Profile on Richard Nixon
Background
Richard Nixon is an American born in Yorba Linda of California in 1946. He was elected as the Republican congressman of the United States House of Representatives and began to enter politics career. In 1950, he was elected as the United States Federal senator. In 1952, as Eisenhower's running partner, he was elected as the vice president of the United States for 4 years since then. Later in 1956, he was re-elected as the vice president of the United States. In 1960, Nixon ran for the country’s president. He was defeated by John Kennedy by a narrow vote. Not long after that, he was defeated again in 1962 when he ran for governor of California, leading to his left from the center of state power for a time. After the defeats, Nixon worked as a lawyer in Los Angeles and New York successively. In 1968, Nixon returned to politics career. In that year's election, he defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey and independent candidate Wallace, and was elected the thirty-seventh president of the United States, working as the president for two consecutive terms until 1972 (Reeves, 1996).
Significance
Richard Nixon is a very great statesman. When he was taking the office, he immediately realized the change of the international situation. He put forward the famous Nixon doctrine and declared his foreign policy focus on partnership and negotiation. Under this circumstance, he began to seek to develop diplomatic relations with China, because he realized that China played an important role in the US Soviet relations. As a result, Nixon took the lead in breaking the stalemate and sent Kissinger to secretly visit China, laying the groundwork for his official visit to China. In February 21, 1972, Nixon arrived in Beijing and became the first American president to visit People's Republic of China. Due to the efforts made by Nixon, the Sino-US relation had entered a new development period.
Meanwhile, the United States was unable to extricate itself from the quagmire of Vietnam War. Another significance of President Nixon was that he decided to withdraw the US troops from Vietnam and completed the strategic task in four years. This was one of Nixon's great achievements. In January 27, 1973, the United States signed the agreement on the end of the Vietnam War and the restoration of peace. In March 29th, American troops were completely removed from Vietnam. This indicated the final end of the Vietnam War that brought the country in crisis for such a long time in American history (Bernstein, 1994).
Methods
The personality of Richard Nixon is a very serious style. Nixon came from a humble background compared to other competitors in the politics career, and it can be said that he totally relied on his own learning ability to enter the school, and then before the war becoming a lawyer, and turning to be a naval officer during World War II. He has a strong and tough character, and he would not give up even if he suffered a setback. This character is the method he successfully became elected as the president of the United States. Nixon came to power after the foreign policy was pragmatic, because he was in a state that the entire country was facing a huge loss of political and economic resources. This had brought the period of economic transformation and the heavy social pressure from cold war. Nixon in such a situation successfully though up a way to solve the problems. From his significance we can see that the overall view of Nixon is outstanding, and it is still beyond the reach of many American politicians.
Successes and Failures
The successful achievements of Richard Nixon are significant as described above, and they brought the great period for the country’s peace and stable relationship with other countries. However, the failure of Nixon is also big. During the US presidential election time in 1972, the Republican Party let people sneak into the Watergate Apartment of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in order to create favorable conditions for Nixon's campaign, and videotaped files and installed wiretap devices. However, later five people were arrested on the spot. As the truth of the event was not clear at that time, Nixon's campaign was not affected, and Nixon still succeeded from the election. But when Nixon came to power again, the truth of this "Watergate" scandal was gradually revealed to the public, causing chaos. Nixon was under enormous pressure, and even had to reorganize the government, and later forced to hand over secretly recorded video. Finally, the House Judiciary Committee three times accused Nixon through impeachment, making him face the danger of impeachment. Ultimately, he chose to resign to avoid being impeached, thus becoming the first president in the United States who did not complete his term (Toprani and Moss, 2011).
References
Reeves, R. (1996). The remaking of the president, 1995. Indianapolis Business Journal.
Toprani, A., & Moss, R. A. (2011). Filling the three-year gap: Nixon, Allende, and the White House tapes, 1971-73. Passport the Newsletter of the Shafr.
Bernstein, R. B. (1994). Perspective: the troubling paradoxes of Richard Nixon. Social Science Record, 31, 47-48.