Difference between revisions of "Richard Nixon"

Revision as of 21:40, June 24, 2008

I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

Conservapedia, how I've missed you!

I hope you enjoy my continued reappearances here.

Andy, you should really consider getting the multi-rollback tool for MediaWiki - it lets you erase entire days worth of history, really useful for your pathetic whitewashing.

I'll be leaving now - see you all soon, but under a different name!

-D.M.

P.S. - to the new recruits, get out while you still can!

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-{{President
+''I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.''
-|image=Nixon 30-0316a.jpg
-|seq=37
-|term_start=January 20, 1969
-|term_end=August 9, 1974<ref>http://home.comcast.net/~sharonday7/Presidents/AP060301.htm</ref>
-|party=Republican
-|vp=Spiro Agnew
-|vp_dates=1969-1973)
-|2vp=None
-|2vp_dates=Oct.-Dec. 1973
-|3vp=Gerald Ford
-|3vp_dates=1973-1974
-|previous=Lyndon B. Johnson
-|next=Gerald Ford
-|office2=vice
-|seq2=36
-|term_start2=January 20, 1953
-|term_end2=January 20, 1961
-|pres2=Dwight D. Eisenhower
-|previous2=Alben Barkley
-|next2=Lyndon B. Johnson
-|birth_date=January 9, 1913
-|birth_place=Yorba Linda, California
-|death_date=April 22, 1994
-|death_place=New York City
-|spouse=Thelma Catherine "Pat" Ryan
-|spouse2=
-|religion=Quaker
-}}
-'''Richard Milhous Nixon''' was the 37th [[President of the United States of America]], serving from 1969 to 1974. He was the only U. S. President to resign the office.  He also served as the 36th [[Vice President of the United States]] of America under President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] from 1953 to 1961.
+Conservapedia, how I've missed you!
-In 1947, he was elected as a [[U.S. Representative]]. As a Congressman from [[California]], and as a member of the [[House Committee on Un-American Activities]], he investigated Communists and instigated the successful prosecution of [[Alger Hiss]], accused of espionage for spying for the Soviet Union during [[World War II]].
+I hope you enjoy my continued reappearances here.
-After two terms in the House, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in November of 1950.
+Andy, you should really consider getting the multi-rollback tool for MediaWiki - it lets you erase entire days worth of history, really useful for your pathetic whitewashing.
-After losing his first presidential race to [[John F. Kennedy]] by a narrow margin in 1960, he unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in 1962, losing to incumbent Edmund G Brown.
+I'll be leaving now - see you all soon, but under a different name!
-In 1968 he was elected president, and was reelected in 1972 by a landslide, but resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974 due to a threat of impeachment by Congress for the [[Watergate Affair]]. The main impeachment charge was that Nixon obstructed justice by telling employees to mislead FBI investigators about the Watergate burglary.
+-D.M.
-== Childhood ==
+<small>''P.S. - to the new recruits, get out while you still can!''</small>
-Richard Milhous Nixon was born in [[Yorba Linda, California]], on January 9, 1913. Soon after, his family moved to Whittier, California. Nixon's childhood years were not unusual for someone growing up in two small towns near Los Angeles. His parents, Frank and Hannah Nixon, were devout [[Quakers]] Nixon had four siblings and saw two of his brothers die from [[tuberculosis]]. Nixon grew up relatively poor, as his father earned a modest income from his gas station and grocery store. But due to these hard times, he established a quality of determination and strong work ethic. A good student and a hard worker, Nixon excelled scholastically at both Whittier High School and Whittier College.
-== Education ==
-Nixon attended [[Fullerton High School]], from 1926 to 1928, in [[Fullerton, California]], and later, [[Whittier High School]], from 1928 to 1930, in [[Whittier, California]].
-He graduated second in his class from Whittier with honor in the study of [[Shakespeare]] and [[Latin]]. He was awarded scholarships to [[Harvard]] and [[Yale]] University, but declined due to his family's tenacious financial condition. He instead enrolled at [[Whittier College]], a local [[Quaker]] school, where he co-founded the [[Orthogonian Society]], a new organzation to the campus, geared towards working-class students. At Whittier, Nixon, a formidable debater, was elected freshman class president, and served as student body vice president in his junior year and president in his senior year. While at Whittier, he taught Sunday school at [[East Whittier Friends Church]] and remained a member all his life.
-A lifelong [[football]] fan, Nixon practiced with the team, but played little. In 1934, he graduated second in his class from Whittier, and went on to [[Duke University School of Law]], where he received a full scholarship, was elected president of the Duke Bar Association, and graduated third in his class.
-== Military Service ==
-During World War II, Nixon served in the [[Navy]] as a reserve officer. He received his training at Quonset Point, Rhode Island and Ottumwa, Iowa, before serving in the supply corps on several islands in the South Pacific, commanding cargo handling units in the SCAT. There he was known as "Nick" and for his exceptional poker-playing skills, banking a large sum of money that helped finance his first campaign for [[Congress]]. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant commander and resigned in March, 1946.
-== Presidency ==
-President Nixon established the [[Environmental Protection Agency]] (EPA) and was the first President to visit the People's Republic of [[China]]. He appointed a conservative ([[William Rehnquist]]), two moderates ([[Warren Burger]] and [[Lewis Powell]]) and a liberal ([[Harry Blackmun]]) to the U.S. Supreme Court. Nixon was from a [[Quakers|Quaker]] family. His foreign policy as president was marked by détente with the [[Soviet Union]] and the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the [[People's Republic of China]]. [[Conscription]] into the U. S. military also ended early in Nixon's second term, when he supported abolishing the [[Selective Service Administration]].  This was somewhat controversial at the time, but can be seen as a vote of great confidence in our system as against that of the Soviets, to the extent that our army, like our society, didn't need to be bigger as long as it was better.
-His centrist domestic policies combined conservative rhetoric and liberal action in civil rights, environmental and economic initiatives. Nixon considered himself to be a Keynesian, that is, his economic views were shaped by economist [[John Maynard Keynes]]. <ref>http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/hein6.html</ref> As a result of the Watergate affair, Nixon resigned the presidency in the face of likely impeachment by the United States [[House of Representatives]]. His successor, [[Gerald Ford]], issued a controversial [[pardon]] that allowed Nixon to avoid prosecution. Speaking in later life, Ford stated that he felt the pardon was needed to stop a terrible rift developing in American social life.
-Nixon inherited the Vietnam war with a promise to bring "peace with honor," one of his 1968 campaign slogans.  His Vietnam strategies included "Vietnamization," a policy aimed at reducing U.S. casualties and troops, while also convincing the American public that the Vietnamese people could assume the primary responsibility of waging war.  To win support for the war among the [["silent majority,"]] Nixon pursued the [["politics of polarization."]]  Instrumental to this cause was Nixon's first vice president [[Spiro T. Agnew]], who criticized opponents of the war as "nattering nabobs of negativism," and an "effete corps of impudent snobs."  Nixon also sought to instill in the North Vietnamese the belief that he was volatile and unstable, and willing to use nuclear weapons in the war, a strategy known as the "madman scenario."
-On 30 April 1970, ten days after announcing that 150,000 American troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam in the following year, Nixon announced that U.S. troops had invaded Cambodia.  This announcement brought widespread protests and violence on college and university campuses across the nation, including four deaths at Kent State University in Ohio and two deaths at Jackson State University in Mississippi.  Many campuses shut down, some for the remainder of the academic year.  The [[Paris Peace Accords]] were signed on 27 January 1973, signaling the beginning of the peace process that ended with the evacuation of the last American personnel two years later on 29 April 1975.
-== Watergate ==
-The event that ended the Nixon presidency began on June 17, 1972, when five men, all employees of Nixon's reelection campaign, were caught breaking into rival Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC. The intruders and two other accomplices were convicted of burglary and wiretapping in Jan. 1973. The [[Watergate affair]] ultimately caused Nixon to resign on 9 August 1974.   On 9 September 1974, his successor Gerald Ford granted him "a full, free, and absolute pardon."  This effectively ended investigation into the depth of Nixon's involvement in the break-in at [[Democratic National Committee]] headquarters in the Watergate hotel, or any other criminal activities.  Former White House Counsel John Dean testified to a Congressional investigating committee of Nixon's involvement in the cover-up.
-The Congressional hearings revealed Nixon had tape recorded conversations and telephone calls in his office.  These recordings reveal that Nixon's role in the cover-up began as early as six days after the break-in.  The tapes also reveal an immense scope of crimes and abuses that predate the Watergate break-in.  These include campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax audits, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, and a secret slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these operations.   The president, citing [[Executive Privilege]], refused to turn the tapes over to the committee.  In Oct. 1973 Nixon ordered Elliot Richardson, the attorney general, to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who had subpoenaed the tapes, but Richardson resigned in protest. Richardson's assistant, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to fire Cox and was fired by Nixon. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork fired Cox.  The incident, which was trumped in the press as the "Saturday Night Massacre" led to widespread calls for Nixon's impeachment.
-The White House released edited transcripts of the tapes in April 1974, and eventually the tapes themselves, after the Supreme Court rejected Nixon's claim to executive privilege.  The House Judiciary Committee issued three articles of impeachment on July 30, 1974.
-"In all of this," the articles of impeachment summarize, "Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States." After conferring with Republican Senators Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974.  Nixon was succeeded in office the same day by Ford. Gerald Ford later pardoned Nixon.
-== Writings ==
-*Victory Without War, New York, NY: Pocket Books, 1989.
-*Beyond Peace, New York, NY: Random House, 1994.
-*Four Great Americans: Tributes Delivered by President Richard Nixon. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973.
-*In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal,  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
-*Leaders New York, NY: Warner Books, 1982.
-*Nixon in Retrospect, 1946-1962: Selected Quotations. Silver Spring, MD: Research Data Publishers, 1973.
-*No More Vietnams, New York, NY: Arbor House, 1985.
-*Real Peace. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
-*RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
-*Seize the Moment: America’s Challenge in a One- SuperpowerWorld. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
-*Setting the Course; The First Year, New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1970.
-*Six Crises. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
-*Summons to Greatness: A Collage of Inspirational Though and Practical Ideas from the Messages and Addresses of Richard Nixon, Thirty-:Seventh President of the United States, Washington, D.C.: Friends of President Nixon, 1972.
-*The Real War, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1980.
-==External Links==
-*[http://www.nixonfoundation.org Nixon Birthplace & Library], in Yorba Linda, California
-http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/
-http://www.nixonfoundation.org/
-http://www.nixonlibrary.org/
-== References ==
-<References/>
-{{DEFAULTSORT:Nixon, Richard}}
-{{USPresidents}}
-{{USVicePresidents}}
-[[Category:Authors]]
-[[Category:Republican Party]]

Difference between revisions of "Richard Nixon"

Revision as of 21:40, June 24, 2008

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