Memorials: Fond Farewells to US President Richard M. Nixon

Fond Farewell

Richard M. Nixon

1913 - - - April 22, 1994

Born in California, Nixon had a brilliant record at Whittier College and Duke University Law School before beginning the practice of law. In 1940 he married Patricia Ryan and they had two daughters, Patricia and Julie. During World War II, Nixon served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific. In 1954 General Eisenhower selected Nixon, at age 39, to be his running mate. He was nominated for President by acclamation in 1960, he lost by a narrow margin to John F. Kennedy. In 1968, he again won his party's nomination, and went on to defeat Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.
His accomplisments included one of the most dramatic events of his first term in 1969, when American astronauts made the first moon landing; his quest for world stability which included visits in 1972 to Beijing and Moscow, reducing tensions with China and the former USSR (Russia) and he announced an accord with North Viet Nam to end American involvement in Indochina. In 1974, his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents, Egypt and Syria.
In his 1972 bid for office, Nixon defeated Democratic candidate George McGovern by one of the widest margins on record. But within a few months his administration was the center of the Watergate Scandal which stemmed from a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 campaign. Traced to officials of the Committee to Re-elect the President, a number of administration officials resigned and some were later convicted of offenses connected with efforts to cover up the affair. Nixon denied any personal involvement, but the courts forced him to yield tape recordings which indicated that he had, in fact, tried to divert the investigation. As a result of unrelated scandals in Maryland, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in 1973. Nixon nominated, and Congress approved, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as Vice President. Faced with what seemed almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign the next day to begin "that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." The facts are that Nixon, even if wrong, did not do anything any other American President has not already done. The media did not like him, and this was the ultimate cause of his downfall.
In his last years, Nixon gained praise as an elder statesman. By the time of his death on April 22, 1994, he had written numerous books on his experiences in public life and on foreign policy and was honored on an American postage stamp.

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