Richard nixon chronology in a sentence

Richard Nixon Presidency Timeline Richard Nixon Timeline covers the history, important accomplishments and key issues of his presidency from January 20, to August 9, that included:. Richard Nixon Presidency Timeline Richard Nixon Timeline covers the history, important accomplishments and key issues of his presidency from January 20, to August 9, that included: Apollo 11 Lunar landing: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon.

Richard Nixon Presidency Timeline The following fact file format provides a fast overview of the Richard Nixon Presidency with a History Timeline of the important events and accomplishments of his presidency. Richard Nixon Presidency Timeline details the sequence of key historical events and accomplishments arranged in chronological order that had a significant impact on the history of the United States of America.

Richard Nixon Bio. It lands on the lunar surface. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. He was the only astronaut from Project Mercury to reach the moon. Protests erupted in Washington, D. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord, are convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate incident. The Vietnam War continued for another 2 years, but the South Vietnamese no longer received American assistance.

Six Crises Bibliography. House of Representatives: U. Senate: California gubernatorial election: GOP presidential primaries: GOP national conventions: campaign campaign campaign Presidential elections: transition debates Kennedy transition Presidents of the United States. Grant — Rutherford B. Hayes — James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt — Harry S.

Truman — Dwight D. Eisenhower — John F. Kennedy — Lyndon B. Bush — Bill Clinton — George W. Washington McKinley T. Roosevelt Truman Eisenhower Kennedy L. Bush Clinton G. Bush Obama Trump Biden. Category List. Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description with empty Wikidata description All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from July Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20, , sworn in by his onetime political rival, Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Pat Nixon held the family Bibles open at Isaiah , which reads, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another, until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices. Nixon laid the groundwork for his overture to China before he became president, writing in Foreign Affairs a year before his election: "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.

Assisting him in pursuing relations with China was Henry Kissinger , Nixon's national security advisor and future secretary of state. They collaborated closely, bypassing Cabinet officials. With relations between the Soviet Union and China at a nadir— border clashes between the two took place during Nixon's first year in office—Nixon sent private word to the Chinese that he desired closer relations.

Nixon followed up by sending Kissinger to China for clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. In February , Nixon and his wife traveled to China after Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation. Nixon made a point of shaking Zhou's hand, something which then-secretary of state John Foster Dulles had refused to do in when the two met in Geneva.

On Nixon's orders, television was strongly favored over printed publications, as Nixon felt that the medium would capture the visit much better than print. It also gave him the opportunity to snub the print journalists he despised. The following day, Nixon met with Zhou; the joint communique following this meeting recognized Taiwan as a part of China and looked forward to a peaceful solution to the problem of reunification.

The visit ushered in a new era of US—China relations. When Nixon took office, about American soldiers were dying each week in Vietnam, [ ] and the war was widely unpopular in the United States, the subject of ongoing violent protests. The Johnson administration had offered to suspend bombing unconditionally in exchange for negotiations, but to no avail.

According to Walter Isaacson, Nixon concluded soon after taking office that the Vietnam War could not be won, and he was determined to end it quickly. Nixon approved a secret B carpet bombing campaign of North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge positions in Cambodia beginning in March and code-named Operation Menu , without the consent of Cambodian leader Norodom Sihanouk.

Initial talks did not result in an agreement, [ ] and in May he publicly proposed to withdraw all American troops from South Vietnam provided North Vietnam did so, and suggesting South Vietnam hold internationally supervised elections with Viet Cong participation. Amid protests at home demanding an immediate pullout, he implemented a strategy of replacing American troops with Vietnamese troops , known as " Vietnamization ".

In March , at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot 's then-second-in-command, Nuon Chea , North Vietnamese troops launched an offensive and overran much of Cambodia. When news of the leak first appeared, Nixon was inclined to do nothing; the Papers, a history of United States' involvement in Vietnam, mostly concerned the lies of prior administrations and contained few real revelations.

He was persuaded by Kissinger that the Papers were more harmful than they appeared, and the President tried to prevent publication, but the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspapers. The agreement implemented a cease fire and allowed for the withdrawal of remaining American troops without requiring withdrawal of the , North Vietnam Army regulars located in the South.

On taking office in , he stepped up covert operations against Cuba and its president, Fidel Castro. He maintained close relations with the Cuban-American exile community through his friend, Bebe Rebozo , who often suggested ways of irritating Castro. The Soviets and Cubans became concerned, fearing Nixon might attack Cuba and break the understanding between Kennedy and Khrushchev that ended the missile crisis.

In August , the Soviets asked Nixon to reaffirm the understanding, which he did, despite his hard line against Castro. The process was not completed before the Soviets began expanding their base at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos in October A minor confrontation ensued, the Soviets stipulated they would not use Cienfuegos for submarines bearing ballistic missiles, and the final round of diplomatic notes were exchanged in November.

The election of Marxist candidate Salvador Allende as President of Chile in September spurred a vigorous campaign of covert opposition to him by Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon used the improving international environment to address the topic of nuclear peace. Following the announcement of his visit to China, the Nixon administration concluded negotiations for him to visit the Soviet Union.

Nixon engaged in intense negotiations with Brezhnev. Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of "peaceful coexistence". A banquet was held that evening at the Kremlin. Through the employment of linkage, they hoped to change the nature and course of U. They also intended, through linkage, to make U. His policy of linkage had in fact failed. It failed mainly because it was based on flawed assumptions and false premises, the foremost of which was that the Soviet Union wanted strategic arms limitation agreement much more than the United States did.

Seeking to foster better relations with the United States, China and the Soviet Union both cut back on their diplomatic support for North Vietnam and advised Hanoi to come to terms militarily. I had long believed that an indispensable element of any successful peace initiative in Vietnam was to enlist, if possible, the help of the Soviets and the Chinese.

At worst, Hanoi was bound to feel less confident if Washington was dealing with Moscow and Beijing. At best, if the two major Communist powers decided that they had bigger fish to fry, Hanoi would be pressured into negotiating a settlement we could accept. During the previous two years, Nixon had made considerable progress in U. Nixon considered proposing a comprehensive test-ban treaty, but he felt he would not have time to complete it during his presidency.

As part of the Nixon Doctrine , the U. During the Nixon administration, the U. Nixon believed Israel should make peace with its Arab neighbors and that the U. The president believed that—except during the Suez Crisis —the U. The Arab-Israeli conflict was not a major focus of Nixon's attention during his first term—for one thing, he felt that no matter what he did, American Jews would oppose his reelection.

Israel suffered heavy losses and Nixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli losses, cutting through inter-departmental squabbles and bureaucracy and taking personal responsibility for any response by Arab nations. More than a week later, by the time the U. The truce negotiations rapidly escalated into a superpower crisis; when Israel gained the upper hand, Egyptian president Sadat requested a joint U.

When Soviet Premier Brezhnev threatened to unilaterally enforce any peacekeeping mission militarily, Nixon ordered the U. This was the closest the world had come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Brezhnev backed down as a result of Nixon's actions. Because Israel's victory was largely due to U. After the war, and under Nixon's presidency, the U.

I believe that, beyond a doubt, we are now facing the best opportunity we have had in 15 years to build a lasting peace in the Middle East. I am convinced history will hold us responsible if we let this opportunity slip by I now consider a permanent Middle East settlement to be the most important final goal to which we must devote ourselves. Nixon made one of his final international visits as president to the Middle East in June , and became the first president to visit Israel.

Since s, the United States perceived Pakistan as an integral bulwark against global communism in the Cold War. During the Bangladesh Liberation War , the United States stood by Pakistan against Bengali nationalists in terms of diplomacy and military threats. Nixon denied getting involved in the situation, saying that it was an internal matter of Pakistan, but when Pakistan's defeat seemed certain, he sent the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal.

At the time Nixon took office in , inflation was at 4. The Great Society had been enacted under Johnson, which, together with the Vietnam War costs, was causing large budget deficits. Unemployment was low, but interest rates were at their highest in a century. Nixon was far more interested in foreign affairs than domestic policies, but he believed that voters tend to focus on their own financial condition and that economic conditions were a threat to his reelection.

As part of his " New Federalism " views, he proposed grants to the states, but these proposals were for the most part lost in the congressional budget process. However, Nixon gained political credit for advocating them. Nixon's options were to limit fiscal and monetary expansionist policies that reduced unemployment or end the dollar's fixed exchange rate; Nixon's dilemma has been cited as an example of the Impossible trinity in international economics.

His opponents could offer no alternative policy that was either plausible or believable since the one they favored was one they had designed but which the president had appropriated for himself. Nixon's policies dampened inflation through , although their aftereffects contributed to inflation during his second term and into the Ford administration.

According to Thomas Oatley, "the Bretton Woods system collapsed so that Nixon might win the presidential election. After Nixon won re-election, inflation was returning. The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy. Nixon advocated a " New Federalism ", which would devolve power to state and local elected officials, though Congress was hostile to these ideas and enacted few of them.

Nixon was a late supporter of the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the election, and the candidates were rarely asked for their views on the subject.

Richard nixon chronology in a sentence

Nixon broke new ground by discussing environmental policy in his State of the Union speech in He saw that the first Earth Day in April presaged a wave of voter interest on the subject, and sought to use that to his benefit; in June he announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency EPA. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.

In , Nixon proposed health insurance reform—a private health insurance employer mandate, [ b ] federalization of Medicaid for poor families with dependent minor children, [ ] and support for health maintenance organizations HMOs. Nixon was concerned about the prevalence of domestic drug use in addition to drug use among American soldiers in Vietnam.

He called for a war on drugs and pledged to cut off sources of supply abroad. He also increased funds for education and for rehabilitation facilities. As one policy initiative, Nixon called for more money for sickle-cell research, treatment, and education in February [ ] and signed the National Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act on May 16, The Nixon presidency witnessed the first large-scale integration of public schools in the South.

Soon after his inauguration, he appointed Vice President Agnew to lead a task force, which worked with local leaders—both white and black—to determine how to integrate local schools. Agnew had little interest in the work, and most of it was done by Labor Secretary George Shultz. Federal aid was available, and a meeting with President Nixon was a possible reward for compliant committees.

By September , less than ten percent of black children were attending segregated schools. By , however, tensions over desegregation surfaced in Northern cities, with angry protests over the busing of children to schools outside their neighborhood to achieve racial balance. Nixon opposed busing personally but enforced court orders requiring its use.

Some scholars, such as James Morton Turner and John Isenberg, believe that Nixon, who had advocated for civil rights in his campaign, slowed down desegregation as president, appealing to the racial conservatism of Southern whites, who were angered by the civil rights movement. This, he hoped, would boost his election chances in In addition to desegregating public schools, Nixon implemented the Philadelphia Plan in —the first significant federal affirmative action program.

Nevertheless, he appointed more women to administration positions than Lyndon Johnson had. After a nearly decade-long national effort , the United States won the race to land astronauts on the Moon on July 20, , with the flight of Apollo Nixon spoke with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their moonwalk. He called the conversation "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House".

Paine drew up ambitious plans for the establishment of a permanent base on the Moon by the end of the s and the launch of a crewed expedition to Mars as early as Nixon rejected both proposals due to the expense. On May 24, , Nixon approved a five-year cooperative program between NASA and the Soviet space program , culminating in the joint mission of an American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft linking in space.

Nixon believed his rise to power had peaked at a moment of political realignment. The Democratic " Solid South " had long been a source of frustration to Republican ambitions. Goldwater had won several Southern states by opposing the Civil Rights Act of but had alienated more moderate Southerners. Nixon's efforts to gain Southern support in were diluted by Wallace's candidacy.

Through his first term, he pursued a Southern Strategy with policies, such as his desegregation plans, that would be broadly acceptable among Southern whites, encouraging them to realign with the Republicans in the aftermath of the civil rights movement. He nominated two Southern conservatives, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell , to the Supreme Court, but neither was confirmed by the Senate.

Nixon entered his name on the New Hampshire primary ballot on January 5, , effectively announcing his candidacy for reelection. He dismissed the Democratic platform as cowardly and divisive. With some of his supporters believed to be in favor of drug legalization, McGovern was perceived as standing for "amnesty, abortion and acid".

McGovern was also damaged by his vacillating support for his original running mate, Missouri senator Thomas Eagleton , dumped from the ticket following revelations that he had received electroshock treatment for depression. He defeated McGovern with over 60 percent of the popular vote, losing only in Massachusetts and D. The term Watergate has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration.

Those activities included "dirty tricks", such as bugging the offices of political opponents, and the harassment of activist groups and political figures. The activities were brought to light after five men were caught breaking into the Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D. Nixon downplayed the scandal as mere politics, calling news articles biased and misleading.

A series of revelations made it clear that the Committee to Re-elect President Nixon , and later the White House, were involved in attempts to sabotage the Democrats. Senior aides such as White House Counsel John Dean faced prosecution; in total 48 officials were convicted of wrongdoing. In July , White House aide Alexander Butterfield testified under oath to Congress that Nixon had a secret taping system and recorded his conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office.

These tapes were subpoenaed by Watergate Special Counsel Archibald Cox ; Nixon provided transcripts of the conversations but not the actual tapes, citing executive privilege. The gap, while not conclusive proof of wrongdoing by the President, cast doubt on Nixon's statement that he had been unaware of the cover-up. Though Nixon lost much popular support, even from his own party, he rejected accusations of wrongdoing and vowed to stay in office.

On November 17, , during a televised question-and-answer session [ ] with Associated Press managing editors , Nixon said, "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got. The legal battle over the tapes continued through early , and in April Nixon announced the release of 1, pages of transcripts of White House conversations between himself and his aides.

The House Judiciary Committee opened impeachment hearings against the President on May 9, , which were televised on the major TV networks. These hearings culminated in votes for impeachment. Even with support diminished by the continuing series of revelations, Nixon hoped to fight the charges. But one of the new tapes, recorded soon after the break-in, demonstrated that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and had approved plans to thwart the investigation.

In a statement accompanying the release of what became known as the "Smoking Gun Tape" on August 5, , Nixon accepted blame for misleading the country about when he had been told of White House involvement, stating that he had had a lapse of memory. Rhodes told Nixon he faced certain impeachment in the House. Scott and Goldwater told the president that he had, at most, only 15 votes in his favor in the Senate, far fewer than the 34 needed to avoid removal from office.

In light of his loss of political support and the near-certainty that he would be impeached and removed from office, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, , after addressing the nation on television the previous evening. Nixon said he was resigning for the good of the country and asked the nation to support the new president, Gerald Ford.

Nixon went on to review the accomplishments of his presidency, especially in foreign policy. Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly".

Nixon's speech received generally favorable initial responses from network commentators, with only Roger Mudd of CBS stating that Nixon had not admitted wrongdoing. Black opined that "What was intended to be an unprecedented humiliation for any American president, Nixon converted into a virtual parliamentary acknowledgement of almost blameless insufficiency of legislative support to continue.

He left while devoting half his address to a recitation of his accomplishments in office. With some of his staff still with him, Nixon was at his desk by a. Nixon's resignation had not put an end to the desire among many to see him punished. The Ford White House considered a pardon of Nixon, even though it would be unpopular in the country.

Nixon, contacted by Ford emissaries, was initially reluctant to accept the pardon, but then agreed to do so. Ford insisted on a statement of contrition, but Nixon felt he had not committed any crimes and should not have to issue such a document. Ford eventually agreed and, on September 8, , he granted Nixon a "full, free, and absolute pardon", which ended any possibility of an indictment.

Nixon then released a statement:. I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy. No words can describe the depth of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency, a nation I so deeply love, and an institution I so greatly respect.

In October , Nixon fell ill with phlebitis. Told by his doctors that he could either be operated on or die, a reluctant Nixon chose surgery, and President Ford visited him in the hospital. Nixon was under subpoena for the trial of three of his former aides—Dean, Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman —and The Washington Post , disbelieving his illness, printed a cartoon showing Nixon with a cast on the "wrong foot".

Judge John Sirica excused Nixon's presence despite the defendants' objections. In December , Nixon began planning his comeback despite the considerable ill will against him in the country. He wrote in his diary, referring to himself and Pat,. So be it. We will see it through. We've had tough times before and we can take the tougher ones that we will have to go through now.

That is perhaps what we were made for—to be able to take punishment beyond what anyone in this office has had before particularly after leaving office. This is a test of character and we must not fail the test. By early , Nixon's health was improving. He maintained an office in a Coast Guard station yards m from his home, at first taking a golf cart and later walking the route each day; he mainly worked on his memoirs.

Nixon admitted he had "let down the country" and that "I brought myself down. I gave them a sword and they stuck it in. And they twisted it with relish. And, I guess, if I'd been in their position, I'd have done the same thing. Nixon had wanted to return to China but chose to wait until after Ford's own visit in Ford won, but was defeated by Georgia governor Jimmy Carter in the general election.

The Carter administration had little use for Nixon and blocked his planned trip to Australia, causing the government of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser to withhold its official invitation. He chose not to present any defense. Nixon addressed the Oxford Union regarding Watergate:. I screwed it up and I paid the price. Farrell deemed it one of the better presidential memoirs, candid and capturing its author's voice; he deemed its rise up the bestseller lists justified.

Carter had not wanted to invite Nixon, but Deng had said he would visit Nixon in California if the former president was not invited. Nixon had a private meeting with Deng and visited Beijing again in mid Though Nixon had no official credentials, as a former president he was seen as the American presence at its former ally's funeral. Throughout the s, Nixon maintained an ambitious schedule of speaking engagements and writing, [ ] traveled, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries.

In , Nixon addressed a convention of newspaper publishers, impressing his audience with his tour d'horizon of the world. Bush , as well as their wives, Betty , Nancy , and Barbara. Pat Nixon died on June 22, , of emphysema and lung cancer. Her funeral services were held on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace. Former president Nixon was distraught throughout the interment and delivered a tribute to her inside the library building.

Nixon suffered a severe stroke on April 18, , while preparing to eat dinner in his home at Park Ridge , New Jersey. He died at p. He was 81 years old. Nixon's funeral took place on April 27, , in Yorba Linda, California. Bush, and their wives. Richard Nixon was buried beside his wife Pat on the grounds of the Nixon Library. He was survived by his two daughters, Tricia and Julie , and four grandchildren.

John F. Stacks of Time magazine said of Nixon shortly after his death,. An outsize energy and determination drove him on to recover and rebuild after every self-created disaster that he faced. To reclaim a respected place in American public life after his resignation, he kept traveling and thinking and talking to the world's leaders Clinton, whose wife served on the staff of the committee that voted to impeach Nixon, met openly with him and regularly sought his advice.

Tom Wicker of The New York Times noted that Nixon had been equalled only by Franklin Roosevelt in being five times nominated on a major party ticket and, quoting Nixon's farewell speech, wrote,. Richard Nixon's jowly, beard-shadowed face, the ski-jump nose and the widow's peak, the arms upstretched in the V-sign, had been so often pictured and caricatured, his presence had become such a familiar one in the land, he had been so often in the heat of controversy, that it was hard to realize the nation really would not "have Nixon to kick around anymore".

Ambrose said of the reaction to Nixon's death, "To everyone's amazement, except his, he's our beloved elder statesman. Upon Nixon's death, the news coverage mentioned Watergate and the resignation but much of the coverage was favorable to the former president. The Dallas Morning News stated, "History ultimately should show that despite his flaws, he was one of our most farsighted chief executives.

The artist urges his audience to sit down; the work will take some time to complete, as "this portrait is a little more complicated than most". Historian and political scientist James MacGregor Burns asked of Nixon, "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking? What he will be remembered for is the nightmare he put the country through in his second term and for his resignation.

Yet even in a spirit of historical revisionism , no simple verdict is possible. Nixon saw his policies on Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union as central to his place in history. With the exception of his inexcusable continuation of the war in Vietnam, Nixon really will get high marks in history. While the criminal farce of Watergate was in the making, Nixon's inspirational statesmanship was establishing new working relationships both with Communist China and with the Soviet Union.

Nixon's stance on domestic affairs has been credited with the passage and enforcement of environmental and regulatory legislation. In a paper on Nixon and the environment, historian Paul Charles Milazzo points to Nixon's creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA , and to his enforcement of legislation such as the Endangered Species Act , stating that "though unsought and unacknowledged, Richard Nixon's environmental legacy is secure".

Historian Keith W. Olson has written that Nixon left a legacy of fundamental mistrust of government, rooted in Vietnam and Watergate. Olson suggests that legislation in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks restored the president's power. According to his biographer Herbert Parmet, "Nixon's role was to steer the Republican party along a middle course, somewhere between the competitive impulses of the Rockefellers, the Goldwaters, and the Reagans.

Nixon's career was frequently dogged by his persona and the public's perception of it. Editorial cartoonists and comedians often exaggerated his appearance and mannerisms, to the point where the line between the human and the caricature became increasingly blurred. He was often portrayed with unshaven jowls, slumped shoulders, and a furrowed, sweaty brow.

Nixon had a complex personality, both very secretive and awkward, yet strikingly reflective about himself. He was inclined to distance himself from people and was formal in all aspects, wearing a coat and tie even when home alone. Nixon sometimes drank alcohol to excess, especially during He also was prescribed sleeping pills. According to Ray Price , Nixon sometimes took them in together.

Nixon also took dilantin , recommended by Jack Dreyfus. That medicine is usually prescribed to treat and prevent seizures, but in Nixon's case it was for depression. His periodic overindulgences, especially during stressful times such as during Apollo 13 , concerned Price and others, including then-advisor Ehrlichman and long-time valet Manolo Sanchez.

Biographer Elizabeth Drew summarized Nixon as a "smart, talented man, but most peculiar and haunted of presidents". He assumed the worst in people and he brought out the worst in them He clung to the idea of being "tough". He thought that was what had brought him to the edge of greatness. But that was what betrayed him. He could not open himself to other men and he could not open himself to greatness.

In October , a volume of White House audio tapes was released which contained multiple statements by Nixon deemed derogatory toward Jews. Haldeman , Nixon said that Washington was "full of Jews" and that "most Jews are disloyal", making exceptions for some of his top aides. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right? And I'm not, you know what I mean?

Nixon believed that putting distance between himself and other people was necessary for him as he advanced in his political career and became president. Even Bebe Rebozo , by some accounts his closest friend, did not call him by his first name. Nixon said of this,. Even with close friends, I don't believe in letting your hair down, confiding this and that and the other thing—saying, "Gee, I couldn't sleep That's just the way I am.

Some people are different. Some people think it's good therapy to sit with a close friend and, you know, just spill your guts Not me. No way. August 8, : Facing imminent impeachment and the threat of removal from office, Richard Nixon announces his resignation in a televised address. He becomes the first U. President to resign from office. August 9, : Richard Nixon formally resigns from the presidency, and Gerald Ford is inaugurated as President.

Post-Presidency and Legacy September 8, : President Gerald Ford grants Nixon a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed while in office. The pardon is controversial and faces criticism from many who believe it undermines accountability for the Watergate scandal. He travels extensively and remains an influential figure in Republican circles.