{{infobox vice president| name	Nelson Rockefeller
Order	41st
Office	Vice President of the United States
Term start	December 19, 1974
Term end	January 20, 1977
Predecessor	Gerald Ford
Successor	Walter Mondale
Order2	49th
Office2	Governor of New York
Term start2	January 1, 1959
Term end2	December 18, 1973
Lieutenant2	Malcolm Wilson
Predecessor2	W. Averell Harriman
Successor2	Malcolm Wilson
Order4	1st Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs
Term start4	December 20, 1944
Term end4	August 17, 1945
President4	Franklin D. RooseveltHarry S. Truman
Successor4	Spruille Braden
Order3	1st Under Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
Term start3	June 11, 1953
Term end3	December 22, 1954
President3	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Successor3	Herold Christian Hunt
Birthname	Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller
Birth date	July 08, 1908
Birth place	Bar Harbor, Maine, U.S.
Death date	January 26, 1979
Death place	Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Resting place	Rockefeller Family Cemetery Sleepy Hollow, New York, U.S.
Spouse	(1) Mary Todhunter Clark (married 1930, divorced 1962)(2) Margaretta Fitler Murphy (married 1963)
Children	Rodman RockefellerAnne RockefellerSteven C. RockefellerMary RockefellerMichael RockefellerNelson Rockefeller, Jr.Mark Rockefeller
Party	Republican Party
Religion	Baptist
Signature	Nelson A Rockefeller Signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Residence	New York City, New York
Alma mater	Dartmouth College (A.B.)
President	Gerald Ford }}

Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 January 26, 1979) was the 41st Vice President of the United States (1974-1977), serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York (1959-1973), as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions. He was also a noted businessman, art collector, and philanthropist.

Rockefeller, a Republican, was relatively liberal and his views were often generally close to those of the opposing Democratic Party. In his time, moderates in Republican party were called "Rockefeller Republicans". As Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 his achievements included the expansion of the State University of New York, efforts to protect the environment, the building of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, increased facilities and personnel for medical care, and creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, he served as Vice President (under the 25th Amendment) from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford, but did not join the 1976 Republican national ticket with President Ford, marking his retirement from politics.

As a businessman he was President and later Chairman of Rockefeller Center, Inc., and he formed the International Basic Economy Corporation in 1947. Rockefeller assembled a significant art collection and promoted public access to the arts. He served as trustee, treasurer, and president, of the Museum of Modern Art, and founded the Museum of Primitive Art in 1954. In the area of philanthropy, he established the American International Association for Economic and Social Development in 1946, and with his four brothers he founded the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 1940 and helped guide it.

Early life

Rockefeller was born in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was the son of John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. He was the grandson of Standard Oil founder and chairman John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. and United States Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, a Republican from Rhode Island. He had a sister, Abby (1903–1976); and four brothers: John D. 3rd (1906–1978), Laurance S. (1910–2004), Winthrop (1912–1973), and David (1915-). He received his elementary and high school education at the Lincoln School, an experimental school administered by Teachers College of Columbia University. In 1930, he graduated ''cum laude'' with an A.B. in economics from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of Casque and Gauntlet (a senior society), Phi Beta Kappa, and the Zeta chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. Following his graduation he worked in a number of family related businesses including Chase National Bank (later Chase Manhattan), 1931; Rockefeller Center, Inc., joining the Board of Directors in 1931, serving as President, 1938–1945 and 1948–1951, and as Chairman, 1945–1953 and 1956–1958; and Creole Petroleum, the Venezuelan subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey, 1935-1940. From 1932 to 1979 he served as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. He also served as Treasurer, 1935–1939, and President, 1939–1941 and 1946-1953. He and his four brothers established the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a philanthropy, in 1940. He served as trustee, 1940–1975 and 1977–1979, and as president in 1956.

Early public career

Rockefeller served as a member of the Westchester County (NY) Board of Health, 1933-1953. His service with Creole Petroleum led to his deep, life-long interest in Latin America. He became fluent in Spanish. In 1940, after expressing his concern to President Franklin D. Roosevelt over Nazi influence in Latin America, the President appointed him to the new position of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA) in the Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA). Rockefeller was charged with overseeing a program of US cooperation with the nations of Latin America to help raise the standard of living, to achieve better relations among the nations of the western hemisphere, and to counter rising Nazi influence in the region. His efforts included spreading anti-Axis propaganda to head off Nazi fifth column activity, which was subsequently laughed at and booed by the Latin American population resulting in pro-Axis riots. The movie ''Down Argentina Way'' had to be refilmed because it was actually considered offensive, while ''The Great Dictator'' was banned in several countries.

In 1944 President Roosevelt appointed Rockefeller Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs. As Assistant Secretary of State he initiated the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace in 1945. The conference produced the Act of Chapultepec which provided the framework for economic, social and defense cooperation among the nations of the Americas and set the principle that an attack on one of these nations would be regarded as an attack on all and jointly resisted. Rockefeller signed the Act on behalf of the United States.

Rockefeller was a member of the US delegation at the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco in 1945. At the Conference there was considerable opposition to the idea of permitting, within the UN charter, the formation of regional pacts such as the Act of Chapultepec. Rockefeller, who believed that the inclusion was essential, especially to US policy in Latin America, successfully urged the need for regional pacts within the framework of the UN. Rockefeller was also instrumental in persuading the UN to establish its headquarters in New York City.

After resigning as Assistant Secretary of State Rockefeller returned to private life in 1945. He served as Chairman of Rockefeller Center, Inc., (1945–1953 and 1956–1958) and began a program of physical expansion. He established the American International Association for Economic and Social Development (AIA), in 1946, and the International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC), in 1947 to jointly continue the work he had begun as Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. He intermittently served as president of both through 1958. AIA was a philanthropy for the dissemination of technical and managerial expertise and equipment to underdeveloped countries to support grass roots efforts in overcoming illiteracy, disease and poverty. IBEC was a for-profit business that established companies that would stimulate underdeveloped economies of certain countries. It was hoped the success of these companies would encourage investors in those countries to set up competing or supporting businesses and further stimulate the local economy. Using AIA and IBEC Rockefeller established model farms in Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil. He maintained a home at Monte Sacro, the farm in Venezuela. Rockefeller returned to public service in 1950 when President Harry S. Truman appointed him Chairman of the International Development Advisory Board. The Board was charged with developing a plan for implementing the President’s Point IV program of providing foreign technical assistance. In 1952 President-Elect Dwight D. Eisenhower asked Rockefeller to Chair the President’s Advisory Committee on Government Organization to recommend ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness of the executive branch of the federal government. Rockefeller recommended thirteen reorganization plans, all of which were implemented. The plans implemented organizational changes in the Department of Defense, the Department of Defense Mobilization and the Department of Agriculture. His recommendations also led to the creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Rockefeller was appointed Under-Secretary of this new department in 1953. Rockefeller was active in HEW’s legislative program and implemented measures that added ten million people under the Social Security program.

In 1954 he was appointed Special Assistant to the President for Foreign Affairs (sometimes referred to as Special Assistant to the President for Psychological Warfare). He was tasked with providing the President with advice and assistance in developing programs by which the various departments of the government could counter Soviet foreign policy challenges. As part of this responsibility he was named as the President’s representative on the Operations Coordinating Board, a committee of the National Security Council. The other members were the Undersecretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the director of the Foreign Operations Administration, and the Central Intelligence Agency director. The OCB’s purpose was to oversee coordinated execution of security policy and plans, including clandestine operations.

Rockefeller broadly interpreted his directive and became an advocate for foreign economic aid as indispensable to national security. Most of Rockefeller’s initiatives were blocked by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his Under Secretary, Herbert Hoover, Jr., both traditionalists who resented what they perceived as outside interference from Rockefeller, and by Treasury Secretary George Humphrey for financial reasons. However, in June 1955 Rockefeller convened a week-long meeting of experts from various disciplines to assess the US position in the psychological aspects of the Cold War and develop proposals that could give the US the initiative at the upcoming Summit Conference in Geneva. The meeting was held at the Marine Corps school at Quantico, Virginia and became known as the Quantico Study. The Quantico panel developed a proposal called “open skies” wherein the US and the Soviet Union would exchange blueprints of military installations and agree to mutual aerial reconnaissance. Thus military buildups would be revealed and the danger of surprise attacks minimized. It was a counter proposal to the Soviet proposal of universal disarmament. The feeling was that the Soviets could not refuse the proposal if they were serious about disarmament.

In March 1955 Rockefeller proposed the creation of the Planning Coordination Group, a small high level group that would plan and develop national security operations, both overt and covert. The group consisted of the Undersecretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the director the CIA, and Special Assistant Rockefeller as chairman. The group’s purpose was to oversee CIA operation and other anti-communist actions. However, State Department officials and CIA Director Allen Dulles refused to cooperate with the group and its initiatives were stymied or ignored. In September Rockefeller recommended the abolishment of the PCG and in December he resigned as Special Assistant to the President.

In 1956, he created the Special Studies Project, a major seven-panel planning group directed by Henry Kissinger and funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, of which he was then president. It was an ambitious study created to define the central problems and opportunities facing the U.S. in the future, and to clarify national purposes and objectives. The reports were published individually as they were released and were republished together in 1961 as ''Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports''.

The Special Studies Project came into national prominence with the early release of its military subpanel's report, whose principal recommendation was a massive military buildup to counter a then-perceived military superiority threat posed by the USSR. The report was released two months after the October 1957 launch of Sputnik, and its recommendations were fully endorsed by Eisenhower in his January 1958 State of the Union address. Some of the Special Studies Project’s domestic policy recommendations became part of President John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier initiative.

This initial contact with Kissinger was to develop into a lifelong relationship; Kissinger was later to be described as his closest intellectual associate. From this period Rockefeller employed Kissinger as a personally funded part-time consultant, principally on foreign policy issues, until the appointment to his staff became full-time in late 1968. In 1969, when Kissinger entered Richard Nixon's administration, Rockefeller paid him $50,000 as a severance payment.

Governor of New York, 1959-1973

Rockefeller left federal service in 1956 to concentrate on New York state and national politics. From September 1956 to April 1958 he chaired the Temporary State Commission on the Constitutional Convention. That was followed by his chairmanship of the Special Legislative Committee on the Revision and Simplification of the Constitution. These two appointments served to educate him on the workings of New York state government and to make him visible in state political circles. In 1958, he was elected governor by over 600,000 votes, defeating the incumbent, multi-millionaire W. Averell Harriman, even though 1958 was a banner year for Democrats elsewhere in the nation. Rockefeller was ultimately elected to four, four-year terms as governor of New York State. Re-elected in 1962, 1966 and 1970, Rockefeller vastly increased the state's role in education, environmental protection, transportation, housing, welfare, medical aid, civil rights, and the arts. He resigned three years into his fourth term.

Education

Rockefeller was the driving force in turning the State University of New York into the largest system of public higher education in the United States. Under his governorship it grew from 29 campuses and 38,000 full-time students to 72 campuses and 232,000 full-time students. Other accomplishments included more than quadrupling state aid to primary and secondary schools; providing the first state financial support for educational television; and requiring special education for mentally retarded children in public schools.

Conservation

Consistent with his personal interest in design and planning, Rockefeller began expansion of the New York State Parks system and improvement of park facilities. He persuaded voters to approve three major bond acts to raise more than $300 million for acquisition of park and forest preserve land and he built or started 55 new state parks. Rockefeller initiated studies of environmental issues, such as loss of agricultural land through development—an issue now characterized as "sprawl." In September 1968, Rockefeller appointed the Temporary Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks. This led to his introduction to the Legislature in 1971 of a bill to create the controversial Adirondack Park Agency, which was designed to protect the Adirondack State Park from encroaching development. Also, he launched the Pure Waters Program, the first state bond issue to end water pollution; created the Department of Environmental Conservation; banned DDT and other dangerous pesticides; and established the Office of Parks and Recreation.

Transportation

In 1967 Rockefeller won approval of the largest state bond issue at the time ($2.5 billion) for the coordinated development of mass transportation, highways and airports. He initiated the creation and/or expansion of over of highway including Long Island Expressway, the Southern Tier Expressway, the Adirondack Northway, and Interstate 81 which vastly improved road transportation in the state of New York. Rockefeller introduced the state’s first support for mass transportation. He reformed the governing of New York City's transportation system, creating the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1965. It merged the New York City subway system with the publicly owned Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the Long Island Rail Road, the Staten Island Rapid Transit and later the Metro North Railroad, which were purchased by the state from private owners in a massive public bailout of bankrupt railroads. He also created the State Department of Transportation.

In taking over control of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Rockefeller shifted power away from Robert Moses, who controlled several of New York state's public infrastructure authorities. Under the New York MTA, toll revenue collected from the bridges and tunnels, which had previously been used to build more bridges, tunnels, and highways, now went to support mass transportation operations, thus shifting costs from general state funds to the motorist. In one controversial move, Rockefeller abandoned one of Moses's most desired projects, a Long Island Sound bridge from Rye to Oyster Bay in 1973 due to environmental opposition.

Housing

To create more low-income housing, Rockefeller created the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), with unprecedented powers to override local zoning, condemn property, and create financing schemes to carry out desired development. The financing involved the creation of a new sort of bond—what came to be called "moral obligation" bonds. They were not backed by the full faith and credit of the State, but the quasi-public arrangements were meant to, and did, convey the impression that the State would not let them fail. Rockefeller is criticized in some quarters for having contributed to the "Too Big To Fail" phenomenon in U.S. finance in general. (UDC is now called the Empire State Development Corporation.) By 1973, the Rockefeller administration had completed or started over 88,000 units of housing for limited income families and the aging.

Welfare and Medicaid

In the area of public assistance the Rockefeller administration carried out the largest state medical care program for the needy in the United States under Medicaid; achieved the first major decline in New York States’s welfare rolls since World War II; required employable welfare recipients to take available jobs or job training; began the state breakfast program for children in low income areas; and established the first state loan fund for non-profit groups to start day-care centers.

Civil Rights

Rockefeller achieved virtual total prohibition of discrimination in housing and places of public accommodation. He outlawed job discrimination based on gender or age; increased by nearly 50% the number of African Americans and Hispanics holding state jobs; appointed women to head the largest number of state agencies in state history; prohibited discrimination against women in education, employment, housing and credit applications; admitted the first women to the State Police; initiated affirmative action programs for women in state government; and backed New York’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. He outlawed “block-busting” as a means of artificially depressing housing values and banned discrimination in the sale of all forms of insurance.

The Arts

Rockefeller created the first State Council on the Arts in the country, which became a model for the National Endowment for the Arts. He also oversaw the construction of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Spa State Park.

Crime

During his fifteen years as governor Rockefeller doubled the size of the State Police, established the New York State Police Academy, adopted the “stop and frisk” and "no-knock” laws to strengthen police powers, and authorized 228 additional state judgeships to reduce court congestion. New York was the last state to have a mandatory death penalty for premeditated first degree murder. In 1963 Rockefeller signed legislation abandoning that and establishing a two stage trial for murder cases with punishment determined in the second stage. Rockefeller was a supporter of capital punishment and oversaw 14 executions by electrocution as Governor. The last execution, of Eddie Mays in 1963, remains to date the last execution in New York and was the last execution before ''Furman v. Georgia'' in the Northeast. However, despite his personal support for capital punishment, Rockefeller signed a bill in 1965 to abolish the death penalty except in cases involving the murder of police officers.

Rockefeller was also a supporter of the "law and order" platform.

Tough laws on drug users

What became known as the “Rockefeller drug laws” were a product of Rockefeller’s attempt to deal with the rapid increase in narcotics addiction and related crime. In 1962 he proposed a program of voluntary rehabilitation for addicted convicts rather than prison time. This was approved by the NY State legislature, but by 1966 it was evident this program was not working as most addicts chose short prison terms rather than three years of treatment. He then turned to a program of compulsory treatment, rehabilitation and aftercare for three years. While this program saw success in rehabilitating addicts, it did little to reduce the narcotics trade and associated crime. Rockefeller was also frustrated that the federal government was not doing anything significant to address the problem. Feeling that existing laws and the way they were being implemented did not solve the problem of the "drug pusher", and pressured by voters angry about the drug problem, Rockefeller proposed a hard line approach. As approved by the NY State legislature in 1973 the new drug laws included mandatory life sentences without the possibility of plea-bargaining or parole for all drug users, dealers, and those convicted of drug-related violent crimes; a $1,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of drug pushers; and deleting less harsh penalties for youthful offenders. Public support for the measures was mixed, as were the results. They did not lead more addicts to seek rehabilitation as hoped, and ultimately did not solve the problem of drug trafficking. These were among the toughest drug laws in the United States when they were enacted and are still on the books, albeit in moderated form. To carry out the rehabilitation program Rockefeller created the State Narcotics Addiction Control Commission (later the State Drug Abuse Control Commission.) New York also provided the financial support for research in methadone maintenance and the administration of the largest methadone maintenance program in the US.

Attica prison riot

On September 9, 1971, prisoners at the state penitentiary at Attica, NY, took control of a cell block and seized thirty-nine guards as hostages. After four days of negotiations, Department of Correctional Services Commissioner Russell Oswald agreed to most of the inmates' demands for various reforms but refused to grant complete amnesty to the rioters, with passage out of the country and removal of the prison's superintendent. When negotiations stalled and the hostages appeared to be in imminent danger, Rockefeller ordered New York State Police and national guard troops to restore order and take back the prison on September 13. Thirty nine people died in the assault, including ten of the hostages. All but three of the deaths were attributed to the gunfire of the National Guard and State Police. The other three that had been killed were inmates killed by other inmates in the start of the riot. Opponents blamed Rockefeller for these deaths in part because of his refusal to go to the prison and talk with the inmates, while his supporters, including many conservatives who had often vocally differed with him in the past, defended his actions as being necessary to the preservation of law and order. "I was trying to do the best I could to save the hostages, save the prisoners, restore order, and preserve our system without undertaking actions which could set a precedent which would go across this country like wildfire," Rockefeller later said.

Buildings and public works programs

Rockefeller engaged in massive building projects that left a profound mark on the state of New York. (Some of his detractors claimed that he had an "Edifice Complex.") He was personally interested in the planning, design, and construction of the many projects initiated during his administration, consistent with his interest in architecture. In addition, Rockefeller's construction programs included the US$2 billion South Mall in Albany, later renamed the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza by Gov. Hugh Carey in 1978. It is a campus of skyscrapers housing state offices and public plazas punctuated by an egg-shaped arts center. While in office he supported the construction of the World Trade Center.

Other programs

Rockefeller worked with the legislature and unions to create generous pension programs for many public workers, such as teachers, professors, firefighters, police officers, and prison guards. He proposed the first statewide minimum wage law in the US which was increased five times during his administration. Additional accomplishments of Rockefeller’s fifteen years as Governor of New York include initiating the state lottery and off-track betting; adopting modern treatment techniques in state mental hospitals to reduce the number of mentally ill patients by over 50%; creating the State Office of the Aging and constructing nearly 12,000 units of housing for the aging; the first mandatory seatbelt law in the US; and creating the State Consumer Protection Board.

Abortion

Rockefeller supported reform of New York's abortion laws beginning around 1968. The proposals supported by his administration would not have repealed the long-standing prohibition, but would have expanded the exceptions allowed for the protection of the mother's health, or in circumstances of fetal abnormality.

The reform bills did not pass. But an outright repeal of the prohibition did pass, in 1970, and Rockefeller signed it. Further, in 1972 he vetoed another bill that would have restored the abortion ban.

He said in his 1972 veto message: "I do not believe it right for one group to impose its vision of morality on an entire society."

Moderate Republican

Reflecting his interdisciplinary approach to problem solving Rockefeller took a pragmatic approach to governing. In their book ''Rockefeller of New York: Executive Power in the State House'', Robert Connery and Gerald Benjamin state, “Rockefeller was not committed to any ideology. Rather, he considered himself a practical problem solver, much more interested in defining problems and finding solutions around which he could unite support sufficient to ensure their enactment in legislation than in following either a strictly liberal or strictly conservative course. Rockefeller’s programs did not consistently follow either liberal or conservative ideology.” Early fiscal policies were conservative while later ones were not so. In the later years of his administration “conservative decisions on social programs were paralleled by liberal ones on environmental issues.” Rockefeller was opposed by conservatives in the GOP such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan because of his liberal political views. As governor, Rockefeller spent more than his predecessors. Rockefeller expanded the state's infrastructure, increased spending on education including a massive expansion of the State University of New York, and increased the state’s involvement in environmental issues. Rockefeller had good relations with unions, especially the construction trades, which benefited from his extensive building programs. In foreign affairs, Rockefeller supported US involvement in the United Nations as well as US foreign aid. He also supported the U.S.'s fight against communism and its membership in NATO. As a result of Rockefeller's policies, some conservatives sought to gain leverage by creating the Conservative Party of New York. The small party acted as a minor counter-weight to the Liberal Party of New York. The most common criticism of Rockefeller’s governorship of New York is that he tried to do too much too fast, vastly increasing the level of state debt which later contributed to New York’s fiscal crisis in 1975. Rockefeller created some 230 public-benefit authorities like the Urban Development Corporation. They were often used to issue bonds in order to avoid the requirement of a vote of the people for the issuance of a bond; such authority-issued bonds bore higher interest than if they had been issued directly by the state. The state budget went from $2.04 billion in 1959-60 to $8.8 billion in his last year, 1973-74. “Rockefeller sought and obtained eight tax increases during his fifteen years in office.” “During his administration, the tax burden rose to a higher level than in any other state, and the incidence of taxation shifted, with a greater share being borne by the individual taxpayer.”

National politics

Rockefeller sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968. His bid in 1960 was ended early when then-Vice President Richard Nixon surged ahead in the polls. After quitting the campaign, Rockefeller backed Nixon, and concentrated his efforts on introducing more moderate planks into Nixon's platform.

Rockefeller, favored by moderate and liberal Republicans, was considered the front-runner for the 1964 campaign against conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who led the right wing of the Republican Party. In 1963, a year after Rockefeller's divorce from his first wife, he married Margaretta "Happy" Murphy, a divorcee with four children. This turned many in the party off, especially women. to counter the Goldwater plank. Right wing delegates booed and heckled Rockefeller for 16 minutes while he stood firmly at the podium insisting on his right to speak.

Rockefeller again sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. His opponents were Nixon and Governor Ronald W. Reagan of California. In the contest, Rockefeller again represented the liberals in the GOP, Reagan representing the conservative Goldwater element, and Nixon representing moderates and liberals also. Rather than formally announce his candidacy and enter the state primaries, Rockefeller spent the first half of 1968 alternating between hints that he would run, and pronouncements that he would not be a candidate. Shortly before the Republican convention, Rockefeller finally let it be known that he was available to be the nominee, and he sought to round up uncommitted delegates and woo reluctant Nixon delegates to his banner, armed with public opinion polls that showed him doing better among voters than either Nixon or Reagan against Democrat Hubert Humphrey. Nixon easily defeated both Reagan and Rockefeller, however.

After Gerald Ford's elevation to the Presidency, Rockefeller was named Vice-President, and he was initially mentioned and reportedly considered running for President for a fourth time in 1976, if Ford declined to seek his own term.

Presidential Mission to Latin America

In 1969 at the request of President Nixon, Rockefeller and a team of 23 advisors visited 20 American republics to solicit opinions of US inter-American policies and to determine the needs and conditions of each country. Among the recommendations in Rockefeller’s report to the President were preferential trade agreements with Latin American countries, refinancing the region’s foreign debt, and removing bureaucratic impediments that prevented the efficient use of US aid. The Nixon administration did little to implement the report’s recommendations.

National Commission on Water Quality

In May 1973 President Nixon appointed Rockefeller chairman of the National Commission on Water Quality, charged with determining the technological, economic, social and environmental implications of meeting water quality standards mandated by the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. The Commission issued its report in March 1976 and he testified before Congress on its findings. He served until July 1976.

Commission on Critical Choices for Americans

In November 1973, Rockefeller worked with former Delaware Governor Russell W. Peterson to establish the Commission on Critical Choices for Americans, and served as chairman until December 1974. The Commission was a private study project on national and international policy similar to the Special Studies Project he led 15 years earlier. It was made up of a nationally representative, bipartisan group of 42 prominent Americans drawn from far-ranging fields of interest who served on a voluntary basis. Members included the majority and minority leaders of both houses of Congress. The Commission gathered information and insights to better understand the problems facing America, and to present to the American public the “critical choices” to be made in facing those problems. He resigned as Governor of New York in December 1973, devoting himself to his new commission and the possibility of another presidential run.

Vice Presidency 1974-1977

Following President Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, President Gerald Ford nominated Rockefeller on August 20 to serve as Vice President of the United States. Rockefeller's top competitor had been George H.W. Bush.

While acknowledging that many conservatives opposed Rockefeller, Ford believed that he would bring executive expertise to the administration and would broaden the ticket’s appeal if they ran in 1976. Ford also felt he could demonstrate his own self confidence by selecting a strong personality like Rockefeller for the number two spot. Although he had said he was “just not built for standby equipment,” Rockefeller accepted the President’s request to serve as Vice President:

"It was entirely a question of there being a Constitutional crisis and a crisis of confidence on the part of the American people...I felt there was a duty incumbent on any American who could do anything that would contribute to a restoration of confidence in the democratic process and in the integrity of government."

Rockefeller was also persuaded by Ford’s promise to make him “a full partner” in his presidency, especially in domestic policy.

Rockefeller underwent extended hearings before Congress, which caused embarrassment when it was revealed he made massive gifts to senior aides, such as Henry Kissinger. He had paid all his taxes, no illegalities were uncovered, and he was confirmed. Although conservative Republicans were not pleased that Rockefeller was picked, most of them voted for his confirmation. However, some, including Barry Goldwater, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott, and others voted against him. Many conservative groups campaigned against Rockefeller's nomination, including the National Right to Life Committee, the American Conservative Union, and others. The New York Conservative Party also opposed his confirmation. Americans for Democratic Action, despite the fact that it was a liberal group, opposed Rockefeller's confirmation because it said his wealth posed too much of a conflict of interest.

Beginning his service upon taking the oath of office on Thursday, December 19, 1974 at 10:11 PM EST, Rockefeller was the second person appointed Vice President under the 25th Amendment the first being Ford himself. Rockefeller thus became the first (and only) person to serve in an Executive Position in the Federal Government who was not at the time in any elected office. Rockefeller often seemed concerned that Ford gave him little or no power, and few tasks, while he was Vice President. Ford initially said he wanted Rockefeller to chair the Domestic Council. But Ford's new White House staff had no intention of sharing power with the vice president and his staff.

Rockefeller’s attempt to take charge of domestic policy was thwarted by White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, who objected to policy makers reporting to the president through the vice president. When Rockefeller had one of his former aides, James Cannon, appointed executive director the Domestic Council, Rumsfeld cut its budget. Rockefeller was excluded from the decision making process on many important issues. When he learned that Ford had proposed cuts in federal taxes and spending he responded: “This is the most important move the president has made, and I wasn't even consulted." Nevertheless, Ford appointed him to the Commission on the Organization of Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy, and appointed him Chairman of the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, the National Commission on Productivity, the Federal Compensation Committee, and the Committee on the Right to Privacy. Ford also put Rockefeller in charge of his "Whip Inflation Now" initiative.

While Rockefeller was Vice President, the official Vice Presidential residence was established at Number One Observatory Circle on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory. This residence had previously been the home of the Chief of Naval Operations; prior Vice Presidents had been responsible for maintaining their own homes at their own expense, but the necessity of massive full-time Secret Service security had made this custom impractical to continue. Rockefeller already had a well-secured Washington residence and never lived in the home as a principal residence, although he did host several official functions there. His wealth enabled him to donate millions of dollars of furnishings to the house.

Rockefeller did a unique thing by donating the salary he received as Vice President to two causes. Half was given to the creation of Federal Programs to educate inner-city, low income children and to fund youth and family centers in the urban cities. The other half was donated to the preservation and promotion of programs teaching the arts in low income public school systems.

Rockefeller was slow to embrace the use of the government aircraft that were provided for Vice Presidential transportation. Rockefeller continued to use his own private comfortably equipped Gulfstream for the first part of his time in office. Initially Rockefeller felt he was doing the taxpayer a favor saving money by not using government funded transportation. Finally the Secret Service was able to convince him they were spending more money flying agents around to meet the needs of his protective detail and he began to fly on the DC-9 that was serving as Air Force Two at the time.

In November 1975, Rockefeller told Ford that he would not run for election in 1976, saying that he "didn't come down (to Washington) to get caught up in party squabbles which only make it more difficult for the President in a very difficult time..." However, Ford, a moderate, under pressure from the conservative wing of the party and in response to Ronald Reagan’s challenge for the presidential nomination, had decided to drop Rockefeller in favor of the more conservative Senator Robert Dole from Kansas. Reagan had indicated that he could not support Ford if Rockefeller were on the ticket, and Goldwater also said he did not want Rockefeller on the ticket. So Rockefeller was dropped from the ticket because he was too liberal. Ford was the last President to do this; every President since has run for re-election with the same Vice President that he served with during his first term. Ford later said dropping Rockefeller was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. With Dole as his running mate, Ford lost narrowly to Jimmy Carter in the presidential race. What difference Rockefeller's presence on the ticket would have made remains a matter of speculation. Rockefeller campaigned actively for the Republican ticket. In what would become an iconic photo of the 1976 campaign, Rockefeller famously responded to hecklers at a rally in Binghamton, New York with a raised middle finger. "At the time, Rockefeller's finger flashing was scandalous. Writing about the moment 20 years later, Michael Oricchio of the ''San Jose Mercury News'' said the action became known euphemistically as 'the Rockefeller gesture.'"

On January 10, 1977, Ford presented Rockefeller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Art patronage

Rockefeller served as a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art from 1932 to 1979. He also served as Treasurer, 1935–1939, and President, 1939–1941 and 1946-1953. In 1933 Rockefeller was a member of the committee selecting art for the new Rockefeller Center. For the wall opposite the main entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to paint a mural because he favored their modern style, but neither was available. Diego Rivera was one of Nelson Rockefeller's mother's favorite artists and therefore was commissioned to create the huge mural. He was given a theme: New Frontiers. Rockefeller wanted the painting to make people pause and think. Rivera submitted a sketch for a mural entitled “Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future.” The sketch featured an anonymous man at the center. However, when it was painted the work caused great controversy due to the inclusion of a painting of Lenin (depicting communism) at the center. The Directors of Rockefeller Center objected and Rockefeller asked Rivera to change the face of Lenin to that of an unknown laborer's face as was originally intended, but the painter refused.

The work was paid for on May 22, 1933, and immediately draped. Rockefeller suggested that the fresco could be donated to the Museum of Modern Art, but the trustees of the Museum were not interested. People protested but it remained covered until the early weeks of 1934, when it was smashed by workers and hauled away in wheelbarrows. Rivera responded by saying that it was "cultural vandalism". At Rockefeller Center in its place is a mural by Jose Maria Sert which includes an image of Abraham Lincoln. The Rockefeller-Rivera dispute is covered in the films ''Cradle Will Rock'' and ''Frida''.

Rockefeller was a noted collector of both modern and non-Western art. During his governorship, New York State acquired major works of art for the new Empire State Plaza in Albany. He continued his mother's work at the Museum of Modern Art as president, and turned the basement of his Kykuit mansion into a gallery while placing works of sculpture around the grounds (an activity he enjoyed personally supervising, frequently moving the pieces from place to place by helicopter). While he was overseeing construction of the State University of New York system, Rockefeller built, in collaboration with his lifelong friend Roy Neuberger, the Neuberger Museum on the campus of SUNY Purchase College, designed by Philip Johnson.

He commissioned Master Santiago Martínez Delgado to make a canvas mural for the Bank of New York (City Bank) in Bogotá, Colombia; this ended up being the last work of the artist, as he died while finishing it.

Rockefeller's early visits to Mexico kindled a collecting interest in pre-Columbian and contemporary Mexican art, to which he added works of traditional African and Pacific Island art. In 1954 he established the Museum of Primitive Art devoted to the indigenous art of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and early Asia and Europe. His personal collection formed the core of the collection. The museum opened to the public in 1957 in a townhouse on West 54th Street in New York City. In 1969 he gave the museum's collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where it became the Michael C. Rockefeller Collection.

In 1978, Alfred A. Knopf published a book on primitive art from Rockefeller's collection. Rockefeller, impressed with the work of photographer Lee Boltin and editor/publisher Paul Anbinder on the book, co-founded Nelson Rockefeller Publications, Inc. with them, with the goal of publishing fine art books of high quality. After Rockefeller's death less than a year later, the company continued as Hudson Hills Press, Inc.

In 1977 he founded Nelson Rockefeller Collection, Inc., (NRC) an art reproduction company that produced and sold licensed reproductions of selected works from Rockefeller’s collection. In the introduction to the NRC catalog he stated he was motivated by his desire to share with others “the joy of living with these beautiful objects.”

Marriages

On June 23, 1930, Rockefeller married Mary Todhunter Clark. They had five children: Rodman, Ann, Steven, and twins Mary and Michael. Michael disappeared in New Guinea in 1961, presumed drowned while trying to swim to shore after his dugout canoe capsized.

Nelson and Mary were divorced in 1962. The two lived in a two floor apartment at 810 Fifth Avenue. The 30-room apartment was renovated for the Rockefellers by Wallace Harrison and decorated by Jean-Michel Frank. She retained the apartment after the divorce.

On May 4, 1963 he married Margaretta "Happy" Murphy. He and his second wife had two children together, Nelson, Jr. and Mark. They moved to a penthouse that encompassed the top three floors at 810 Fifth Avenue. The apartment was expanded by purchasing a floor of 812 Fifth Avenue. The two spaces connected via a flight of six steps. Nelson and Happy Rockefeller used the entrance at 812 Fifth, while his first wife entered through 810 Fifth. They remained married until his death in 1979.

Death

Rockefeller died on January 26, 1979, at age 70 from a heart attack. An initial report had incorrectly stated that he was at his office at Rockefeller Center working on a book about his art collection, and a security guard found him slumped over his desk. However, the report was soon corrected to state that Rockefeller actually had the fatal heart attack in another office he owned in a townhouse at 13 West 54th Street in the presence of Megan Marshack, an aide. After the heart attack, Marshack called her friend, news reporter Ponchitta Pierce, to the townhouse, and Pierce phoned an ambulance approximately an hour after the heart attack. There was some speculation in the press regarding the possibility of an intimate relationship between Rockefeller and Marshack. Rockefeller’s four oldest children issued a statement saying they had conducted their own review, they believed that their father could not have been saved, and that all those who tried to help had acted responsibly. Neither Marshack nor the family has commented since on the circumstances surrounding Rockefeller's death. It is likely that Rockefeller died immediately or shortly after his heart attack.

On January 29, 1979, family and close friends gathered to inter Rockefeller’s ashes in a private Rockefeller family cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. His remains had been cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in nearby Hartsdale. A memorial service was held at Riverside Church in New York on February 2, attended by 2,200 people. Attendees included President Jimmy Carter, President Gerald Ford, more than 100 members of the US Senate and House of Representatives including Senator Barry Goldwater, and official representatives from 71 foreign countries. Eulogies were delivered by two of Rockefeller’s children, his brother David and Henry Kissinger.

In popular media

Rockefeller is portrayed by Edward Norton in the film ''Frida'' and by John Cusack in the film ''Cradle Will Rock'', both depicting his involvement in the Diego Rivera mural controversy.

The song "This Nelson Rockefeller" by McCarthy is dedicated to him.

He is referenced in the title of the Charles Mingus composition "Remember Rockefeller at Attica".

He is played by actor Edward Herrmann in the Oliver Stone movie ''Nixon''.

In John Lennon's 1972 song "Attica State" on the album ''Some Time in New York City'' Lennon sings 'Media blames it on the prisoners/ But the prisoners did not kill/ "Rockefeller pulled the trigger"/ That is what the people feel'.

In Marvel Comics, Rockefeller is President of the United States in the parallel universe of Earth-712, the alternate world inhabited by the Squadron Supreme which is described as "strangely without a Richard Nixon". In this alternate timeline, Rockefeller succeeds President Hubert Humphrey.

Rockefeller's marriage to Happy is referenced in a third-season episode of the TV show ''Mad Men'', set in New York in 1963, and the recurring fictional character Henry Francis is an aide in then-governor Rockefeller's office.

Electoral history

Some Awards Presented to Nelson A. Rockefeller

Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1977

Universal Brotherhood Medal, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1961

Charles Evans Hughes Medal, National Conference of Christians and Jews, 1965

Distinguished Service to Conservation Award, National Wildlife Federation/Sears Roebuck Foundation, 1966

Gold Medal Award, National Institute of Social Sciences, 1967 (awarded to all five Rockefeller brothers)

Award of Merit, American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter, 1968

Distinguished Service Award, State University of New York, 1973

Four Freedoms Foundation Award, 1974

Order of Merit, Chile, 1945

National Order of the Southern Cross, Brazil, 1946

Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico, 1949

Order of Ruben Dario, Nicaragua, 1953

Medallion de los Andes, University of the Andes, Colombia, 1958

Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1958

Grande Croix de l’Ordre de Leopold II of Belgium, 1959

Ramon Magsaysay Award, Philippines, 1959

Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau, Netherlands, 1960

Prathamabhorn Knight Grand Cross of the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, Thailand, 1960

Légion d'honneur, Commandeur, France, 1960

Commander of the Order of Dannebrog, 1st Class, Denmark, 1960

Grand Ufficials del ‘Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, Italy, 1962

Order of the White Rose, Commander 1st Class, Finland, 1962

Agricultural Merit Award, Brazilian Rural Confederation, 1963

Grand Cordon of the Order of the Brilliant Star, Nationalist China, 1969

Nicholas Copericus Award, Poland, 1972

Memorials to Nelson A. Rockefeller

The following institutions and facilities have been named in honor of Nelson A. Rockefeller:

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public policy research arm of the State University of New York

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center, Dartmouth College, a social science research center

Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, State University of New York

The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza

Nelson A. Rockefeller Park, Battery City, New York

Some Awards Named for Nelson A. Rockefeller

Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, Purchase College School of the Arts, presented annually to five individuals who have distinguished themselves through their contributions to the arts or the environment.

Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Award for Excellence in Public Service, State Academy for Public Administration.

Nelson A. Rockefeller Distinguished Public Service Award, Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences, Dartmouth College.

Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, American Society for Public Administration, Empire State Capital Area Chapter, presented to an individual whose governmental career in New York State demonstrates exemplary leadership, performance, and achievement in shaping public policy, developing and implementing major public programs, or resolving major public problems.

Nelson A. Rockefeller Award, The New York Water Environment Association, Inc., awarded to an elected official at a City (population over 250,000), State or National level who has made a substantial and meaningful contribution to advancing effective environmental programs.

Nelson A. Rockefeller Public Service Award, Rockefeller Institute of Government (1988–1994).

Bibliography

(Volume 1 of the most comprehensive biography of Nelson ever written, the author had accessed many papers in the ''Rockefeller Archive Center'' for his research but died before writing Volume 2, covering the crucial period from 1959 to 1979.)

See also

Rockefeller Republican

Henry Kissinger

Rockefeller family

David Rockefeller

Kykuit The Rockefeller family estate

Rockefeller Center

Museum of Modern Art

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

GE Building (Room 5600 - The Rockefeller Family Office)

World Trade Center

Empire State Plaza

Wallace Harrison

Robert Moses

J Edgar Hoover

United Nations

Gerald Ford

Richard Nixon

Franklin D. Roosevelt

References

External links

Rockefeller Archive Center: Nelson Rockefeller Contains details on the collection of public and private papers available to researchers at the Center.

The Rocky Roll An extended portrait by ''Time Magazine'' of Nelson campaigning for New York Governor in 1958.

Rockefeller Archive Center: Archived papers of the Special Studies Project, 1956-1960.

Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress biography

Spartacus Educational Biography

www.rca5600.be Contains details about the relation between Rockefeller's role in US policy and his role in Cultural policy

Finding aid for the Nelson Rockefeller Oral History, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

''Megan Marshak - Nelson Rockefeller Dies in the Saddle -- Caught in the ACT of Adultery!!''

|- January 20, 1977}}

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Richard Norton Smith (born 1953) is an American historian and author specializing in US presidents.

Life

Born in Leominster, Massachusetts in 1953, Smith graduated ''magna cum laude'' from Harvard University in 1975 with a degree in government. Following graduation he worked as a White House intern and as a free lance writer for ''The Washington Post''. He became a speech writer for Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke, and then Senator Bob Dole, with whom he has collaborated on numerous projects over the years.

Smith’s first major book, ''Thomas E. Dewey and His Times'', was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize. He has also written ''An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover'' (1984), ''The Harvard Century: The Making of a University to a Nation'' (1986) and ''Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation'' (1993). In June 1997, Houghton Mifflin published his biography of Robert R. McCormick ''The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick'', which was later reprinted by Northwestern University Press in 2003. It received the Goldsmith Book Prize awarded by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1998. Historian David M. Kennedy called it a "candid and colorful biography".

Smith then worked on a biography of Nelson Rockefeller, involving thousands of pages of documents and more than 150 interviews.

Between 1987 and 2001, Smith updated and expanded several US presidential libraries. He was Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa. He then worked for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Center in Abilene, Kansas, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the associated organizations in Simi Valley, California, the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. When the museum was rededicated in 1997, Gerald Ford called Smith "a true visionary who said it wasn't enough to renovate the Museum-—we would reinvent it." In 1990 he organized the Eisenhower Centennial on behalf of the National Archives.

In 2001 Smith became director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. In October, 2003 he was appointed Founding Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, in Springfield, Illinois. About the same time, Smith also served as Executive Director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, which doubled its endowment. During the 2004 Democratic Convention, Smith correctly predicted that Barack Obama would become the first black president of the United States.

On February 12, 2009, Smith was a featured speaker at the Congressional Bicameral Celebration of Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday, held at the U.S. Capitol. In May 2009 he spoke at a "Weekend with Mr. Lincoln" conference. In September 2009 he also spoke on Lincoln at the Clinton School of Public Service.

Smith was a Scholar-in-Residence in History and Public Policy at George Mason University in suburban Washington, DC. He provided commentary regularly on'' C-SPAN'' and ''The Newshour With Jim Lehrer.''

Works

''Thomas E. Dewey and His Times''. Simon & Schuster, 1982.

''Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover''. High Plains Publishing, 1990.

''Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation''. Mariner Books, 1997. ISBN 0395524423.

''The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick''. Northwestern University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0810120396.

References

Category:1953 births Category:Living people Category:People from Leominster, Massachusetts Category:American historians category:Harvard University alumni

fr:Richard Norton Smith

Name	Christine Todd Whitman
Order	50th
Office	Governor of New Jersey
Term start	January 18, 1994
Term end	January 31, 2001
Predecessor	James Florio
Successor	Donald DiFrancesco
Office2	9th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Term start2	January 31, 2001
Term end2	June 27, 2003
President2	George W. Bush
Predecessor2	Carol Browner
Successor2	Marianne Lamont Horinko (Acting)Michael Leavitt
Birth date	September 26, 1946
Birth place	New York City, New York
Party	Republican
Spouse	John R. Whitman
Religion	Presbyterian
Footnotes	}}

Christine Todd "Christie" Whitman (born September 26, 1946) is an American Republican politician and author who served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001, and was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. She was New Jersey's first, and to date, only female governor. She was the second woman and first Republican woman to defeat an incumbent governor in a general election in the United States. She was also the first Republican woman to be reelected governor.

Early life, education, and family

Whitman was born in New York City and grew up in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, the daughter of Eleanor Prentice Todd (née Schley) and Webster B. Todd, both interested in New Jersey Republican politics. She attended Far Hills Country Day School and the Chapin School in Manhattan. She graduated from Wheaton College in 1968, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. After graduating, she worked on Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign.

Whitman is a descendant of two New Jersey political families, the Todds and the Schleys, and related by marriage to New York's politically-active Whitmans. She is married to John R. Whitman, a private equity investor. They have two children. She is the granddaughter-in-law of former Governor of New York Charles S. Whitman. Her maternal grandfather, Reeve Schley, was a member of Wolf's Head Society at Yale and the vice president of Chase Bank when it indeed had only one vice president. He was also a longtime president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.

Whitman's daughter Kate has followed her mother into politics. Most recently, Kate Whitman ran for the 2008 Republican nomination for New Jersey's 7th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, placing second in a primary field of seven candidates with about 20 percent of the vote. Previously, Kate Whitman served as press secretary for Craig Benson’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign in New Hampshire, and later, communications director for the New Hampshire Republican State Committee. She also was a Congressional aide and in 2007, she was named executive director of the Republican Leadership Council, her mother's organization which promotes moderate Republicanism. Kate Whitman made news in 1998 at the age of 21, while her mother was governor, when she was cited by police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for littering.

Whitman also has a Scottish Terrier named Coors, who is the mother of former president Bush's dog Barney.

Whitman has been a resident of Tewksbury Township, New Jersey.

Early career

During the Nixon administration, Whitman worked in the Office of Economic Opportunity under the leadership of Donald Rumsfeld. She conducted a national outreach tour for the Republican National Committee, was Deputy Director of the New York State Office in Washington, and worked on aging issues for the Nixon campaign and administration.

She was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Somerset County College (now Raritan Valley Community College). Elected to two terms on the Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders, she served as Deputy Director and Director of the Board. Among her accomplishments as freeholder was construction of a new county courthouse.

From 1988 to 1990 she served as President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in the cabinet of Gov. Thomas Kean.

In 1990, Whitman ran for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Bill Bradley, and lost a close election. She was considered a longshot candidate against the popular Bradley. During her campaign, Whitman criticized the income tax hike proposed by then Gov. James Florio, which Bradley did not take a stance on.

In 1993, Whitman helped to found the Committee for Responsible Government (CRG), a political advocacy group espousing moderate positions in the Republican Party. (In 1997, the CRG softened its pro-choice stance and renamed itself the Republican Leadership Council.)

Governor of New Jersey

Whitman ran against incumbent James Florio for governor in 1993, and defeated him by one percentage point to become the first female governor in New Jersey history. She was the second woman and first Republican woman to defeat an incumbent governor in a general election, but was unable to gain a majority of the votes, winning by a plurality. Charges of suppression of minority votes were raised during this campaign.

Whitman used as a campaign issue that she would lower state taxes by 10% per year for three years, a campaign promise she kept. Whitman successfully lowered income taxes in New Jersey. The results led to an initial decline in the overall tax burden and suggested that the long-term NJ property tax issue could be addressed. Jim Saxton, in a report to the US congress, argued that New Jersey's income tax cuts improved "the well-being of the New Jersey family" and would not lead to increased property taxes. Saxton cited Tim Goodspeed's research and a recent paper published by the Manhattan Institute. He admitted that "a few localities raised [property] taxes," which Goodspeed expected, but both counted on the ''flypaper effect'' to mitigate any widespread or persistent increases. These would emerge later. However, the loss of state revenues created a long term revenue shortfall that could not be easily reversed and subsequent governors were unable to offset the huge cumulative revenue losses as well as interest accumulation. Such deficits were offset by bond issues that have a time bomb effect of the financial status of the state.

In 1995, Whitman came under criticism after she said that young African-American males sometimes played a game known as ''Jewels in the Crown'', which she claimed had as its intent having as many children as possible out of wedlock. Whitman apologized for making the remark and voiced her opposition to attempts by Congressional Republicans to bar unwed teenage mothers from receiving welfare payments.

In 1996, Whitman joined a New Jersey State Police patrol in Camden, New Jersey. During the patrol, the officers stopped a 16-year-old African American male named Sherron Rolax, and frisked him. After the police found nothing on him, Whitman also frisked the youth while a state trooper photographed her. In 2000, the image of the smiling governor frisking Rolax was published in newspapers statewide, which drew criticism from civil rights leaders who saw the incident as a violation of Rolax's civil rights and an endorsement by Whitman of racial profiling especially since Rolax was not arrested or found to be violating any law. Whitman told the press that she regretted the incident and pointed to her 1999 efforts against the New Jersey State Police force's racial profiling practices. In 2001, Rolax learned about the photograph and sued Whitman in federal court, claiming that the search was illegal and an invasion of privacy. The appeals court agreed that the acts did indeed suggest "an intentional violation" of Rolax's rights, and that he "was detained and used for political purposes by his governor," but upheld the trial court's decision that it was too late to sue.

In 1996, Whitman rejected her Advisory Council's recommendation to spend tax money on a needle exchange, in an effort to reduce the incidence of HIV infections.

Whitman was re-elected in 1997, narrowly defeating Jim McGreevey, the mayor of Woodbridge Township, who criticized her record on property taxes and automobile insurance rates. Though earlier considered a safe incumbent, Whitman duplicated her 1993 result with a one-point victory and a plurality of the votes. The governor's narrow margin of victory was credited in large part to the candidacy of conservative Republican and Ramapo College professor Murray Sabrin, who ran as a Libertarian. Sabrin finished third in the race with five percent of the vote, mostly from conservative Republicans who otherwise might have voted for the incumbent Whitman.

In 1997, she repealed the 7% sales tax her predecessor Governor Florio had imposed (rolling it back to 6%), instituted unspecified education reforms, and removed excise taxes on professional wrestling, which led the World Wrestling Federation to resume holding events in New Jersey. In 1999, Governor Whitman vetoed a bill that outlawed partial birth abortion; the veto was overridden, but the statute was later declared unconstitutional by the courts. In 1999 she also made a cameo appearance on the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

In 1999, Whitman fired Colonel Carl A. Williams, head of the New Jersey State Police, after he was quoted noting that cocaine and marijuana traffickers were often members of minority groups, while the methaphetamine trade was controlled by primarily white biker gangs. The remarks about cocaine and marijuana traffickers were portrayed as racist.

In 2000, under Whitman's leadership, New Jersey's violations of the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone dropped to four from 45 in 1988. Beach closings reached a record low, and the state earned recognition by the Natural Resources Defense Council for instituting the most comprehensive beach monitoring system in the nation. Additionally, New Jersey implemented a new watershed management program and became the United States leader in opening shellfish beds for harvesting. Governor Whitman agreed to give tax money to owners of one million acres (4,000 km²) more of open space and farmland in New Jersey.

In 2000, when Democratic U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg announced his retirement, Whitman seriously considered being a candidate, but ultimately decided against running.

EPA Administrator

Whitman was appointed by President George W. Bush as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, taking office on January 31, 2001.

In January 2001, the Clinton administration in its final weeks declared a new drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L (10 parts per billion, or ppb) arsenic to take effect January 2006. The old drinking water standard of 0.05 mg/L (equal to 50 ppb) arsenic had been in effect since 1942, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been studying the pros and cons of lowering the arsenic Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) since the late 1980s. The incoming Bush administration suspended the midnight regulation, but after some months of study, Whitman approved the new 10 ppb arsenic standard and its original effective date of January 2006.

Under Whitman's direction as the first director of the EPA under the Bush administration, in 2001 the EPA produced a report detailing the expected effects of global warming in each of the states in the United States. The report was dismissed by President Bush who called it the work of "the bureaucracy."

Whitman appeared twice in New York City after the September 11 attacks to inform New Yorkers that the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health. On September 18, the EPA released a report in which Whitman said, "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink." She also said, "The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard...We're going to make sure everybody is safe." Later, a 2003 report by the EPA's inspector general determined that such assurances were misleading, because the EPA "did not have sufficient data and analyses" to justify the assertions when they were made.

A report in July 2003 from the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response gave extensive documentation supporting many of the inspector general's conclusions, and carried some of them still further. Further, the report found that the White House had "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security Council control EPA communications after the September 11 attacks. In December 2007, legal proceedings began in a case on the question of responsibility of government officials in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Whitman was among the defendants in the suit; plaintiffs in the suit allege that Whitman is at fault for saying that the downtown New York air was safe in the aftermath of the attacks. In April 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled the district court, holding that as EPA head Whitman could not be held liable for saying to World Trade Center area residents that the air was safe for breathing after the buildings collapse. The court said that Whitman had based her information on contradictory information and statements from President Bush. The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that holding the agency liable would establish a risky legal precedent because future public officials would be afraid to make public statements.

On June 27, 2003, after having several public conflicts with the Bush administration, Whitman resigned from her position to spend more time with her family.

In an interview in 2007, Whitman stated that Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, led to her resignation. At the time, he pushed the EPA to institute a new rule allowing large polluting plants to make major alterations without installing costly new pollution controls. Refusing to sign off on the new rule, Whitman announced her resignation. Whitman decided that President Bush should have an EPA administrator willing to defend the new rule in court, which she could not bring herself to do. Federal judges later overturned the new rule, saying it violated the Clean Air Act.

Subsequent career

In early 2005, Whitman released a book entitled ''It's My Party, Too: Taking Back the Republican Party... And Bringing the Country Together Again'' in which she criticizes the policies of the George W. Bush administration and its electoral strategy, which she views as divisive.

She formed a political action committee called It's My Party Too (IMP-PAC), intended to help elect moderate Republicans at all levels of government. IMP-PAC is allied with the Republican Main Street Partnership, The Wish List, the Republican Majority for Choice, Republicans for Choice, Republicans for Environmental Protection and the Log Cabin Republicans. After the 2006 midterm elections, IMP-PAC was merged into RLC-PAC, the Republican Leadership Council's PAC.

Since 2003, Whitman has been a member of the Board of Directors for Texas Instruments and United Technologies. Whitman is also co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition, and in 2007, voiced support for a stronger future role of nuclear power in the United States.

During the 2008 presidential election, Whitman was touted by the media as a candidate for a Cabinet position under both Barack Obama and John McCain.

In December 2010, Whitman criticized 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, commenting that if Palin were to run for President in 2012 and win the Republican nomination, "I don't think she'll win nationwide... [she will] energize the base. But the base isn't big enough and Republicans should have learned that." She went on to say that if Palin were to run,

Whitman currently has an energy lobbying group called the Whitman Strategy Group which states itself to be "a governmental relations consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues."

Electoral history

See also

EPA 9/11 pollution controversy

Health effects of September 11, 2001 attacks

References

External links

New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, National Governors Association

biographical information for Christine Todd Whitman from The Political Graveyard

''It's My Party Too!''

''Republican Leadership Council''

Christine Todd Whitman profile

Laura Flanders, ''Bushwomen'' (ISBN 1-85984-587-8)

Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Administrators of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Category:American Presbyterians Category:American pro-choice activists Category:American women state governors Category:Chapin School (Manhattan) alumni Category:George W. Bush Administration cabinet members Category:George W. Bush Administration personnel Category:Governors of New Jersey Category:New Jersey County Freeholders Category:New Jersey Republicans Category:People from New York City Category:People from Somerset County, New Jersey Category:People from Tewksbury Township, New Jersey Category:Republican Party state governors of the United States Category:State cabinet secretaries of New Jersey Category:Women in New Jersey politics Category:Wheaton College (Massachusetts) alumni

de:Christine Todd Whitman it:Christine Todd Whitman ja:クリスティーン・トッド・ウィットマン pl:Christine Todd Whitman ru:Уитман, Кристина Тодд sh:Christine Todd-Whitman

Name	Richard Nixon
Office	37th President of the United States
Vicepresident	Spiro AgnewGerald Ford
Term start	January 20, 1969
Term end	August 9, 1974
Predecessor	Lyndon Johnson
Successor	Gerald Ford
Office2	36th Vice President of the United States
President2	Dwight Eisenhower
Term start2	January 20, 1953
Term end2	January 20, 1961
Predecessor2	Alben Barkley
Successor2	Lyndon Johnson
Jr/sr3	United States Senator
State3	California
Term start3	December 4, 1950
Term end3	January 1, 1953
Predecessor3	Sheridan Downey
Successor3	Thomas Kuchel
State4	California
District4	12th
Term start4	January 3, 1947
Term end4	December 1, 1950
Predecessor4	Jerry Voorhis
Successor4	Patrick Hillings
Birth date	January 09, 1913
Birth place	Yorba Linda, California, US
Death date	April 22, 1994
Death place	New York City, New York, US
Party	Republican Party
Spouse	Pat Ryan (1940–93)
Children	TriciaJulie
Alma mater	Whittier CollegeDuke University
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Quaker
Signature	Richard Nixon Signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Branch	United States Navy
Serviceyears	1942–46
Rank	Lieutenant commander
Battles	World War IIPacific War
Awards	American Campaign MedalAsiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (2 service stars)World War II Victory Medal }}

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate work at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife, Pat Nixon, moved to Washington to work for the federal government in 1942. He subsequently joined the United States Navy, serving in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election, the first of five national nominations he received from his party, a record he shares with Franklin Roosevelt. Nixon served for eight years as vice president, traveling extensively and undertaking major assignments from Eisenhower. Nixon waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. Following these defeats, he announced his withdrawal from political life. However, in 1968 he ran again for the presidency and was elected.

American involvement in Vietnam was widely unpopular; although Nixon initially escalated the war there, he subsequently moved to end US involvement, completely withdrawing American forces by 1973. Nixon's ground-breaking visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. In domestic policy, his administration generally sought to transfer power from Washington to the states. In an attempt to slow inflation, Nixon imposed wage and price controls. He enforced desegregation of Southern schools and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Though he presided over Apollo 11, the culmination of the project to land a person on the moon, he scaled back manned space exploration. He was reelected by a landslide in 1972.

Nixon's second term was marked by crisis: 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War and a continuing series of revelations about the Watergate scandal, which began as a break-in at a Washington office. The scandal escalated despite efforts by the Nixon administration to cover it up, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was controversially issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. In retirement, Nixon's work as an elder statesman—authoring several books and undertaking many foreign trips—helped to rehabilitate his image. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81. Nixon remains a source of considerable interest among historians, as they struggle to resolve the enigma of a president of great ability who left office in disgrace yet subsequently reinvented himself as an elder statesman.

Early life

Nixon was born to Francis A. Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon on January 9, 1913, in a house his father built in Yorba Linda, California. His mother was a Quaker (his father converted from Methodism after his marriage), and his upbringing was marked by conservative Quaker observances of the time, such as refraining from alcohol, dancing, and swearing. Nixon had four brothers: Harold (1909–33), Donald (1914–87), Arthur (1918–25), and Edward (born 1930). Four of the five Nixon boys were named after kings who had ruled in historical or legendary England; Richard, for example, was named after Richard the Lionheart.

Nixon's early life was marked by hardship, and he later quoted a saying of Eisenhower to describe his boyhood: "We were poor, but the glory of it was, we didn't know it." The Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, and the family moved to Whittier, California. In an area with many Quakers, Frank Nixon opened a grocery store and gas station. Richard's younger brother Arthur died in 1925 after a short illness. At the age of twelve, Richard was found to have a spot on his lung, and with a family history of tuberculosis, he was forbidden to play sports. Eventually, the spot was found to be scar tissue from an early bout of pneumonia. Young Richard attended East Whittier Elementary School, where he was president of his eighth-grade class.

Frank and Hannah Nixon believed that attendance at Whittier High School had caused Richard's older brother Harold to live a dissolute lifestyle before the older boy fell ill of tuberculosis (he died of the disease in 1933). Instead, they sent Richard to the larger Fullerton High School. He received excellent grades, even though he had to ride a school bus for an hour each way during his freshman year—later, he lived with an aunt in Fullerton during the week. He played junior varsity football, and rarely missed a practice, even though he was rarely used in games. He had greater success as a debater, winning a number of championships and taking his only formal tutelage in public speaking from Fullerton's Head of English, H. Lynn Sheller. Nixon later remembered Sheller's words, "Remember, speaking is conversation ... don't shout at people. Talk to them. Converse with them." Nixon stated that he tried to use the conversational tone as much as possible.

Nixon's parents permitted him to transfer to Whittier High School for his junior year, beginning in September 1928. At Whittier High, Nixon suffered his first electoral defeat, for student body president. He generally rose at 4 a.m., to drive the family truck into Los Angeles and purchase vegetables at the market. He then drove to the store to wash and display them, before going to school. Harold had been diagnosed with tuberculosis the previous year; when Hannah Nixon took him to Arizona in the hopes of improving his health, the demands on Richard increased, causing him to give up football. Nevertheless Nixon graduated from Whittier High third in his class of 207 students.

Nixon was offered a tuition grant to attend Harvard University, but Harold's continued illness and the need for Hannah Nixon to care for him meant Richard was needed at the store. He remained in his hometown and attended Whittier College, his expenses there covered by a bequest from his maternal grandfather. Instead of fraternities and sororities, Whittier had literary societies. Nixon was snubbed by the only one for men, the Franklins; many members of the Franklins were from prominent families but Nixon was not. He responded by helping to found a new society, the Orthogonians. In addition to the society, schoolwork, and work at the store, Nixon found time for a large number of extracurricular activities, becoming a champion debater and gaining a reputation as a hard worker. In 1933, he became engaged to Ola Florence Welch, daughter of the Whittier police chief; the two broke up in 1935.

After his graduation from Whittier in 1934, Nixon received a full scholarship to attend Duke University School of Law. The school was new and sought to attract top students by offering scholarships. It paid high salaries to its professors, many of whom had national or international reputations. The number of scholarships was greatly reduced for second and third year students, forcing recipients into intense competition. Nixon not only kept his scholarship but was elected president of the Duke Bar Association and graduated third in his class in June 1937. He later wrote of his alma mater: "I always remember that whatever I have done in the past or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible in one way or another."

Early career, marriage and war service

After graduating from Duke, Nixon initially hoped to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He received no response to his letter of application and only learned years later that he had been hired, but his appointment had been canceled at the last minute due to budget cuts. Instead, he returned to California and was admitted to the bar in 1937. He began practicing with the law firm Wingert and Bewley in Whittier, working on commercial litigation for local petroleum companies and other corporate matters, as well as on wills. In later years, Nixon proudly stated that he was the only modern president to work as a practicing attorney. Nixon was reluctant to work on divorce cases, disliking frank sexual talk from women. In 1938, he opened up his own branch of Wingert and Bewley in La Habra, California, and became a full partner in the firm the following year.

In January 1938, Nixon was cast in the Whittier Community Players production of ''The Dark Tower''. There he played opposite a high school teacher named Thelma "Pat" Ryan. Nixon described it in his memoirs as "a case of love at first sight"—for Nixon only, as Pat Ryan turned down the young lawyer several times before agreeing to date him. Once they began their courtship, Ryan was reluctant to marry Nixon; the relationship dragged on two years before she assented to his proposal. They wed at a small ceremony on June 21, 1940. After a honeymoon in Mexico, the Nixons began their married life in Whittier. They had two children, Tricia (born 1946) and Julie (born 1948).

In January 1942, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., where Nixon took a job at the Office of Price Administration. In his political campaigns, Nixon would suggest that this was his response to Pearl Harbor, but he had sought the position throughout the latter part of 1941. Both Nixon and his wife believed he was limiting his prospects by remaining in Whittier. He was assigned to the tire rationing division, where he was tasked with replying to correspondence. He did not enjoy the role, and four months later, applied to join the United States Navy. As a birthright Quaker, he could have claimed exemption from the draft, and deferments were routinely granted for those in government service. His application was successful, and he was inducted into the Navy in August 1942.

Nixon completed Officers Candidate School and was commissioned as an ensign in October 1942. His first post was as aide to the commander of the Ottumwa Naval Air Station in Iowa. Seeking more excitement, he requested sea duty and was reassigned as the naval passenger control officer for the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command, supporting the logistics of operations in the South West Pacific theater. After requesting more challenging duties, he was given command of cargo handling units. Nixon earned two service stars and a citation of commendation, although he saw no actual combat. Upon his return to the US, Nixon was appointed the administrative officer of the Alameda Naval Air Station in California. In January 1945, he was transferred to the Bureau of Aeronautics office in Philadelphia to help negotiate the termination of war contracts, and he received another letter of commendation for his work there. Later, Nixon was transferred to other offices to work on contracts and finally to Baltimore. In October 1945, he was promoted to lieutenant commander. He resigned his commission on New Year's Day 1946.

Rising politician

Congressional career

In 1945, Republicans in California's 12th congressional district, frustrated by their inability to defeat Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis, sought a consensus candidate who would run a strong campaign against him. They formed a "Committee of 100" to decide on a candidate, hoping to avoid internal dissensions which had led to Voorhis victories. After the committee failed to attract higher-profile candidates, Herman Perry, Whittier's Bank of America branch manager, suggested Nixon, a family friend with whom he had served on the Whittier College Board of Trustees before the war. Perry wrote to Nixon in Baltimore. After a night of excited talk between the Nixons, the naval officer responded to Perry with enthusiasm. Nixon flew to California and was selected by the committee. When he left the Navy at the start of 1946, Nixon and his wife returned to Whittier, where Nixon began a year of intensive campaigning. He contended that Voorhis had been ineffective as a congressman and suggested that Voorhis's endorsement by a group linked to communists meant that Voorhis must have radical views. Nixon won the election, receiving 65,586 votes to Voorhis' 49,994.

In Congress, Nixon supported the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947 and served on the Education and Labor Committee. He was part of the Herter Committee, which went to Europe to report on the need for US foreign aid. Nixon was the youngest member of the committee, and the only Westerner. Advocacy by Herter Committee members, including Nixon, led to congressional passage of the Marshall Plan.

Nixon first gained national attention in 1948 when his investigation, as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), broke the Alger Hiss spy case. While many doubted Whittaker Chambers' allegations that Hiss, a former State Department official, had been a Soviet spy, Nixon believed them to be true. He discovered that Chambers saved microfilm reproductions of incriminating documents by hiding the film in a pumpkin. Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 for denying under oath he had passed documents to Chambers. In 1948, Nixon successfully cross-filed as a candidate in his district, winning both major party primaries, and was comfortably reelected.

In 1949, Nixon began to consider running for the United States Senate against the Democratic incumbent, Sheridan Downey, and entered the race in November of that year. Downey, faced with a bitter primary battle with Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, announced his retirement in March 1950. Nixon and Douglas won the primary elections and engaged in a contentious campaign in which the ongoing Korean War was a major issue. Nixon tried to focus attention on Douglas' liberal voting record. As part of that effort, a "Pink Sheet" was distributed by the Nixon campaign suggesting that, as Douglas' voting record was similar to that of New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio (believed by some to be a communist), their political views must be nearly identical. Nixon won the election by almost twenty percentage points.

In the Senate, Nixon took a prominent position in opposing global communism, traveling frequently and speaking out against "the threat". He maintained friendly relations with his fellow anti-communist, the controversial Wisconsin senator, Joseph McCarthy, but was careful to keep some distance between himself and McCarthy's allegations. Nixon also criticized President Harry S. Truman's handling of the Korean War. He supported statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, voted in favor of civil rights for minorities, and supported federal disaster relief for India and Yugoslavia. He voted against price controls and other monetary restrictions, benefits for illegal immigrants, and public power.

1952 campaign; vice president

thumb|right|A piece of literature for the Eisenhower–Nixon campaign, 1952 General Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated for president by the Republicans in 1952. He had no strong preference for a vice presidential candidate, and Republican officeholders and party officials met in a "smoke-filled room" and recommended Nixon to the general, who agreed to the senator's selection. Nixon's youth (he was then 39), stance against communism, and his political base in California—one of the largest states—were all seen as vote-winners by the leaders. Among the candidates considered along with Nixon were Ohio Senator Robert Taft, New Jersey Governor Alfred Driscoll and Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen. On the campaign trail, Eisenhower spoke to his plans for the country, leaving the negative campaigning to his running mate.

In mid-September, the media reported that Nixon had a political fund, maintained by his backers, which reimbursed him for political expenses. Such a fund was not illegal, but it exposed Nixon to allegations of possible conflict of interest. With pressure building for Eisenhower to demand Nixon's resignation from the ticket, the senator went on television to deliver an address to the nation on September 23, 1952. The address, later termed the Checkers speech, was heard by about 60 million Americans—including the largest television audience up to that point. Nixon emotionally defended himself, stating that the fund was not secret, nor had donors received special favors. He painted himself as a man of modest means (his wife had no mink coat; instead she wore a "respectable Republican cloth coat") and a patriot. The speech would be remembered for the gift which Nixon had received, but which he would not give back: "a little cocker spaniel dog ... sent all the way from Texas. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers." The speech was a masterpiece of rhetoric and prompted a huge public outpouring of support for candidate Nixon. Eisenhower decided to retain him on the ticket, which proved victorious in the November election.

Eisenhower had pledged to give Nixon responsibilities during his term as vice president that would enable him to be effective from the start as a successor. Nixon attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings and chaired them when Eisenhower was absent. A 1953 tour of the Far East succeeded in increasing local goodwill toward the United States and prompted Nixon to appreciate the potential of the region as an industrial center. He visited Saigon and Hanoi in French Indochina. On his return to the United States at the end of 1953, Nixon increased the amount of time he devoted to foreign relations.

Biographer Irwin Gellman, who chronicled Nixon's congressional years, said of his vice presidency:

Eisenhower radically altered the role of his running mate by presenting him with critical assignments in both foreign and domestic affairs once he assumed his office. The vice president welcomed the president's initiatives and worked energetically to accomplish White House objectives. Because of the collaboration between these two leaders, Nixon deserves the title, "the first modern vice president".

Despite intense campaigning by Nixon, who reprised his strong attacks on the Democrats, the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1954 elections. These losses caused Nixon to contemplate leaving politics once he had served out his term. On September 24, 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack; his condition was initially believed to be life-threatening. Eisenhower was unable to perform his duties for six weeks. The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution had not yet been proposed, and the Vice President had no formal power to act. During this time, however, Nixon acted in Eisenhower's stead, presiding over Cabinet meetings and ensuring that aides and Cabinet officers did not seek power. According to Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose, Nixon had "earned the high praise he received for his conduct during the crisis ... he made no attempt to seize power".

His spirits buoyed, Nixon sought a second term, but some of Eisenhower's aides aimed to displace him. In a December 1955 meeting, Eisenhower proposed that Nixon not run for reelection in order to give him administrative experience before a 1960 presidential run and instead become a Cabinet officer in a second Eisenhower administration. Nixon, however, believed such an action would destroy his political career. When Eisenhower announced his reelection bid in February 1956, he hedged on the choice of his running mate, stating that it was improper to address that question until he had been renominated. Although no Republican was opposing Eisenhower, Nixon received a substantial number of write-in votes against the President in the 1956 New Hampshire primary election. In late April, the President announced that Nixon would again be his running mate. Eisenhower and Nixon were reelected by a comfortable margin in the November 1956 election.

In the spring of 1957, Nixon undertook another major foreign trip, this time to Africa. On his return, he helped shepherd the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress. The bill was weakened in the Senate, and civil rights leaders were divided over whether Eisenhower should sign it. Nixon advised the President to sign the bill, which he did. Eisenhower suffered a mild stroke in November 1957, and Nixon gave a press conference, assuring the nation that the Cabinet was functioning well as a team during Eisenhower's brief illness.

On April 27, 1958, Richard and Pat Nixon embarked on a goodwill tour of South America. In Montevideo, Uruguay, Nixon made an impromptu visit to a college campus, where he fielded questions from students on US foreign policy. The trip was uneventful until the Nixon party reached Lima, Peru, where he was met with student demonstrations. Nixon went to the campus, got out of his car to confront the students, and stayed until forced back into the car by a volley of thrown objects. At his hotel, Nixon faced another mob, and one demonstrator spat on him. In Caracas, Nixon and his wife were spat on by anti-American demonstrators and their limousine was attacked by a pipe-wielding mob. According to Ambrose, Nixon's courageous conduct "caused even some of his bitterest enemies to give him some grudging respect".

In July 1959, President Eisenhower sent Nixon to the Soviet Union for the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow. On July 24, while touring the exhibits with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the two stopped at a model of an American kitchen and engaged in an impromptu exchange about the merits of capitalism versus communism that became known as the "Kitchen Debate".

1960 and 1962 elections; wilderness years

In 1960, Nixon launched his first campaign for President of the United States. He faced little opposition in the Republican primaries and chose former Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. as his running mate. His Democratic opponent 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 had allowed the Soviet Union to overtake the US in ballistic missiles (the "missile gap"). A new political medium was introduced in the campaign: televised presidential debates. In the first of four such debates, Nixon appeared pale, with a five o'clock shadow, in contrast to the photogenic 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 that Nixon had won. Nixon lost the election narrowly, with Kennedy ahead by only 120,000 votes (0.2 percent) in the popular vote.

There were charges of vote fraud in Texas and Illinois, both states won by Kennedy; Nixon refused however to consider contesting the election, feeling a lengthy election contest would diminish the United States in the eyes of the world, and the uncertainty would hurt US interests. At the end of his term of office as vice president in January 1961, Nixon and his family returned to California, where he practiced law and wrote a bestselling book, ''Six Crises'', which included coverage of the Hiss case, Eisenhower's heart attack, and the Fund Crisis, which had been resolved by the Checkers speech.

Local and national Republican leaders encouraged Nixon to challenge incumbent Pat Brown for Governor of California in the 1962 election. Despite initial reluctance, Nixon entered the race. The campaign was clouded by public suspicion that Nixon viewed the office as a stepping-stone for another presidential run, some opposition from the far-right of the party, and his own lack of interest in being California's governor. Nixon hoped that a successful run would confirm him in his status as the nation's leading Republican, and ensure he remained a major player in national politics. Instead, he lost to Brown by nearly 300,000 votes, and the defeat was widely believed to be the end of his political career. In an impromptu concession speech the morning after the election, Nixon blamed the media for favoring his opponent, saying, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference". The California defeat was highlighted in the November 11, 1962, episode of ABC's ''Howard K. Smith: News and Comment'' entitled "The Political Obituary of Richard M. Nixon". Alger Hiss appeared on the program, and many members of the public complained that it was unseemly to allow a convicted felon air time to attack a former vice president. The furor drove Smith and his program from the air, and public sympathy for Nixon grew.

The Nixon family traveled to Europe in 1963, where Nixon gave press conferences and met with leaders of the countries he visited. The family moved to New York City, where Nixon became a senior partner in the leading law firm Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander. Nixon had pledged, when announcing his California campaign, not to run for president in 1964; even if he had not, he believed it would be difficult to defeat Kennedy, or after his assassination, Kennedy's successor Lyndon Johnson. In 1964, he supported Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for the Republican nomination for president; when Goldwater was successful in gaining the nomination, Nixon was selected to introduce the candidate to the convention. Although he thought Goldwater unlikely to win, Nixon campaigned for him loyally. The election was a disaster for the Republicans; Goldwater's landslide loss to Johnson was matched by heavy losses for the party in Congress and among state governors.

Nixon was one of the few leading Republicans not blamed for the disastrous results, and he sought to build on that in the 1966 congressional elections. He campaigned for many Republicans seeking to regain seats lost in the Johnson landslide and received credit for helping the Republicans make major gains in the midterm election.

1968 presidential election

At the end of 1967, Nixon told his family he planned to run for president a second time. Although Pat Nixon did not always enjoy public life (for example, she had been embarrassed by the need to reveal how little the family owned in the Checkers speech), she was supportive of her husband's ambitions. Nixon believed that with the Democrats torn over the issue of the Vietnam War, a Republican had a good chance of winning, although he expected the election to be as close as in 1960.

One of the most tumultuous primary election seasons ever began as the Tet Offensive was launched, followed by the withdrawal of President Johnson as a candidate after doing unexpectedly poorly in the New Hampshire primary; it concluded with the assassination of one of the Democratic candidates, Senator Robert F. Kennedy just moments after his victory in the California primary. On the Republican side, Nixon's main opposition was Michigan Governor George Romney, though New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and California Governor Ronald Reagan each hoped to be nominated in a brokered convention. Nixon secured the nomination on the first ballot. He selected Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate, a choice which Nixon believed would unite the party, appealing to both Northern moderates and Southerners disaffected with the Democrats.

Nixon's Democratic opponent in the general election was Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was nominated at a convention marked by violent protests. Throughout the campaign, Nixon portrayed himself as a figure of stability during a period of national unrest and upheaval. He appealed to what he later called the "silent majority" of socially conservative Americans who disliked the hippie counterculture and the anti-war demonstrators. Agnew became an increasingly vocal critic of these groups, solidifying Nixon's position with the right.

Nixon waged a prominent television advertising campaign, meeting with supporters in front of cameras. He stressed that the crime rate was too high, and attacked what he perceived as a surrender by the Democrats of the United States' nuclear superiority. Nixon promised "peace with honor" in the Vietnam War and proclaimed that "new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific". He did not release specifics of how he hoped to end the war, resulting in media intimations that he must have a "secret plan". His slogan of "Nixon's the One" proved to be effective.

In a three-way race between Nixon, Humphrey, and independent candidate Alabama Governor George Wallace, Nixon defeated Humphrey by nearly 500,000 votes (seven-tenths of a percentage point), with 301 electoral votes to 191 for Humphrey and 46 for Wallace. In his victory speech, Nixon pledged that his administration would try to bring the divided nation together. Nixon said: "I have received a very gracious message from the Vice President, congratulating me for winning the election. I congratulated him for his gallant and courageous fight against great odds. I also told him that I know exactly how he felt. I know how it feels to lose a close one."

Presidency (1969–74)

Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20, 1969, sworn in by his onetime political rival, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Pat Nixon held the family Bibles open at Isaiah 2:4, which reads, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." In his inaugural address, which received almost uniformly positive reviews, Nixon remarked that "the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker"—a phrase that would later be placed on his gravestone. He spoke about turning partisan politics into a new age of unity:

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.

Foreign policy

thumb|center|470px|upright|Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast during Nixon's 1972 visit to China.

China

Nixon laid the groundwork for his overture to China even 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 this venture was his National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, with whom the President worked 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. A breakthrough came in early 1971, when Chairman Mao invited a team of American table tennis players to visit China and play against top Chinese players. Nixon followed up by sending Kissinger to China for clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. On July 15, 1971, it was simultaneously announced by Beijing and by Nixon (on television and radio) that the President would visit China the following February. The announcements astounded the world. The secrecy allowed both sets of leaders time to prepare the political climate in their countries for the contact.

In February 1972, Nixon and his wife traveled to China. Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation. Upon touching down, the President and First Lady emerged from Air Force One and greeted Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Nixon made a point of shaking Zhou's hand, something which then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to do in 1954 when the two met in Geneva. Over 100 television journalists accompanied the president. 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.

Nixon and Kissinger met for an hour with Mao and Zhou at Mao's official private residence, where they discussed a range of issues. Mao later told his doctor that he had been impressed by Nixon, whom he considered forthright, unlike the leftists and the Soviets. He also said he was suspicious of Kissinger, though the National Security Advisor referred to their meeting as his "encounter with history". A formal banquet welcoming the presidential party was given that evening in the Great Hall of the People. 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. When not in meetings, Nixon toured architectural wonders including the Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall. Americans received their first glimpse into Chinese life through the cameras which accompanied Pat Nixon, who toured the city of Beijing and visited communes, schools, factories, and hospitals.

The visit ushered in a new era of Sino-American relations. Fearing the possibility of a Sino-American alliance, the Soviet Union yielded to pressure for détente with the United States.

Vietnam War

When Nixon took office, about 300 American soldiers were dying each week in Vietnam, and the war was broadly unpopular in the United States, with violent protests against the war ongoing. The Johnson administration had agreed to suspend bombing in exchange for negotiations without preconditions, but this agreement never fully took force. Nixon sought some arrangement which would permit American forces to withdraw, while leaving South Vietnam secure against attack.

Nixon approved a secret bombing campaign of North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia in March 1969 (code-named ''Operation Menu'') to destroy what was believed to be the headquarters of the Viet Cong. In mid-1969, Nixon began efforts to negotiate peace with the North Vietnamese, sending a personal letter to North Vietnamese leaders, and peace talks began in Paris. Initial talks, however, did not result in an agreement. In July 1969, Nixon visited South Vietnam, where he met with his US military commanders and President Nguyen Van Thieu. Amid protests at home demanding an immediate pullout, he implemented a strategy of replacing American troops with Vietnamese troops, known as "Vietnamization". He soon instituted phased US troop withdrawals but authorized incursions into Laos, in part to interrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail, used to supply North Vietnamese forces, that passed through Laos and Cambodia. Nixon's campaign promise to curb the war, contrasted with the escalated bombing, led to claims that Nixon had a "credibility gap" on the issue.

In 1971, excerpts from the "Pentagon Papers", which had been leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, were published by ''The New York Times'' and ''The Washington Post''. 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. The Supreme Court eventually ruled for the newspapers.

As US troop withdrawals continued, conscription was reduced and in 1973 ended; the armed forces became all-volunteer. After years of fighting, the Paris Peace Accords were signed at the beginning of 1973. The agreement implemented a cease fire and allowed for the withdrawal of remaining American troops; however, it did not require the 160,000 North Vietnam Army regulars located in the South to withdraw. Once American combat support ended, there was a brief truce, before fighting broke out again, this time without American combat involvement. North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam in 1975.

Latin American policy

Nixon had been a firm supporter of Kennedy in the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion and 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis; on taking office 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. These activities concerned the Soviets and Cubans, who feared Nixon might attack Cuba in violation of the understanding between Kennedy and Khrushchev which had ended the missile crisis. In August 1970, the Soviets asked Nixon to reaffirm the agreement. Despite his hard line against Castro, Nixon agreed. The process—which began in secret, but quickly leaked—had not been completed when the US deduced that the Soviets were expanding their base at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos in October 1970. A minor confrontation ensued, which was concluded with an understanding that the Soviets would not use Cienfuegos for submarines bearing ballistic missiles. The final round of diplomatic notes, reaffirming the 1962 accord, were exchanged in November.

The election of Marxist candidate Salvador Allende as President of Chile in September 1970 led Nixon to order that Allende not be allowed to take office. Edward Korry, US Ambassador to Chile, told Nixon that he saw no alternative to Allende, and Nixon ruled out American intervention, though he remained willing to assist opponents of Allende who might come forward. With the Chilean armed forces in disarray following the assassination of the Army leader, General René Schneider, Allende took office. The military regrouped under General Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Allende in 1973. During the coup, the deposed president died under disputed circumstances, concerning which there have been allegations of American involvement.

Soviet Union

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 the president to visit the Soviet Union. The president and first lady arrived in Moscow on May 22, 1972 and met with Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party; Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers; and Nikolai Podgorny, the head of state, among other leading Soviet officials.

Nixon engaged in intense negotiations with Brezhnev. Out of the summit came agreements for increased trade and two landmark arms control treaties: SALT I, the first comprehensive limitation pact signed by the two superpowers, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned the development of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles. Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of "peaceful coexistence A banquet was held that evening at the Kremlin.

Seeking to foster better relations with the United States, both China and the Soviet Union cut back on their diplomatic support for North Vietnam and advised Hanoi to come to terms militarily. Nixon later described his strategy:

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. Though rapprochement with China and détente with the Soviet Union were ends in themselves, I also considered them possible means to hasten the end of the war. 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.

Having made considerable progress over the previous two years in US-Soviet relations, Nixon embarked on a second trip to the Soviet Union in 1974. He arrived in Moscow on June 27 to a welcome ceremony, cheering crowds, and a state dinner at the Grand Kremlin Palace that evening. Nixon and Brezhnev met in Yalta, where they discussed a proposed mutual defense pact, détente, and MIRVs. While he considered proposing a comprehensive test-ban treaty, Nixon felt he would not have time as president to complete it. There were no significant breakthroughs in these negotiations.

Middle Eastern policy

thumb|240px|Nixon meets with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, June 1974.As part of the Nixon Doctrine that the US would avoid direct combat assistance to allies where possible, instead giving them assistance to defend themselves, the US greatly increased arms sales to the Middle East—particularly Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia—during the Nixon administration. The Nixon administration strongly supported Israel, an American ally in the Middle East but the support was not unconditional. Nixon believed that Israel should make peace with its Arab neighbors and that the United States should encourage it. The president believed that—except during the Suez Crisis—the US had failed to intervene with Israel, and should use the leverage of the large US military aid to Israel to urge the parties to the negotiating table. However, 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.

When an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria attacked in October 1973, beginning the Yom Kippur War, Israel suffered initial losses. The US took no action for several days, until Nixon ordered an airlift to Israel, taking personal responsibility for any response by Arab nations. Nixon cut through inter-departmental squabbles and bureaucracy to initiate an airlift of American arms. By the time the US and Soviet Union negotiated a truce, Israel had penetrated deep into enemy territory. The war resulted in the 1973 oil crisis, in which Arab nations refused to sell crude oil to the US in retaliation for its support of Israel. The embargo caused gasoline shortages and rationing in the United States in late 1973, and was eventually ended by the oil-producing nations as peace took hold. Kissinger played a major role in the settlement, and was also able to reestablish US relations with Egypt for the first time since 1967; Nixon made one of his final international visits as president there in June 1974.

Domestic policy

Economy

At the time Nixon took office in 1969, inflation was at 4.7 percent—its highest rate since the Korean War. The Great Society had been enacted under Johnson, which, together with the Vietnam War costs, was causing large budget deficits. There was little unemployment, but interest rates were at their highest in a century. Nixon's major economic goal was to reduce inflation; the most obvious means of doing so was to end the war. This could not be accomplished overnight, and the US economy continued to struggle through 1970, contributing to a lackluster Republican performance in the midterm congressional elections (Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress throughout Nixon's presidency). According to political economist Nigel Bowles in his 2011 study of Nixon's economic policies, the new president did little to alter Johnson's policies through the first year of his presidency.

Nixon was far more interested in foreign affairs than domestic policies, but 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. In 1970, Congress had granted the President the power to impose wage and price freezes, though the Democratic majorities, knowing Nixon had opposed such controls through his career, did not expect Nixon to actually use the authority. With inflation unresolved by August 1971, and an election year looming, Nixon convened a summit of his economic advisers at Camp David. He then announced temporary wage and price controls, allowed the dollar to float against other currencies, and ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. Bowles points out, "by identifying himself with a policy whose purpose was inflation's defeat, Nixon made it difficult for Democratic opponents ... to criticize him. 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 1972, although their aftereffects contributed to inflation during his second term and into the Ford administration.

After he won reelection, Nixon found inflation returning. He reimposed price controls in June 1973. The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy. The controls produced food shortages, as meat disappeared from grocery stores and farmers drowned chickens rather than sell them at a loss. Despite the failure to control inflation, controls were slowly ended, and on April 30, 1974, their statutory authorization lapsed.

Governmental initiatives and organization

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. He eliminated the Cabinet-level United States Post Office Department, which in 1971 became the government-run United States Postal Service.

Nixon was a late convert to the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the 1968 election; the candidates were rarely asked for their views on the subject. He saw that the first Earth Day in April 1970 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). Nixon broke new ground by discussing environment policy in his State of the Union speech; other initiatives supported by Nixon included the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); the National Environmental Policy Act required environmental impact statements for many Federal projects. Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act of 1972—objecting not to the policy goals of the legislation but to the amount of money to be spent on them, which he deemed excessive. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.

In 1971, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts proposed a plan for universal federally run health insurance, partly motivated by dramatic rises in public and private health care expenditures. In response, Nixon proposed a health care plan which would provide insurance for low-income families, and require that all employees be provided with health care. As this still would have left some forty million people uncovered, Kennedy and the other Democrats declined to support it, and the measure failed, though a Nixon proposal for increased use of health maintenance organizations passed Congress in 1973.

US space program

After a nearly decade-long national effort, the United States won the race to land astronauts on the moon on July 20, 1969, with the flight of Apollo 11. 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". Nixon, however, was unwilling to keep funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the high level seen through the 1960s as NASA prepared to send men to the moon. NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine drew up ambitious plans for the establishment of a permanent base on the moon by the end of the 1970s and the launch of a manned expedition to Mars as early as 1981. Nixon, however, rejected both proposals.

On May 24, 1972, Nixon approved a five-year cooperative program between NASA and the Soviet space program, culminating in the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint mission of an American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1975.

Civil rights

The Nixon years witnessed the first large-scale integration of public schools in the South. Nixon sought a middle way between the segregationist Wallace and liberal Democrats, whose support of integration was alienating some Southern whites. Hopeful of doing well in the South in 1972, he sought to dispose of desegregation as a political issue before then. 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 1970, fewer than ten percent of black children were attending segregated schools. By 1971, 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 did not subvert court orders requiring its use.

In addition to desegregating public schools, Nixon implemented the Philadelphia Plan in 1970—the first significant federal affirmative action program. He also endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment after it passed both houses of Congress in 1972 and went to the states for ratification. Nixon had campaigned as an ERA supporter in 1968, though feminists criticized him for doing little to help the ERA or their cause after his election, though he appointed more women to administration positions than Lyndon Johnson had.

Reelection, Watergate scandal, and resignation

1972 presidential campaign

Nixon believed his rise to power had peaked at a moment of political realignment. The Democratic "Solid South" had long been a frustration to Republican ambitions. Goldwater had won several Southern states by opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but had alienated more moderate Southerners. Nixon's efforts to gain Southern support in 1968 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 era. 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, 1972, effectively announcing his candidacy for reelection. Virtually assured the Republican nomination, the President had initially expected his Democratic opponent to be Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy (brother of the late president), but he was largely removed from contention after the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident. Instead, Maine Senator Edmund Muskie became the front runner, with South Dakota Senator George McGovern in a close second place.

On June 10, McGovern won the California primary and secured the Democratic nomination. The following month, Nixon was renominated at the 1972 Republican National Convention. He dismissed the Democratic platform as cowardly and divisive. McGovern intended to sharply reduce defense spending and supported amnesty for draft evaders as well as abortion rights. 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, Senator Thomas Eagleton, dumped from the ticket following revelations that he had received treatment for depression. Nixon was ahead in most polls for the entire election cycle, and was reelected on November 7, 1972 in one of the largest landslide election victories in American history. He defeated McGovern with over 60 percent of the popular vote, losing only in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Watergate

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 people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the FBI, CIA, and the Internal Revenue Service. The activities became known after five men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. ''The Washington Post'' picked up on the story; reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward relied on an informant known as "Deep Throat"—later revealed to be Mark Felt, associate director at the FBI—to link the men to the Nixon administration. Nixon downplayed the scandal as mere politics, calling news articles biased and misleading. As a series of revelations made it clear that Nixon aides had committed crimes in attempts to sabotage the Democrats and others, senior aides such as White House Counsel John Dean and Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman faced prosecution.

In July 1973, White House aide Alexander Butterfield testified that Nixon had a secret taping system that recorded his conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office. These tapes were subpoenaed by Watergate Special Counsel Archibald Cox. Nixon refused to release them, citing executive privilege. With the White House and Cox at loggerheads, Nixon had Cox fired in October in the "Saturday Night Massacre"; he was replaced by Leon Jaworski. In November, Nixon's lawyers revealed that an audio tape of conversations, held in the White House on June 20, 1972, featured an unexplained 18½ minute gap. Rose Mary Woods, the President's personal secretary, claimed responsibility for the gap, alleging that she had accidentally wiped the section while transcribing the tape, though her tale was widely mocked. 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. He insisted that he had made mistakes, but had no prior knowledge of the burglary, did not break any laws, and did not learn of the cover-up until early 1973. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Agnew resigned amid allegations—unrelated to Watergate—of bribery, tax evasion and money laundering from his tenure as Maryland's governor. Nixon chose Gerald Ford, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to replace Agnew.

On November 17, 1973, during a televised question and answer session with the press, Nixon said,

The legal battle over the tapes continued through early 1974, and in April 1974 Nixon announced the release of 1,200 pages of transcripts of White House conversations between him and his aides. The House Judiciary Committee, opened impeachment hearings against the President on May 9, 1974, which were televised on the major networks. These hearings culminated in votes for articles of impeachment, the first being 27–11 in favor on July 27, 1974 on obstruction of justice. Other charges leveled against Nixon were: Abuse of power and contempt of Congress(for providing only the edited transcripts of the tapes and not the tapes themselves). On July 24, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the full tapes, not just selected transcripts must be released.

Even with support diminished by the continuing series of revelations, Nixon hoped to win through. However, 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 the "Smoking Gun Tape" on August 5, 1974, Nixon accepted blame for misleading the country about when he had been told of the truth behind the Watergate break-in, stating that he had a lapse of memory. He met with Republican congressional leaders soon after, and was told he faced certain impeachment in the House and had, at most, 15 senators prepared to vote for his acquittal—far fewer than the 34 he needed to avoid removal from office.

Resignation

In light of his loss of political support and the near certainty of impeachment, Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974, after addressing the nation on television the previous evening. The resignation speech was delivered from the Oval Office and was carried live on radio and television. Nixon stated that 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. He defended his record as president, and stated:

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 contained no admission of wrongdoing, and was termed "a masterpiece" by Conrad Black, one of his biographers. 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." The initial response from network commentators was generally favorable, with only Roger Mudd of CBS stating that Nixon had evaded the issue, and had not admitted his role in the cover-up.

Later years and death

Pardon and illness

Following his resignation, the Nixons returned to their home La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente, California. According to Aitken, after his resignation, "Nixon was a soul in torment". Congress had funded Nixon's transition costs, including some salary expenses, though reducing the appropriation from $850,000 to $200,000. With some of his staff still with him, Nixon was at his desk by 7 a.m.—with little to do. His former press secretary, Ron Ziegler, sat with him alone for hours each day.

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, 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, however, insisted on a statement of contrition; Nixon felt he had not committed any crimes and should not have to issue such a document. The former president eventually agreed, and on September 8, 1974, Ford granted him a "full, free, and absolute pardon". This 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 1974, Nixon fell ill with phlebitis. Told by his doctors that he could either be operated on or die, a reluctant Nixon chose surgery and, while hospitalized, was visited by President Ford. 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. Congress instructed Ford to retain Nixon's presidential papers—beginning a legal battle over the documents which would last three decades, and would eventually be won by the former president and his estate. While Nixon was in hospital, the 1974 midterm elections took place, in which Watergate and the pardon were factors which contributed to the Republican loss of 43 seats in the House and three in the Senate.

Return to public life

In December 1974, 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 1975, Nixon's health was improving. He maintained an office in a Coast Guard station 300 yards from his home, at first taking a golf cart and later walking the route each day; he mainly worked on his memoirs. He had hoped to wait before writing his memoirs; the fact that his assets were being eaten away by expenses and lawyer fees compelled him to begin work quickly. He was handicapped in this work by the end of his transition allowance in February, which compelled him to part with much of his staff, including Ziegler. In August of that year, he met with British talk-show host and producer David Frost, who paid him $600,000 for a series of sit-down interviews, filmed and aired in 1977. They began on the topic of foreign policy, recounting the leaders he had known, but the most remembered section of the interviews was that on Watergate. Nixon admitted that 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." The interviews garnered 45–50 million viewers—becoming the most-watched program of their kind in television history.

The interviews helped improve Nixon's financial position—at one point in early 1975 he had only $500 in the bank—as did the sale of his Key Biscayne property to a trust set up by wealthy Nixon friends such as Bebe Rebozo. In February 1976, Nixon visited China at the personal invitation of Mao. Nixon had wanted to return to China, but chose to wait until after Ford's own visit in 1975. Nixon remained neutral in the 1976 primary battle between Ford and Reagan—won by Ford in a close fight at the convention in Kansas City, at which Nixon (who had been nominated by five of the previous six conventions) was not mentioned once. Ford lost narrowly in the general election to Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, which led to suggestions that Ford would have been elected had he not pardoned Nixon. Nixon biographer Black points out that had no pardon been issued, Nixon would likely have been on trial in November 1976, causing a GOP loss by a much greater margin. 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 from him an official invitation.

In early 1978, Nixon went to the United Kingdom. He was shunned by American diplomats and by most ministers of the James Callaghan government. He was welcomed, however, by the Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher, as well as by former prime ministers Lord Home and Sir Harold Wilson, though two other former prime ministers, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath declined to meet with him. Nixon addressed the Oxford Union regarding Watergate:

Some people say I didn't handle it properly and they're right. I screwed it up. ''Mea culpa''. But let's get on to my achievements. You'll be here in the year 2000 and we'll see how I'm regarded then.

Author and elder statesman

In 1978, Nixon published his memoirs, ''RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon'', the first of ten books he was to author in his retirement. The book was a bestseller and attracted a generally positive critical response. Nixon journeyed to the White House in 1979, invited by Carter for the state dinner for Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping. Carter had not wanted to invite Nixon, but Deng had stated 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-1979.

In early 1980, the Nixons purchased a New York City townhouse after being rejected by two Manhattan co-ops. When the former Shah of Iran died in Egypt in July 1980, Nixon defied the State Department, which intended to send no US representative, by attending the funeral. Though Nixon had no official credentials, as a former president he was seen as the American presence at its former ally's funeral. Nixon supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, making television appearances portraying himself as, in biographer Stephen Ambrose's words, "the senior statesman above the fray". He wrote guest articles for many publications both during the campaign and after Reagan's victory. After eighteen months in the New York City townhouse, Nixon and his wife moved in 1981 to Saddle River, New Jersey.

Throughout the 1980s, Nixon maintained an ambitious schedule of speaking engagements and writing, traveled, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries. He joined former Presidents Ford and Carter as representatives of the United States at the funeral of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. On a trip to the Middle East, Nixon made his views known regarding Saudi Arabia and Libya, which attracted significant US media attention; ''The Washington Post'' ran stories on Nixon's "rehabilitation". Nixon journeyed to the Soviet Union in 1986 and on his return sent President Reagan a lengthy memorandum containing foreign policy suggestions and his personal impressions of Mikhail Gorbachev. Following this trip, Nixon was ranked in a Gallup poll as one of the ten most admired men in the world.

thumb|left|240px|Nixon visits President Bill Clinton in the White House family quarters, March 1993. In 1986, Nixon addressed a convention of newspaper publishers, impressing his audience with his ''tour d'horizon'' of the world. At the time, political pundit Elizabeth Drew wrote, "Even when he was wrong, Nixon still showed that he knew a great deal and had a capacious memory, as well as the capacity to speak with apparent authority, enough to impress people who had little regard for him in earlier times." ''Newsweek'' ran a story on "Nixon's comeback" with the headline "He's back".

On July 19, 1990, the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California opened as a private institution with the Nixons in attendance. They were joined by a large crowd of people, including Presidents Ford, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as well as their wives, Betty, Nancy, and Barbara. In January 1991, the former president founded the Nixon Center, a Washington policy think tank and conference center.

Pat Nixon died on June 22, 1993, 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. Inside the building, he delivered a moving tribute to her.

Death and funeral

Nixon suffered a severe stroke on April 18, 1994, while preparing to eat dinner in his Park Ridge, New Jersey home. A blood clot resulting from his heart condition had formed in his upper heart, 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. He died at 9:08 p.m. on April 22, 1994, with his daughters at his bedside. He was 81 years old.

Nixon's funeral took place on April 27, 1994—the first for an American president since Lyndon B. Johnson's in 1973, over which Nixon had presided. Eulogists at the Nixon Library ceremony 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 Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and their wives.

Richard Nixon rests beside his wife 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 full state funeral, though his body did lie in repose in the Nixon Library lobby from April 26 to the morning of the funeral services. Mourners waited in line up to eight hours in chilly, wet weather to pay their respects. At its peak, the line to pass by Nixon's casket was three miles long with an estimated 42,000 people waiting to pay their respects.

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 ... and by the time Bill Clinton came to the White House [in 1993], Nixon had virtually cemented his role as an elder statesman. 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 1962 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, almost all of the news coverage mentioned Watergate, but for the most part, 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." This offended some; columnist Russell Baker complained of "a group conspiracy to grant him absolution". Cartoonist Jeff Koterba of the ''Omaha World-Herald'' depicted History before a blank canvas, his subject Nixon, as America looks on eagerly. 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".

Legacy

James MacGregor Burns observed of Nixon, "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?" Nixon's biographers disagree on how he will be perceived by history. According to Ambrose, "Nixon wanted to be judged by what he accomplished. What he will be remembered for is the nightmare he put the country through in his second term and for his resignation." Irwin Gellman, who chronicled Nixon's congressional career, suggests that "he was remarkable among his congressional peers, a success story in a troubled era, one who steered a sensible anti-Communist course against the excess of McCarthy". Aitken feels that "Nixon, both as a man and as a statesman, has been excessively maligned for his faults and inadequately recognised for his virtues. Yet even in a spirit of historical revisionism, no simple verdict is possible."

Nixon's Southern Strategy is credited by some historians as causing the South to become a Republican stronghold, though others deem economic factors more important to the change. Throughout his career, he was instrumental in moving his party away from the control of isolationists, and as a congressman was a persuasive advocate of containing Soviet communism. 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 is given credit for his stance on domestic affairs, which resulted in the passage and enforcement of environmental and regulatory legislation. Historian Paul Charles Milazzo in his 2011 paper on Nixon and the environment, points to Nixon's creation of the EPA and his enforcement of legislation such as the 1973 Endangered Species Act, stating that "though unsought and unacknowledged, Richard Nixon's environmental legacy is secure."

Nixon saw his policies regarding Vietnam, China, and the Soviets as key to his place in history. George McGovern, Nixon's onetime opponent, commented in 1983, "President Nixon probably had a more practical approach to the two superpowers, China and the Soviet Union, than any other president since World War II ... With the exception of his inexcusable continuation of the war in Vietnam, Nixon really will get high marks in history." Political scientist Jussi M. Hanhimäki disagrees, saying Nixon's diplomacy was merely a continuation of the Cold War policy of containment, using diplomatic rather than military means.

Historian Keith W. Olson has written that Nixon mainly left a negative legacy: fundamental mistrust of government with its roots in Vietnam and Watergate. During the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, both sides tried to use Nixon and Watergate to their advantage: Republicans suggested that Clinton's misconduct had been comparable to Nixon's, while Democrats contended that Nixon's actions had been far more serious than those of the incumbent. Another legacy, for a time, was a decrease in the power of the presidency as Congress passed restrictive legislation in the wake of Watergate. Olson, however suggests that grants of power to George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks restored the president's power.

Personality and public image

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 biographer Conrad Black described him as being "driven" though also "uneasy with himself in some ways". According to Black, Nixon "thought that he was doomed to be traduced, double-crossed, unjustly harassed, misunderstood, underappreciated, and subjected to the trials of Job, but that by the application of his mighty will, tenacity, and diligence, he would ultimately prevail". Biographer Elizabeth Drew summarized Nixon as a "smart, talented man, but most peculiar and haunted of presidents". In his account of the Nixon presidency, author Richard Reeves described Nixon as "a strange man of uncomfortable shyness who functioned best, alone with his thoughts". Nixon's presidency was doomed by his personality, Reeves argues: "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 1999, a volume of 1971 White House audio tapes was released that contained multiple statements by Nixon deemed derogatory toward Jews. In one conversation with H. R. Haldeman, Nixon said that Washington was "full of Jews" and that "most Jews are disloyal," making exceptions for some of his top aides. He then added, "But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?" Elsewhere in the 1971 recordings, Nixon denies being anti-Semitic, saying, "If anybody who's been in this chair ever had reason to be anti-Semitic, I did ... 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 belief, "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 ... [to] reveal their inner psyche—whether they were breast-fed or bottle-fed. Not me. No way." When told that most Americans, even at the end of his career, did not feel they knew him, Nixon replied, "Yeah, it's true. And it's not necessary for them to know."

See also

Murray Chotiner, Nixon's campaign manager and aide.

''Nixon in China'', 1987 opera by John Adams.

Notes

;Bibliography

External links

Richard Nixon Foundation

The Nixon Center, Washington, D.C.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library

White House biography

Richard Nixon: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress

The Watergate Tapes

Nixon's will

The Nixon–Presley Meeting at The National Security Archive

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Name	Henry Kissinger
Order	56th United States Secretary of State
Term start	September 22, 1973
Term end	January 20, 1977
Deputy	Kenneth RushRobert S. IngersollCharles W. Robinson
President	Richard NixonGerald Ford
Predecessor	William P. Rogers
Successor	Cyrus Vance
Order2	8th US National Security Advisor
Term start2	January 20, 1969
Term end2	November 3, 1975
President2	Richard NixonGerald Ford
Predecessor2	Walt Rostow
Successor2	Brent Scowcroft
Birth name	Heinz Alfred Kissinger
Birth date	May 27, 1923
Birth place	Fürth, Bavaria, Germany
Party	Republican
Spouse	Ann Fleischer (1949-64)Nancy Maginnes (1974-present)
Alma mater	City College of New YorkHarvard University
Profession	DiplomatAcademician
Religion	Jewish
Signature	Henry Kissinger Signature 2.svg
Branch	US Army
Rank	Sergeant
Unit	970th Counter Intelligence Corps }}

Henry Alfred Kissinger (; born May 27, 1923) is a German-born American political scientist, diplomat, and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought by many following presidents and many world leaders.

A proponent of ''Realpolitik'', Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of ''détente'' with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. Various American policies of that era, including the bombing of Cambodia, remain controversial.

Kissinger is still a controversial figure today. He was honored as the first recipient of the Ewald von Kleist Award of the Munich Conference on Security Policy and currently serves as the chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.

Early life

Kissinger was born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany in 1923 during the Weimar Republic to a family of German Jews. His father, Louis Kissinger (1887–1982) was a schoolteacher. His mother, Paula Stern Kissinger (1901–1998), was a homemaker. Kissinger has a younger brother, Walter Kissinger. The surname Kissinger was adopted in 1817 by his great-great-grandfather Meyer Löb, after the city of Bad Kissingen. In 1938, fleeing Nazi persecution, his family moved to New York.

Kissinger spent his high school years in the Washington Heights section of upper Manhattan as part of the German Jewish immigrant community there. Although Kissinger assimilated quickly into American culture, he never lost his pronounced Frankish accent, due to childhood shyness that made him hesitant to speak. Following his first year at George Washington High School, he began attending school at night and worked in a shave brush factory during the day.

Following high school, Kissinger enrolled in the City College of New York, studying accounting. He excelled academically as a part-time student, continuing to work while enrolled. His studies were interrupted in early 1943, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army.

Army experience

Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he was naturalized upon arrival. The Army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, but the program was cancelled, and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer, a fellow immigrant from Germany who despite the age difference, noted Kissinger's fluency in German and his intellect, arranged for him to be assigned to the military intelligence section of the division. Kissinger saw combat with the division, and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge.

During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger was assigned to de-Nazify the city of Krefeld, owing to a lack of German speakers on the division's intelligence staff. Kissinger relied on his knowledge of German society to remove the obvious Nazis and restore a working civilian administration, a task he accomplished in 8 days. Kissinger was then reassigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, with the rank of Sergeant. He was given charge of a team in Hanover assigned to tracking down Gestapo officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of a CIC detachment in the Bergstraße district of Hesse, with responsibility for de-Nazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.

In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King, continuing to serve in this role as a civilian employee following his separation from the Army.

Academic career

Henry Kissinger received his A.B. degree ''summa cum laude'' at Harvard College in 1950, where he studied under William Yandell Elliott. He received his A.M. and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University in 1952 and 1954, respectively. In 1952, while still at Harvard, he served as a consultant to the Director of the Psychological Strategy Board. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Peace, Legitimacy, and the Equilibrium (A Study of the Statesmanship of Castlereagh and Metternich)."

Kissinger remained at Harvard as a member of the faculty in the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs. He became Associate Director of the latter in 1957. In 1955, he was a consultant to the National Security Council's Operations Coordinating Board. During 1955 and 1956, he was also Study Director in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He released his book ''Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy'' the following year. From 1956 to 1958 he worked for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as director of its Special Studies Project. He was Director of the Harvard Defense Studies Program between 1958 and 1971. He was also Director of the Harvard International Seminar between 1951 and 1971. Outside of academia, he served as a consultant to several government agencies, including the Operations Research Office, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the Department of State, and the Rand Corporation, a think-tank.

Keen to have a greater influence on US foreign policy, Kissinger became a supporter of, and advisor to, Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York, who sought the Republican nomination for President in 1960, 1964 and 1968. After Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968, he made Kissinger National Security Advisor.

Foreign policy

Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, and continued as Secretary of State under Nixon's successor Gerald Ford.

A proponent of ''Realpolitik'', Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. In that period, he extended the policy of ''détente''. This policy led to a significant relaxation in U.S.-Soviet tensions and played a crucial role in 1971 talks with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The talks concluded with a rapprochement between the United States and the People's Republic of China, and the formation of a new strategic anti-Soviet Sino-American alignment. He was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to establish a ceasefire and US withdrawal from Vietnam. The ceasefire, however, was not durable. As National Security Advisor, in 1974 Kissinger directed the much-debated National Security Study Memorandum 200.

''Détente'' and the opening to China

As National Security Advisor under Nixon, Kissinger pioneered the policy of ''détente'' with the Soviet Union, seeking a relaxation in tensions between the two superpowers. As a part of this strategy, he negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (culminating in the SALT I treaty) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Negotiations about strategic disarmament were originally supposed to start under the Johnson Administration but were postponed in protest to the invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Kissinger sought to place diplomatic pressure on the Soviet Union. He made two trips to the People's Republic of China in July and October, 1971 (the first of which was made in secret) to confer with Premier Zhou Enlai, then in charge of Chinese foreign policy. The USC U.S.-China Institute has collected documents relating to the diplomatic efforts between 1969 and 1971 that led to this successful trip. This paved the way for the groundbreaking 1972 summit between Nixon, Zhou, and Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong, as well as the formalization of relations between the two countries, ending 23 years of diplomatic isolation and mutual hostility. The result was the formation of a tacit strategic anti-Soviet alliance between China and the United States. While Kissinger's diplomacy led to economic and cultural exchanges between the two sides and the establishment of Liaison Offices in the Chinese and American capitals, with serious implications for Indochinese matters, full normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China would not occur until 1979, because the Watergate scandal overshadowed the latter years of the Nixon presidency and because the United States continued to recognize the government of Taiwan.

Vietnam War

Kissinger's involvement in Indochina started prior to his appointment as National Security Adviser to Nixon. While still at Harvard, he had worked as a consultant on foreign policy to both the White House and State Department. Kissinger says that "In August 1965... [Henry Cabot Lodge], an old friend serving as Ambassador to Saigon, had asked me to visit Vietnam as his consultant. I toured Vietnam first for two weeks in October and November 1965, again for about ten days in July 1966, and a third time for a few days in October 1966... Lodge gave me a free hand to look into any subject of my choice". He became convinced of the meaninglessness of military victories in Vietnam, "...unless they brought about a political reality that could survive our ultimate withdrawal". In a 1967 peace initiative, he would mediate between Washington and Hanoi.

Nixon had been elected in 1968 on the promise of achieving "peace with honor" and ending the Vietnam War. In office, and assisted by Kissinger, Nixon implemented a policy of Vietnamization that aimed to gradually withdraw US troops while expanding the combat role of the enabling South Vietnamese Army so that it would be capable of independently defending its regime against the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, a Communist guerrilla organization, and North Vietnamese army (Vietnam People's Army or PAVN). Kissinger played a key role in a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia to disrupt PAVN and Viet Cong units launching raids into South Vietnam from within Cambodia's borders and resupplying their forces by using the Ho Chi Minh trail and other routes, as well as the 1970 Cambodian Incursion and subsequent widespread bombing of Cambodia. The bombing campaign contributed to the chaos of the Cambodian Civil War, which saw the forces of dictator Lon Nol unable to retain foreign support to combat the growing Khmer Rouge insurgency that would overthrow him in 1975. Documents uncovered from the Soviet archives after 1991 reveal that the North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 was launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge and negotiated by Pol Pot's then second in command, Nuon Chea. The American bombing of Cambodia killed an estimated 40,000 combatants and civilians. Pol Pot biographer David Chandler argues that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted – it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh," while Christopher Hitchens asserts that the bombing may have increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge.

Along with North Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1973, for their work in negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords on "Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam," signed the January previous. Tho rejected the award, telling Kissinger that peace had not been really restored in South Vietnam. Kissinger wrote to the Nobel Committee that he accepted the award "with humility." The conflict continued until an invasion of the South by the North Vietnamese Army resulted in a North Vietnamese victory in 1975 and the subsequent progression of the Pathet Lao in Laos towards figurehead status.

1971 India-Pakistan War

Under Kissinger's guidance, the United States government supported Pakistan in the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in South Asia as a result of a treaty of friendship recently signed by India and the USSR, and sought to demonstrate to the People's Republic of China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the USSR) the value of a tacit alliance with the United States.

In recent years, Kissinger has come under fire for private comments he made to Nixon during the Bangladesh-Pakistan War in which he described then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as a "bitch" and a "witch". He also said "The Indians are bastards," shortly before the war. Kissinger has since expressed his regret over the comments.

Israeli policy and Soviet Jewry

According to notes taken by H.R. Haldeman, Nixon "ordered his aides to exclude all Jewish-Americans from policy-making on Israel," including Kissinger. One note quotes Nixon as saying “get K. [Kissinger] out of the play — Haig handle it."

In 1973, Kissinger did not feel that pressing the Soviet Union concerning the plight of Jews being persecuted there was in the interest of US foreign policy. In conversation with Nixon shortly after a meeting with Golda Meir on March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

In addition, Kissinger felt unease about what he viewed as growing demands on the part of Israeli leaders for US support, and in a telephone conversation with Daniel Patrick Moynihan he referred to the Israeli government leadership as "a sick bunch". In a conversation with Robert McNamara he said about Israeli leaders: "We have vetoed 8 resolutions for the past years, given them $ 4 billion in aid, voted for resolutions composed entirely of our own statements and deleted things we objected to previously and we still are treated as if we have done nothing for them".

1973 Yom Kippur War

In 1973, Kissinger negotiated the end to the Yom Kippur War, which had begun on October 6, 1973 when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. Kissinger has published lengthy and dramatic telephone transcripts from this period in the 2002 book ''Crisis''. One week later, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial opposition, the US military conducted the largest military airlift in history to aid Israel on October 12, 1973. US action contributed to the 1973 oil crisis in the United States and its Western European allies, which ended in March 1974.

Israel regained the territory it lost in the early fighting and gained new territories from Syria and Egypt, including land in Syria east of the previously captured Golan Heights, and additionally on the western bank of the Suez Canal, although they did lose some territory on the eastern side of the Suez Canal that had been in Israeli hands since the end of the Six Day War. Kissinger pressured the Israelis to cede some of the newly captured land back to its Arab neighbours, contributing to the first phases of Israeli-Egyptian non-aggression. The move saw a warming in US–Egyptian relations, bitter since the 1950s, as the country moved away from its former independent stance and into a close partnership with the United States. The peace was finalized in 1978 when U.S. President Jimmy Carter mediated the Camp David Accords, during which Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for an Egyptian agreement to recognize the state of Israel.

Latin American policy

The United States continued to recognize and maintain relationships with non-left-wing governments, democratic and authoritarian alike. John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress was ended in 1973. In 1974, negotiations about new settlement over Panama Canal started. They eventually led to the Torrijos-Carter Treaties and handing the Canal over to Panamanian control.

Kissinger initially supported the normalization of United States-Cuba relations, broken since 1961 (all U.S.–Cuban trade was blocked in February 1962, a few weeks after the exclusion of Cuba from the Organization of American States because of US pressure). However, he quickly changed his mind and followed Kennedy's policy. After the involvement of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces in the liberation struggles in Angola and Mozambique, Kissinger said that unless Cuba withdrew its forces relations would not be normalized. Cuba refused.

Intervention in Chile

Chilean Socialist Party presidential candidate Salvador Allende was elected by a plurality in 1970, causing serious concern in Washington, D.C. due to his openly socialist and pro-Cuban politics. The Nixon administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to encourage a military coup that would prevent Allende's inauguration, but the plan was not successful. The extent of Kissinger's involvement in or support of these plans is a subject of controversy.

United States-Chile relations remained frosty during Salvador Allende's tenure, following the complete nationalization of the partially U.S.-owned copper mines and the Chilean subsidiary of the U.S.-based ITT Corporation, as well as other Chilean businesses. The U.S. claimed that the Chilean government had greatly undervalued fair compensation for the nationalization by subtracting what it deemed "excess profits". Therefore, the U.S. considered (but never actually implemented) economic sanctions against Chile. The CIA also provided funding for the mass anti-government strikes in 1972 and 1973.

The CIA, acting under the approval of the 40 committee (which Kissinger chaired), was involved in various covert actions in Chile during this period: it devised what in effect was a constitutional coup, and, when that failed, remained in contact with anti-Allende elements. The CIA learned of a number of plots to establish a military dictatorship. Although it pointedly refused to materially assist any of them, and actually worked to prevent several of the more unlikely plots for fear they would fail and strengthen Allende; it also encouraged several of the plots and did nothing to prevent them. It assured the plotters that such an event would be welcomed in Washington and that the US would not cut off aid over potential human rights violations.

On September 11, 1973, Allende died during a military coup launched by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, who became President. A document released by the CIA in 2000 titled "CIA Activities in Chile" revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or US military, even though many were known to be involved in notorious human rights abuses, until Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter defeated President Gerald Ford in 1976.

On September 16, 1973, five days after Pinochet had assumed power, the following exchange about the coup took place between Kissinger and President Nixon:

: Nixon: Nothing new of any importance or is there? : Kissinger: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and of course the newspapers are bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown. : Nixon: Isn't that something. Isn't that something. : Kissinger: I mean instead of celebrating – in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes. : Nixon: Well we didn't – as you know – our hand doesn't show on this one though. : Kissinger: We didn't do it. I mean we helped them. [garbled] created the conditions as great as possible. : Nixon: That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played.

In 1976, Kissinger canceled a letter that was to be sent to Chile warning them against carrying out any political assassinations. Orlando Letelier was then assassinated in Washington, D.C. with a car bomb on September 21, 1976, the day the letter was to be sent. In an Aug. 30, 1976 memo, Shlaudeman discussed the possibility that the U.S. ambassador in Uruguay might be endangered by delivering a warning against assassination. The U.S. ambassador to Chile said that Pinochet might take as an insult any inference that he was connected with assassination plots.

Kissinger has evaded legal summons by investigators in France, Spain, Chile and Argentina seeking to question him regarding his role in the disappearances of numerous citizens of the US and other nations, in regard to his involvement to Operation Condor. These included requests in 2001 by Chilean High Court judge Juan Guzmán, and Argentine judge Rodolfo Canicoba, which were both ignored by Kissinger. On May 28, 2001, police visited Kissinger at the Ritz Hotel, Paris and handed him a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his testimony in the matter of 5 French citizens who had disappeared in Pinochet's Chile. Kissinger refused, referred the matter to the State Department, and left for Italy the next day, however the summons still stands.

In addition to these summons, two cases against Kissinger were filed and dismissed. On September 10, 2001, the family of General René Schneider, former commander of the Chilean military, initiated a civil action in federal court in Washington, DC, by claiming that Kissinger gave the agreement to murder Schneider because the General had refused to endorse plans for a military coup against Allende. As part of the suit Schneider's two sons attempted to sue Kissinger and then-CIA director Richard Helms for $3 million. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the case based on sovereign and diplomatic immunity, as well as the political question doctrine. On November 13, 2002, 11 individuals who suffered grave human rights violations following the bloody coup that placed Pinochet in power brought suit against Henry Kissinger, the United States government, and Michael Vernon Townley for crimes against humanity, forced disappearance, torture, arbitrary detention, and wrongful death. The suit alleged that Henry Kissinger knowingly provided practical assistance and encouragement to the Chilean repressive regime before, during, and after the coup, with reckless disregard for the lives and well-being of the victims and their families. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the case based on the same grounds as Schneider vs. Kissinger.

Intervention in Argentina

Kissinger took a similar line as he had toward Chile when the Argentinian military, led by Jorge Videla, toppled the democratic government of Isabel Perón in 1976 with a process named as "National Reorganization Process" by the military, with which they consolidated power, launching brutal reprisals and "disappearances" against political opponents. During a meeting with Argentinian foreign minister César Augusto Guzzetti, Kissinger assured him that the United States was an ally, but urged him to ''"get back to normal procedures"'' quickly before the U.S. Congress reconvened and had a chance to consider sanctions.

Africa

In 1974 a leftist military coup overthrew the Caetano government in Portugal in the Carnation Revolution. The National Salvation Junta, the new government, quickly granted Portugal's colonies independence. Cuban troops in Angola supported the left-wing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in its fight against right-wing UNITA and FNLA rebels during the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002). Kissinger supported FNLA, led by Holden Roberto, and UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) insurgencies, as well as the CIA-supported invasion of Angola by South African troops. The FNLA was defeated and UNITA was forced to take its fight into the bush. Only under Reagan's presidency would U.S. support for UNITA return.

In September 1976 Kissinger was actively involved in negotiations regarding the Rhodesian Bush War. Kissinger, along with South Africa's Prime Minister John Vorster, pressured Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith to hasten the transition to black majority rule in Rhodesia. With FRELIMO in control of Mozambique and even South Africa withdrawing its support, Rhodesia's isolation was nearly complete. According to Smith's autobiography, Kissinger told Smith of Mrs. Kissinger's admiration for him, but Smith stated that he thought Kissinger was asking him to sign Rhodesia's "death certificate". Kissinger, bringing the weight of the United States, and corralling other relevant parties to put pressure on Rhodesia, hastened the end of minority-rule.

East Timor

The Portuguese decolonization process brought US attention to the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, which lies within the Indonesian archipelago and declared its independence in 1975. Indonesian president Suharto was a strong US ally in Southeast Asia and began to mobilize the Indonesian army, preparing to annex the nascent state, which had become increasingly dominated by the popular leftist FRETILIN party. In December 1975, the day before the invasion, Suharto discussed the invasion plans during a meeting with Kissinger and President Ford in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Both Ford and Kissinger made clear that US relations with Indonesia would remain strong and that it would not object to the proposed annexation. US arms sales to Indonesia continued, and Suharto went ahead with the annexation plan.

Later roles

Shortly after Kissinger left office in 1977, he was offered an endowed chair at Columbia University. There was significant student opposition to the appointment, which eventually became a subject of significant media commentary Columbia cancelled the appointment as a result.

Kissinger was then appointed to Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kissinger published a dialogue with the Japanese religious leader, Daisaku Ikeda, ''On Peace, Life and Philosophy''. He taught at Georgetown's Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service for several years in the late 1970s. In 1982, with the help of a loan from the international banking firm of E.M. Warburg, Pincus and Company, Kissinger founded a consulting firm, Kissinger Associates, and is a partner in affiliate Kissinger McLarty Associates with Mack McLarty, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. He also serves on board of directors of Hollinger International, a Chicago-based newspaper group, and as of March 1999, he also serves on board of directors of Gulfstream Aerospace.

In 1978, Kissinger was named chairman of the North American Soccer League board of directors. From 1995 to 2001, he served on the board of directors for Freeport-McMoRan, a multinational copper and gold producer with significant mining and milling operations in Papua, Indonesia. In February 2000, then-president of Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid appointed Kissinger as a political advisor. He also serves as an honorary advisor to the United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce.

From 2000 - 2006, Kissinger served as chairman of the board of trustees of Eisenhower Fellowships. In 2006, upon his departure from Eisenhower Fellowships, he received the Dwight D. Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service.

Role in U.S. foreign policy

Kissinger left office when a Democrat, former Governor of Georgia and "Washington outsider" Jimmy Carter, defeated Republican Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential elections. Kissinger continued to participate in policy groups, such as the Trilateral Commission, and to maintain political consulting, speaking, and writing engagements. Along with David Rockefeller, he was instrumental in convincing President Carter to allow the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into the United States to receive medical treatment, "a decision that led directly to the Iranian hostage crisis."

In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Kissinger to chair a committee to investigate the September 11 attacks. Kissinger stepped down as chairman on December 13, 2002 rather than reveal his client list, when queried about potential conflicts of interest.

The Balkans

In several articles of his and interviews that he gave during the Yugoslav wars, he criticized the United States' policies in the Balkans, among other things for the recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign state, which he described as a foolish act. Most importantly he dismissed the notion of Serbs, and Croats for that part, being aggressors or separatist, saying that "they can't be separating from something that has never existed". In addition, he repeatedly warned the West of implicating itself in a conflict that has its roots at least hundreds of years back in time, and said that the West would do better if it allowed the Serbs and Croats to join their respective countries.

This Kissinger position and statements provoked uncounted number of articles and was subjected to thorough refutation in numerous books and studies from prominent authors like Christopher Hitchens, Andras Riedlmayer, Michael A. Sells, Noel Malcolm, Norman Cigar, Rabia Ali, Lawrence Lifschultz, to name a few among many others.

Michael A. Sells, professor of comparative religion at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, is author of several articles on this subject, also wrote a book in which among other he refute Kissinger's assertions about Bosnia and its history and culture. Also in his long article "The U.S., Bosnia, and Henry Kissinger's Lie" professor Sells leave no room for doubt regarding to Kissinger's assertions. Noel Malcolm, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University since 2002, English historian, writer, and columnist, he wrote "Bosnia: A Short Historiy". But most illustrious is comprehensive study of Andras Riedlmayer, Harvard University Documentation Center, study on the War on Bosnian Culture, destruction of Bosnian culture and history in Bosnian War, describing a meticulously prepared and executed project of erasing of any traces of ancient Bosnian culture and history. (also see, "Erasing the Past: The Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina - Middle East Studies Associations Bulletin, vol. 29 no. 1 (July 1995), pp. 7-11" and "Killing Memory: Bosnia's Cultural Heritage and its Destruction" documentary film 41 min. Haverford, PA: Community of Bosnia Foundation, 1994). Rabia Ali and Lawrence Lifschultz wrote on this subject in their book "Why Bosnia" (Pampleteer's Press, 1993).

Nonetheless, Kissinger shared similarly critical views on Western involvement in Kosovo. In particular, he held a disparaging view of the Rambouillet Agreement:

However, as the Serbs did not accept the Rambouillet text and NATO bombings started, he opted for a continuation of the bombing as NATO's credibility was now at stake, but dismissed the usage of ground forces, claiming that it was not worth it.

Iraq

In 2006, it was reported in the book ''State of Denial'' by Bob Woodward that Kissinger was meeting regularly with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offer advice on the Iraq War. Kissinger confirmed in recorded interviews with Woodward that the advice was the same as he had given in an August 12, 2005 column in ''The Washington Post'': "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."

In a November 19, 2006 interview at BBC Sunday AM, Kissinger said, when asked whether there is any hope left for a clear military victory in Iraq, "If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi Government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible... I think we have to redefine the course. But I don't believe that the alternative is between military victory as it had been defined previously, or total withdrawal."

In an April 3, 2008 interview by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution, Kissinger re-iterated that even though he supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq he thought that the Bush administration rested too much of the case for war on Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction. Robinson noted that Kissinger had criticized the administration for invading with too few troops, for disbanding the Iraqi Army, and for mishandling relations with certain allies.

Asia

After apologizing for his use of the word 'bitch' in reference to Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Kissinger met India's main Opposition Leader Lal Krishna Advani in early October 2007 and lobbied for the support of his Bharatiya Janata Party for the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement.

Kissinger said in April 2008 that "India has parallel objectives to the United States" and he called it an ally of the U.S.

Kissinger was present at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summer Olympics. He was also in the Chinese capital to attend the inauguration of the new US Embassy complex.

In 2011, Kissinger published ''On China'', chronicling the evolution of Sino-American relations and laying out the challenges to a partnership of 'genuine strategic trust' between the U.S. and China.

Iran

Kissinger's position on this issue of U.S.-Iran talks was reported by the ''Tehran Times'' to be that "Any direct talks between the U.S. and Iran on issues such as the nuclear dispute would be most likely to succeed if they first involved only diplomatic staff and progressed to the level of secretary of state before the heads of state meet."

Public perception

At the height of Kissinger's prominence, many commented on his wit. In one instance, at the Washington Press Club annual congressional dinner, "Kissinger mocked his reputation as a secret swinger." He was quoted as saying "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

Since he left office, numerous efforts have been made to charge Kissinger personally for the perceived injustices of American foreign policy during his tenure in office. These charges have at times inconvenienced his travels.

In film and television

Kissinger has shied away from mainstream media and cable talk shows. Recently, he granted a rare interview to the producers of a documentary examining the underpinnings of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt entitled "Back Door Channels: The Price of Peace." In the film, a candid Kissinger reveals how close he felt the world was to nuclear war during the 1973 Yom Kippur War launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel.

Controversy

Christopher Hitchens, the British-American journalist and author, is highly critical of Kissinger. In ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', Hitchens calls for the prosecution of Kissinger 'for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture.' A documentary based on Hitchens' book ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' was released in 2002.

Personal life

Kissinger first married Ann Fleischer, with whom he had two children, Elizabeth and David. They divorced in 1964. Ten years later, he married Nancy Maginnes. They now live in Kent, Connecticut and New York City. David was an executive with NBC Universal before becoming head of Conaco, Conan O'Brien's production company. Kissinger described ''Diplomacy'' as his favorite game in an interview published in a games magazine.

Awards, honors and associations

thumb|Kissinger at opening night of the 2009 Metropolitan Opera.In 1973, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, "intended to bring about a cease-fire in the Vietnam war and a withdrawal of the American forces," while serving as the United States Secretary of State. Unlike Tho, who refused it because Vietnam was still at war, Kissinger accepted it. American singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer famously quipped that the award ".. makes political satire obsolete", in ironic reference to Kissinger's human-rights record, established or otherwise.

In 1976, Henry Kissinger was officially named to be the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.

On January 13, 1977, Kissinger was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.

In 1995, he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1998, Kissinger became an honorary citizen of Fürth, Germany, his hometown. He has been a life-long supporter of the ''Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth'' football club and is now an honorary member. He served as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary from February 10, 2001 to the summer of 2005.

In 2000, Kissinger was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY.

In 2005, Kissinger was awarded a Gold Medal at the annual Queen Sofia Spanish Institute Gold Medal Gala.

In April 2006, Kissinger received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution.

In June 2007, Kissinger received the Hopkins-Nanjing Award for his contributions to reestablishing Sino–American relations. This award was presented by the presidents of Nanjing University, Chen Jun, and of Johns Hopkins University, William Brody, during the 20th anniversary celebration of the Johns Hopkins University—Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies also known as the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.

In September 2007, Kissinger was honored as Grand Marshal of the German-American Steuben Parade in New York City. He was celebrated by tens of thousands of spectators on Fifth Avenue. Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was supposed to be a co-Grand Marshal, but had to cancel due to health problems. Kohl was represented by Klaus Scharioth, German Ambassador in Washington, who led the Steuben Parade with Kissinger.

In June 2011, Kissinger was honored by the American Council on Germany with a McCloy Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to transatlantic relations.

Kissinger is known to be a member of the following groups:

Bohemian Club Council on Foreign Relations Aspen Institute Bilderberg Group

Writings: Major Books

Memoirs

1979. ''The White House Years''. ISBN 0-316-49661-8

1982. ''Years of Upheaval''. ISBN 0-316-28591-9

1999. ''Years of Renewal''. ISBN 0-684-85571-2

Public policy

1957. ''Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy''. ISBN 0-865-31745-3 (1984 edition)

1961. ''The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of American Foreign Policy''. ISBN 0-06-012410-5

1965. ''The Troubled Partnership: A Re-Appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance''. ISBN 0-07-034895-2

1969. ''American Foreign Policy: Three essays''. ISBN 0-297-17933-0

1973. ''A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace'', 1812-22. ISBN 0-395-17229-2

1981. ''For the Record: Selected Statements 1977-1980''. ISBN 0-316-49663-4

1985 ''Observations: Selected Speeches and Essays 1982-1984''. ISBN 0-316-49664-2

1994. ''Diplomacy''. ISBN 067165991X

1999. ''Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks With Beijing and Moscow'' (Henry Kissinger, William Burr). ISBN 1-56584-480-7

2001. ''Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century''. ISBN 0684855674

2002. ''Vietnam: A Personal History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War''. ISBN 0-7432-1916-3

2003. ''Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises: Based on the Record of Henry Kissinger's Hitherto Secret Telephone Conversations''. ISBN 0-7432-4910-0

2011. ''On China'' (New York: Penguin Press, 2011). ISBN 9781594202711.

2011, ''The new world,--------- to be published soon

Footnotes

Further reading

Biographies

1973. Graubard, Stephen Richards, ''Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind''. ISBN 0-393-05481-0

1974. Kalb, Marvin L. and Kalb, Bernard, ''Kissenger'', ISBN 0-316-48221-8

1974. Schlafly, Phyllis, ''Kissinger on the Couch''. Arlington House Publishers. ISBN 0-87000-216-3

1983. Hersh, Seymour, ''The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House'', Summit Books. ISBN 0671506889. (''Awards:'' National Book Critics Circle, General Non-Fiction Award. Best Book of the Year: ''New York Times Book Review''; ''Newsweek''; ''San Francisco Chronicle'')

1992. Isaacson, Walter. ''Kissinger: A Biography''. New York. Simon & Schuster (updated, 2005). ISBN 0-671-66323-2

2004. Hanhimäki, Jussi. ''The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy''. ISBN 0-19-517221-3

2007. Kurz, Evi. ''Die Kissinger-Saga''. ISBN 978-3-940405-70-8

2009. Kurz, Evi. ''The Kissinger-Saga - Walter and Henry Kissinger. Two Brothers from Fuerth'', Germany. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-85675-7.

Other

Avner, Yehuda, ''The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership'', 2010. ISBN 9781592642786

Benedetti, Amedeo, ''Lezioni di politica di Henry Kissinger. Linguaggio, pensiero ed aforismi del più abile politico di fine Novecento'', Genova, Erga, 2005, ISBN 88-8163-391-4

Berman, Larry, ''No peace, no honor. Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam'', New York, NY u.a.: Free Press, 2001. ISBN 0-684-84968-2.

Dallek, Robert, ''Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power''. HarperCollins, 2007. ISBN 0060722304

Hanhimäki, Jussi M., 'Dr. Kissinger' or 'Mr. Henry'? Kissingerology, Thirty Years and Counting', in: ''Diplomatic History'', Vol. 27, Issue 5, pp. 637–76.

Hitchens, Christopher, ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', 2002. ISBN 1-85984-631-9

Klitzing, Holger, ''The Nemesis of Stability. Henry A. Kissinger's Ambivalent Relationship with Germany''. Trier: WVT 2007, ISBN 3884769421

Shannon E. Mohan. "Memorandum for Mr. Bundy": Henry Kissinger as Consultant to the Kennedy National Security Council," ''Historian'', 71,2 (2009), 234-257.

Morris, Roger, ''Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy''. Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-013097-0

Schmidt, Helmut, ''On Men and Power: A Political Memoir''.1990. ISBN 0-224-02715-8

Schulzinger, Robert D. ''Henry Kissinger. Doctor of Diplomacy''. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-231-06952-9

Shawcross, William, ''Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia'' (Revised edition October 2002) ISBN 0-8154-1224-X.

Suri, Jeremi, ''Henry Kissinger and the American Century'' (Harvard, Belknap Press, 2007), ISBN 978-0674025790.

Thornton, Richard C., ''The Nixon-Kissinger Years: Reshaping of America's Foreign Policy''. 1989. ISBN 0-88702-051-8

Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf, ''Taiwan Expendable? Nixon and Kissinger Go to China'', 2005. ISBN 9780231135658

External links

Annotated Bibliography for Henry Kissinger from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

Official Website of Henry A. Kissinger

"Charlie Rose" A conversation with Henry Kissinger, December 16, 2008

Henry Kissinger speaks at the Asia Society, NYC, February, 2007

Kissinger's political donations

NPR: Kissinger Speech at National Press Club. Towards the end [55:55], he responds to Hitchens.

''The Kissinger Saga. Henry and Walter: Two Brothers from Fuerth/Germany''. Documentary, 90 min. (unabridged version), first time aired: ''Bayerischer Rundfunk'' (Bavarian Broadcasting Network), January 21, 2007. Summary

Producer of 'The Kissinger-Saga, Walter and Henry Kissinger - Two Brothers from Fuerth/Germany'

СССР TV: "In the wake of Kissinger's visit (1976)" (in Russian)

Linkage and Arms Control. Interview conducted on November 26, 1986 for the War and Peace in the Nuclear Age series.

Henry Kissinger interviewed by Mike Wallace on ''The Mike Wallace Interview'' July 13, 1958

Uncommon Knowledge: Henry Kissinger

Interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria

Kissinger talks about Vladimir Putin

"Kissinger Speaks Out On Foreign Policy"

Henry Kissinger interviewed by Peter Krogh on ''American Interests'', 1981

"Kissinger interviewed with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by Charlie Rose as inaugural episode of Rose's 'Conversations on Diplomacy' series"

{{U.S. Secretary box |before = William P. Rogers |years = 1973-1977 |president= Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford |department= Secretary of State |after = Cyrus Vance}}

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