Editing Richard Nixon (section)

==Biography==

=== Early life ===
Nixon was born into a poor family of Quakers in a small town in Southern California. He graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. He served on active duty in the Navy Reserve during [[World War II]]. 

=== Political career ===
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-Communist which elevated him to national prominence. In 1950, he was elected to the Senate. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party's presidential nominee in the 1952 election, subsequently serving for eight years as the vice president. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy. Nixon then lost a race for governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating Hubert Humphrey and [[George Wallace]] in a close election.

Nixon ended American involvement in the [[Vietnam War]] in 1973, ending the military draft that same year. Nixon's meeting with [[Mao Zedong]] in 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he gained the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. 

His administration generally transferred power from federal control to state control. He imposed wage and price controls for 90 days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and began the War on Cancer. He also presided over the Apollo 11 Moon landing, which signaled the end of the Space Race. He was re-elected in one of the largest electoral landslides in American history in 1972 when he defeated George McGovern.

In his second term, Nixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli losses in the [[Yom Kippur War]], a war which led to the oil crisis at home. By late 1973, Watergate escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support. On August 9, 1974, facing almost certain impeachment and removal from office, he became the first American president to resign. Afterwards, he was issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. 

In 20 years of retirement, Nixon wrote his memoirs and nine other books and undertook many foreign trips, rehabilitating his image into that of an elder statesman and leading expert on foreign affairs. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at age 81. Surveys of historians and political scientists have ranked Nixon as a below-average president. However, evaluations of him have proven complex, with successes as president contrasted against the circumstances of his departure from office.

=== [[Watergate scandal|The Watergate scandal]] ===
On June 17, 1972, five suspects were arrested in the early hours of the morning for breaking into the Democratic Party's headquarters at the Watergate Office Building (which gave its name to the scandal) in Washington, D.C. They had photographic equipment and wiretapping devices on them. In the following months, connections between several of the suspects and one part or another of the White House were revealed.

As the investigation continued, it was revealed that the scandal was primarily to cover-up his administration's illegal activities as well as to sabotage the Democratic Party, just so his opposition would be weakened.

=== Post-presidency ===
His second Vice President, Gerald Ford (who assumed the presidency after Nixon resigned), pardoned Nixon fully for his involvement in the Watergate scandal. He attended the funeral of [[Anwar Sadat]]. Nixon mostly kept a low profile until his death in April 1994 from a stroke.

In a series of taped interviews he gave in the late 1970's, Nixon expressed regret for his actions involving Watergate and his other crimes.