Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–1994) served as the 37th President of the United States from January 1969 until his resignation on 9 August 1974. A Republican from California, he had previously been a U.S. Representative, Senator, and Vice President under Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961), before losing the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and winning the 1968 race against Hubert Humphrey.

Nixon's foreign policy, shaped in close partnership with National Security Adviser (later Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger, reoriented Cold War diplomacy. Key milestones include:

• Opening to China: Nixon's February 1972 visit to Beijing and meeting with Mao Zedong, producing the Shanghai Communiqué and beginning normalization of U.S.–PRC relations.
• Détente with the Soviet Union: The May 1972 Moscow summit with Leonid Brezhnev yielded the SALT I agreement and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
• Vietnam War: Pursued "Vietnamization" and expanded operations into Cambodia and Laos; the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973, ending direct U.S. combat involvement.
• Middle East: His administration managed the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the subsequent oil embargo, launching shuttle diplomacy.

Domestically, Nixon ended the Bretton Woods gold convertibility system in August 1971 (the "Nixon shock"), established the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), and signed the Clean Air Act of 1970.

His presidency collapsed under the Watergate scandal, which began with the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and unfolded through Senate hearings, the release of White House tape recordings, and the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Nixon (1974). Facing certain impeachment by the House, Nixon resigned and was succeeded by Gerald Ford, who pardoned him on 8 September 1974. He spent later decades writing on foreign affairs and partially rehabilitating his reputation as an elder statesman.