Richard Nixon (1913-1994)

He was preceded in the Presidency by Lyndon B. Johnson - JFK's Vice-President who defeated Nixon in the 1960 election. Nixon narrowly won the 1968 election for the Republican Party with Spiro Agnew as his Vice-President and was re-elected by a landslide in 1972. After Agnew resigned in 1973, Gerald Ford became the new Vice-President who stepped in as President after Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 over the Watergate Scandal. Richard Nixon's political career spanned over two decades, marked by remarkable achievements and ultimate disgrace. Born in Yorba Linda in Orange Co., California, he began his political ascent after World War II, winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946. He gained national prominence during the Alger Hiss spy case, playing a pivotal role as a young Congressman on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and establishing himself as a fierce anti-communist.

Nixon's career accelerated when he became Dwight Eisenhower's running mate in 1952, yet in the same year he narrowly avoided premature disgrace. It was discovered that he'd been receiving money from a secret fund established by wealthy Californian businessmen to cover his political expenses as a senator. In a televised address watched by about 60 million Americans, he delivered what came to be known as the "Checkers Speech" - a masterpiece of political theater that successfully swayed public opinion and saw him go on to serve as Vice-President for eight years as an effective support to Eisenhower.

After narrowly losing the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and suffering defeat in California's 1962 gubernatorial race, Nixon seemed politically finished. However, he orchestrated one of history's greatest comebacks, winning the presidency in 1968 amid social upheaval and the Vietnam War. He achieved significant foreign policy successes, including opening diplomatic relations with China, pursuing détente with the Soviet Union, and negotiating arms control agreements. Domestically, he established the Environmental Protection Agency and on the face of things supported civil rights enforcement, but at the same time endorsed the divisive "Southern Strategy," a political plan devised by the Republican Party aimed at winning electoral support from white Southern voters who had traditionally voted for the Democrats. The strategy was designed to appeal to white working-class voters who felt alienated by the counterculture and civil rights movements, through stoking racial anxieties without explicitly mentioning race.

Nixon's presidency was increasingly overshadowed by the Vietnam War's continuation and, ultimately, the Watergate Scandal. Beginning with the 1972 break-in at Democratic headquarters, the scandal revealed extensive abuse of presidential power, including obstruction of justice and illegal surveillance. Facing certain impeachment, Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, leaving office on August 9, 1974. Despite his foreign policy legacy, Watergate forever tainted his reputation. He spent his remaining years writing books and serving as an unofficial elder statesman on foreign affairs, remaining one of America's most complex and controversial political figures.

The Watergate Scandal revealed that his net worth of $307,000 when he took office in 1969 had more than tripled during his first five years in the White House to just under $1-million. By the time of his death in 1994, his personal fortune was estimated at $15-million. In 1940, he married Pat Ryan and they had two daughters of whom the younger, Julie, married David Eisenhower, grandson of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.