gold in exchange for American dollars. To improve the nation"s balance of trade, Nixon called for a 10 percent import tax. Public approval was overwhelming.

Nixon then became the beneficiary of some good luck. An economic boom, which began late in 1971, lasted well into the 1972 campaign season, long enough for Nixon to parlay its effects into reelection that November.

The downturn resumed, however, in 1973. Expansive fiscal and monetary policies combined with a shortage of food (aggravated by massive Soviet purchases of American wheat) to fuel inflation. And then came the oil shock. Oil prices were rising even before the onset of the Arab oil boycott in October of 1973. Ultimately, inflation would climb to 12.1 percent in 1974 and help push the economy into recession. When Nixon left office, the economy was in the tank, with rising unemployment and inflation, lengthening gas lines, and a crashing stock market.

"Probably more new regulation was imposed on the economy," wrote Herb Stein, the chairman of Nixon"s Council of Economic Advisers, "than in any other presidency since the New Deal."The federal government took an active role in preventing on-the-job accidents and deaths when Nixon in 1970 signed