Richard Nixon
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Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States (1969 - 1974) and the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States (1953 - 1961).
Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing undergraduate work at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law in La Mirada. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the United States Navy and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander during World War II. He was elected in 1946 as a Republican to the House of Representatives representing California's 12th Congressional district, and in 1950 to the United States Senate. He was selected to be the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the Republican Party nominee in the 1952 presidential election, and Nixon was vice president until 1961. Nixon announced his withdrawal from politics after losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California gubernatorial election in 1962. However, in 1968, Nixon was elected president of the United States.
The most immediate task facing President Nixon was the Vietnam War. He initially escalated the conflict, overseeing secret bombing campaigns, but soon withdrew American troops and successfully negotiated a ceasefire with North Vietnam, effectively ending American involvement in the war. His foreign policy was largely successful; he opened relations with the People's Republic of China and initiated dŽtente with the Soviet Union. Domestically, he implemented new economic policies which called for wage and price control and the abolition of the gold standard. He was reelected by a landslide in 1972. In his second term, the nation was afflicted with economic difficulties. In the face of likely impeachment for his role in the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Nixon was later pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, for any federal crimes he may have committed while in office. In his retirement, Nixon became a prolific author and undertook many foreign trips. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81.
United States presidential election, 1960
In 1960, Nixon launched his campaign for President of the United States. He faced little competition in the Republican primaries, and chose former Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. as his running mate His Democratic challenger was John F. Kennedy, and the race remained close for the duration. Nixon campaigned on his experience, but Kennedy called for new blood and claimed the Eisenhower - Nixon administration allowed the Soviet Union to overtake the U.S. in ballistic missiles (the ''missile gap''). Kennedy told voters it was time to ''get the country moving again.'' In the midst of the campaign, Nixon advocated stimulative tax cuts in what became a supply side theory. He also presented a plan for economic growth and deficit reduction, which appealed to many.
A new medium was brought to the campaign: televised presidential debates. In the first of four such debates, Nixon was recovering from illness and, wearing little makeup, looked wan and uncomfortable, in contrast to the composed Kennedy. Nixon's performance in the debate was perceived to be mediocre in the visual medium of television, though many people listening on the radio thought he won.
That November, Nixon lost the 1960 election narrowly. The final count recorded that he lost by 120,000 votes, or 0.2%. There were charges of vote fraud in Texas and Illinois; Nixon supporters unsuccessfully challenged results in both states as well as nine others. The Kennedy campaign successfully challenged Nixon's victory in Hawaii; after all the court battles and recounts were done, Kennedy had a greater number of electoral votes than he held after Election Day. Nixon halted further investigations to avoid a Constitutional crisis. Nixon and Kennedy later met in Key Biscayne, Florida, where Kennedy offered Nixon a job in his administration, an offer which Nixon declined.
Death and funeral of Richard Nixon
Nixon suffered a severe stroke at 5:45 p.m. EDT on April 18, 1994, while preparing to eat dinner in his Park Ridge, New Jersey home. It was determined that a blood clot resulting from his heart condition had formed in his upper heart, then broken off and traveled to his brain. He was taken to New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, initially alert, but unable to speak or to move his right arm or leg. Damage to the brain caused swelling (cerebral edema) and Nixon slipped into a deep coma. On April 22, 1994, he died at 9:08 p.m., with his daughters at his bedside; he was 81.
Nixon's funeral took place on April 27, 1994, the first for an American president since that of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973, which Nixon had presided over as President. Speakers at the service, held at the Nixon Library, included then President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, California Governor Pete Wilson, and the Reverend Billy Graham. Also in attendance were former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and their respective first ladies. Nixon was buried beside Pat on the grounds of the Nixon Library. He was survived by his two daughters, Tricia and Julie, and four grandchildren. In keeping with his wishes, his funeral was not a state funeral, though his body did lie in repose in the Nixon Library lobby prior to the funeral services.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (July 5, 1902 - February 27, 1985) was a Republican United States Senator from Massachusetts and a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Vietnam and the Vatican (as Representative). He was the Republican nominee for Vice President in the 1960 Presidential election.
The 1960 Vice Presidential campaign
Lodge left the ambassadorship during the election of 1960 to run for Vice President on the Republican ticket headed by Richard Nixon. The duo lost the election to Lodge's old foe, Kennedy, in a razor thin vote. Nixon chose Lodge as his running mate in the hope that Lodge's presence on the ticket would force Kennedy to divert time and resources to securing his Massachusetts base, but Kennedy won his home state handily. Nixon also felt that the name Lodge had made for himself in the United Nations as a foreign policy expert would prove useful against the relatively inexperienced Kennedy. The choice of Lodge proved to be controversial, as some conservative Republicans charged that Lodge had cost the ticket votes, particularly in the South, by his pledge (made without Nixon's approval) that as President, Nixon would name at least one African American to a cabinet post. Between 1961 and 1962 he was the 1st Director General of the Atlantic Institute (full name - Atlantic Institute for International Affairs).
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. died in 1985 and was interred in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The United States Presidential Election of 1960 marked the end of Dwight D. Eisenhower's two terms as President. Eisenhower's Vice President, Richard Nixon, who had transformed his office into a national political base, was the Republican candidate.
The Democrats nominated Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy (JFK). He would become the first Roman Catholic to be elected President, and he remains the only Roman Catholic to be elected to the Presidency. The electoral vote was the closest in any presidential election dating to 1916, and Kennedy's margin of victory in the popular vote is among the closest ever in American history. The 1960 election also remains a source of debate among some historians as to whether vote theft in selected states aided Kennedy's victory.
This was the first election in which Alaska and Hawaii were included in the election, having been granted statehood on January 3 and August 21 of the previous year. It was also the first election in which both candidates for president were born in the 20th century.
