President Richard M. Nixon decommissioned, resigns in disgrace

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Dick Nixon was a fascinating, brilliant, and revolting man. He did change the world. He resigned 32 years ago today. Even with the specter of Jerry Ford as President (since Agnew had recently resigned following a felony nolo contendre pleading), we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Nixon, Haldeman, Erlichman, Dean, Magruder, Mitchell, Colson, Liddy, Ziegler, Hunt. . .the entire band of sneaky little weasels thrown out! It was a good day.

President Nixon was actually the last of the liberal Republican presidents--social spending was at an all-time high under The Nixon Administration. The country, however, seemed to visibly crumble under all the cheapjack domestic spying, break-ins, misinformation campaigns, Kent State, prosecution of the Chicago 7, massive anti-war demonstrations, the bombing of Cambodia, hardhats and Hell's Angels attacking peace marchers. . .and all the other outrages committed and encouraged by Nixon's henchmen, a band of misanthropic thugs. President Nixon's long smoldering resentments, doubts about his own self-worth, and his paranoia about The Kennedys and their successors would eventually sink his presidency.



The war against North Vietnam raged on with increased troop levels, saturation bombing, napalm napalm napalm, and massive body counts. The body count became a feature of every nightly news broadcast. On the plus side of the ledger, President Nixon reached out to both Russia and China, and set the stage for the later upheavals in Russia, up to and including the fall of communism. He opened China up to diplomacy and trade and sat with Mao Zedong. He changed the modern world.

After resigning in disgrace, Nixon hid out in California a couple of years, and then moved to NYC. He went on to write numerous books on foreign policy, and unofficially (with no public fanfare) advise every President until the day he died. If you want a fascinating read on Richard Nixon, check out Chris Matthew's book Kennedy And Nixon. I've read many books about Richard Nixon, and I probably enjoyed this one the most.

Links on all this is that:

All This Is That: Stopping By Richard Nixon's
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