Richard Nixon

     Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1931 in Yorba Linda California. His father owned a small lemon farm and his mother was a Quaker. A good student, Nixon went to Duke University to obtain a degree in law. In 1942 Nixon joined the Navy, and fought in the Pacific war. He left the Navy in 1946 because he was asked to run for Congress in California. He attacked his democrat opponent, and said that Democrats are an enemy to free enterprise. Once Nixon was elected he was asked to join an organization that looked for people who were doing “un-American” things. In 1952 Dwight D. Eisenhower chose Nixon as his running mate, being the youngest to do so at age 39. Nixon attacked Adlai Stevenson who was the Democrat running for president by calling him a man with a “PhD from Dean Acheson's cowardly college of Communist containment” Nixon served as Vice President and ran for president in 1960 losing to John F. Kennedy. It wasn’t until 1968 when Nixon ran again for president and won, promising to save the nation. The nation was currently in shock by the Vietnam War, and Nixon promised to have a “peace with honor.” Nixon however widened the war in his first term, and then was involved in the Watergate Scandal (see National Affairs section.) Nixon broke into the Democratic National Headquarters, mostly to find information that would help him to get re-elected. Nixon resigned as president in 1974 knowing that he would get impeached. Nixon died in 1994.  

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