Nixon

On August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon became the only United States President to resign from office. Due to the Watergate Scandal and the continued harassment because of it he believed that this was the best for himself and the country. Whenever someone mentions Nixon, people always accuse him of Watergate. People never remember the good that he did for the country.

As a person, Richard Nixon was very intelligent. He actually graduated third in his class from Duke University. He was very successful in areas of law and logistics. He was a very hard worker and was a very good debater. The skills would come in handy later on when working with foreign relations.

One of Richard Nixon’s greatest achievements was his foreign policy. Nixon and his closest colleague Henry Kissinger worked hard and long to create strong foreign relations. Their policy of Détente (which means: the easing of hostility or strained relations) helped to restore relations with both Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union (USSR).

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger worked hard to build relations in China. In February of 1972 Nixon became the first United States President to visit China since 1949. Another huge achievement with China is the Ping Pong Diplomacy. This was when the Chinese invited the United Stated National Ping Pong team to China to play some ping pong. This was huge because these were the first American citizens in China since 1949.

Another one of Richard Nixon’s foreign accomplishments was with the Soviet Union. Because of Nixon’s treaty with China, The Soviet Union felt pressured to fix things with the United States. This plan actually worked because the United States and the Soviet Union came to an agreement and everything was better. With treaties between China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, The Triangular Diplomacy was created.

During Nixon’s time in office one of the hardest things he had to deal with was the Vietnam War. Nixon and Kissinger called their plan or policy Vietnamization. Their plan was to pull out all the troops from Vietnam and to ring them home.

He also dealt with conflict in the middle-east. The conflict was caused when Nixon was backing Israel and made many middle-eastern countries mad at him. When Nixon refused to abandon Israel, many of these countries attacked us by cutting trade with the United States. This impacted the country greatly because the United States depended greatly on these countries for oil. This actually caused an oil crisis in the United States. I don’t think Nixon did anything wrong with this though because he was just backing Israel and what they believe in.

Those are many of the things that Nixon did right in office so now for the bad. With Nixon and his foreign policy, he failed greatly in Chili. Nixon fought hard to get the man he wanted in office in Chili. This guy that he got in ended up being a dictator. This is considered one of Nixon’s greatest failures in foreign policy.

The greatest of all Nixon’s failures though is by far Watergate. Everyone knows about Watergate and how Nixon tried to bug the democrat’s office and then how he tried to cover it up. Nixon spend a lot of money that should have been used for reelection purposes but instead used to pay people for the scandal and to cover it up.
            When we watched “Frost Nixon,” Nixon felt remorseful and he was truly sorry for what he did and how he let the country down. I think Nixon was truly a nice guy and cared for the country. He made one mistake and got caught doing it and it ended up ruining his career.

I think that Nixon made some mistakes in office but who doesn’t. Being president is not an easy job. I also think he made up for those mistakes because he made many right choices and helped the country in many ways. So I don’t think he should be remembered by his mistakes.