# Richard Nixon's presidency **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 3, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188 "2009-05-03T16:16:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/41 "2009-05-04T01:35:07Z")
The problem is, separating the rest of Nixon’s presidency from Watergate is like separating the rest of Johnson’s presidency from Vietnam, the rest of Carter’s presidency from Iran, the rest of Clinton’s presidency from Lewinsky and the rest of GWB’s presidency from Iraq. As one who was draft-eligible during the Nixon administration, I tend to side with those who believe Nixon could have gotten the substantially the same resolution in Vietnam in 1969 that he eventually got in 1973, saving the country four years of a war that was pretty damn stupid to begin with. And while I’m willing to give Nixon credit for China, the EPA, and some other ideas, the incredible, systematic corrosiveness of Watergate and its effect on politics for a generation more than obliterates whatever positive accomplishments history will credit him with. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/42 "2009-05-04T01:37:10Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > “Only Nixon could go to China,” is perhaps the most overused and misapplied homily of the 20th Century. First of all, it was Henry Kissenger, not Nixon, who paved the way for open diplomatic relations with China, which he did by completely selling out Western allies in Taiwan. He actively campaigned to have the ROC replaced by the PRC in the UN and elsewhere, undermining the (by some measure) legitimate government of the ROC in favor of the utterly criminal “revolutionary” regime that led the Cultural Revolution (the so-called “Gang of Four”). Whatever you think of the KMT (and they were a corrupt bunch indeed) they were at least nominally ideologically compatible AND were a continuation of the same government, whereas Mao and his successors seized power and ruled by fear, intimidation, and a campaign of brutality and organized murder that exceeded that of the Fascist powers of Europe during WWII, and rivaled even the Red Terror and Stalin eras off the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the PRC was not one whit less a “legitimate” government than the ROC. Revolutionary governments are legitimate. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The supposed great achievement of Nixon opening a dialogue with China, worthy of this compromise, was to create a split between the two largest Communist powers. Unbeknownst (or at least, poorly understood) by Western intelligence was that the Sino-Soviet conflicts had been ongoing for well over a decade and despite a supposed shared ideology both the cultures and leadership personalities of the two powers were always at odds with one another. Nixon might like to have claimed to drive a wedge between China and the Soviet Union, but this had long existed before Nixon was ever on stage. The result is that we now have an official stance of “One China”, i.e. the PRC, while the Republic of China (which has made significant moves toward an actual democracy) is recognized only as a special administrative region. This “realpolitik” has been the cause of much strife in the region and resentment against the United States for abandoning a position of principle for one of pragmatics without actually having pragmatically gained anything. Or as I prefer to call it, dipshit politics. What “strife”? The PRC and ROC glare at each other over the water but they never really get into it. The PRC knows that, even if the U.S. stayed out of it, it could not pull off a successful invasion – troop numbers aren’t everything in what would necessarily be a naval operation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/43 "2009-05-04T01:42:05Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Something that was not mentioned but you should learn. > > In 1972 there were elections in El Salvador, the leader of the opposition was not a communist, but the united opposition he leaded had some communist or leftist groups. > > There was fraud in the election and a military thug claimed to be the winner. > > The Nixon administration failed to intervene, far from it, they supported the new military “president” > > There was also virtually no reaction from Nixon when the Salvadorean people supported a military rebellion and the Salvadoran air force bombed the crowds of supporters of the opposition leader that were protesting the electoral fraud. > > A couple of other fraudulent elections and then civil war broke up. Many right wingers in the US are still incapable of ever wondering if there was actually another good reason why there was a civil war in the 80’s in places like El Salvador and always wonder why the US is criticized for helping the military governments of that era. I blame mostly Nixon and Reagan for following the path of darkness. And [what the Nixon Admin did in Chile](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat) was a hundred times worse. Kissinger deserves to be hanged just for that. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/44 "2009-05-04T03:17:52Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > As one who was draft-eligible during the Nixon administration, I tend to side with those who believe Nixon could have gotten the substantially the same resolution in Vietnam in 1969 that he eventually got in 1973, saving the country four years of a war that was pretty damn stupid to begin with. In hindsight, yes, but I think we still had reason to be optimistic in 1969. This was a year after the Tet Offensive, when the public started to turn against the war, but our military and political leadership knew that Tet was a military failure for the N. Vietnamese that had virtually wiped out the Vietcong. Not knowing what a resilient enemy N. Vietnam was, I bet they figured if they could maintain a stalemate long enough the N. Vietnamese would settle for a partition of the country and Vietnam would become another Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/45 "2009-05-04T04:35:54Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Nevertheless, the PRC was not one whit less a “legitimate” government than the ROC. Revolutionary governments are legitimate. If the revolutionary government honored or negotiated previous foreign commitments and followed a rule of law I would agree; however, the PRC unilaterally invalidated prior commitments that were unfavorable (while insisting on the maintenance of those that were, like the return of Hong Kong to “Chinese” rule) and instituted a system of government that was oppressive, corrupt, horrifically destructive, and nothing short of deliberately murderous (albeit this has a long tradition in China long before Mao was an itch in his daddy’s pants). And the flip of recognition from the ROC to the PRC as “One China”–with the attendant disavowal of the ROC leaving it an effective non-state–is an example of the worst of Kissinger’s “realpolitik” in action, the engineered removal of sovereignty that was solely in the supposed interest of the United States, a compromise of alleged deep ideological opposition to Communism to no political or strategic benefit…although it has allowed the United States military industry to sell tens of billions of dollars of weapons (much of which paid for by US taxpayers in a variety of three cornered deals) to the ROC. > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > All this thread goes to show is that, even 35 years after Nixon left office, attitudes about him are as hard as ever, on both sides of the discussion. Nixon was a decidedly polarizing individual; an “honest” man who saw no problem in lying six different directions if it achieved a result, who brought political tricksterism to new lows, who would say the foulest things about his opponents with a smile plastered on his face. Nixon campaigned into office promising to end US involvement in Vietnam, and then did it again four years later as if it were as fresh as the morning sunlight. Eisenhower, forced to accept Nixon in order to bring in California and not split the GOP, thought him a man of the lowest character and untrustworthy to the bone. I can say something good about most Presidents–even GWB has a few things to be said of him that are favorable–but Nixon was a vile individual and an ineffectual, duplicitous chief executive. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/46 "2009-05-04T05:36:28Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I can say something good about most Presidents–even GWB has a few things to be said of him that are favorable–but Nixon was a vile individual and an ineffectual, duplicitous chief executive. I can say a few good things about Richard Nixon, if no one else in the thread will. He was a smart man, and a hard worker. Most of what he did, most of his successes, came solely through force of will. He was an introvert in a job full of extroverts; a shy, lonely man, who every day in the public eye hid that, and through the force of his ambition, ascended to the presidency. The tragedy of Richard Nixon came out of that. He was a man who had been beaten down by life, who had learned that the world was a hard unfair place, and that the working man would always be screwed over by the rich and powerful, from his childhood, where his father lost his ranch and they were forced to live with relatives, to the poor financial condition of his family that forced him to decline full academic scholarships to Harvard or Yale and go to a local school, so that he could help with the family finances, to his rejection from all the existing fraternal societies as Whittier College, to the rallying around Alger Hiss by liberal intellectuals, to the 1960 election, where Eisenhower’s lack of an endorsement, and Kennedy money and Kennedy dirty tricks cost him the presidency. This was Nixon’s tragedy, that he was always on the outside looking in. It meant that he could never trust anyone, so he felt he had no choice but to get his enemies before they got him. And because he couldn’t trust, there was no one close enough to him to be able to tell him when he went too far. Instead, he surrounded himself with people like Ehrlichman and Halderman, Dean and Mitchell, who reinforced his paranoia and resentment. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/47 "2009-05-04T07:26:21Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#): > > In hindsight, yes, but I think we still had reason to be optimistic in 1969. This was a year after the Tet Offensive, when the public started to turn against the war, but our military and political leadership knew that Tet was a military failure for the N. Vietnamese that had virtually wiped out the Vietcong. I’m not so sure about that, the NLF had recovered from the failure of Tet in '68 and was able to keep the pressure up in 1969 despite the losses to the VC; their forces just became more NVA than VC. Our military and political leadership had a good idea of how resilient the NLF was but had been downplaying it and lying about to the public for a long time. The drop in public support was just paying the piper for having deceived the public who had been told that the enemy was on the ropes, there was a light at the end of the tunnel and the NLF was incapable of a mass offensive like Tet. While Tet was a military failure, it had done a great deal of damage to the South and despite the losses to the VC MACV’s response to Tet was to ask for another 100,000 troops. > [@](#): > > Not knowing what a resilient enemy N. Vietnam was, I bet they figured if they could maintain a stalemate long enough the N. Vietnamese would settle for a partition of the country and Vietnam would become another Korea. This is pretty much the folly of Vietnam in a nutshell. Attrition isn’t really a strategy; it’s the lack of one. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/48 "2009-05-04T08:35:39Z")
Nixon deserved every bit of criticism that he received over Watergate and his dirty tricks. Furthermore his policies in Cambodia, Bangladesh and Chile also deserve harsh criticism and his imposition of price controls was thoroughly misguided. However his visit to China was a big deal and not only helped to weaken the Soviet Union but probably paved the way for China’s own entry into the global economy some years later which helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. He also had a number of domestic accomplishments . From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > During the Nixon administration, the United States established many government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)[144] and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).[72] In addition, the Post Office Department was abolished as a cabinet department and reorganized as a government-owned corporation: the U.S. Postal Service. > > Nixon impounded billions of dollars in federal spending and expanded the power of the Office of Management and Budget.[145] He established the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972[144] and promoted the Legacy of parks program. He implemented the Philadelphia Plan, the first significant federal affirmative action program.[146] Nixon authorized the Clean Air Act of 1970, which has been called[by whom?] one of the most significant pieces of environmental legislation ever signed.[79] In 1971, Nixon proposed the creation of four new government departments superseding the current structure: departments organized for the goal of efficient and effective public service as opposed to the thematic bases of Commerce, Labor, Transportation, Agriculture, et al. Departments including the State, Treasury, Defense, and Justice would remain under this proposal.[147] In his 1974 State of the Union address, Nixon called for comprehensive health insurance.[148] On February 6, 1974, he introduced the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act. Nixon’s plan would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance for their employees, and in addition provided a federal health plan, similar to Medicaid, that any American could join by paying on a sliding scale based on income Overall his legacy is extremely mixed but his presidency was certainly not the unmitigated disaster that his critics make it out to be. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/49 "2009-05-04T08:52:56Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > Overall his legacy is extremely mixed but his presidency was certainly not the unmitigated disaster that his critics make it out to be. Nor was he. I recall a comment by Henry Kissinger that if only someone had loved him, he could have been a great man. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/50 "2009-05-04T09:24:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Nor was he. I recall a comment by Henry Kissinger that if only someone had loved him, he could have been a great man. If only Henry could have been that man. _Boom-chaka-wawa_ Kissinger: Mr. President, you’re looking mighty sexy today. Nixon: Well gosh, you seem rather frisky. Is that an ICBM in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? Kissinger: You know how hot playing realpolitik gets me Tricky Dicky boy. I just made a deal with Satan, you wouldn’t believe the bargain I got. Nixon: Aw Henry, bring your big sexy self over here and get rid of your clothes. Kissinger: What’s that sound? Are you taping this? Nixon: Taping? Why no, never. What, you think I tape our love sessions for later self gratification? _Boom-chaka-wawa_ ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/51 "2009-05-04T10:33:38Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Nor was he. I recall a comment by Henry Kissinger that if only someone had loved him, he could have been a great man. And somebody probably could have loved him, too, if only he wasn’t a lying, untrustworthy, conniving, thoroughly evil piece of solid shit. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/52 "2009-05-04T14:29:53Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > …The tragedy of Richard Nixon came out of that. He was a man who had been beaten down by life, who had learned that the world was a hard unfair place, and that the working man would always be screwed over by the rich and powerful, from his childhood, where his father lost his ranch and they were forced to live with relatives, to the poor financial condition of his family that forced him to decline full academic scholarships to Harvard or Yale and go to a local school, so that he could help with the family finances, to his rejection from all the existing fraternal societies as Whittier College, to the rallying around Alger Hiss by liberal intellectuals, to the 1960 election, where Eisenhower’s lack of an endorsement, and Kennedy money and Kennedy dirty tricks cost him the presidency… Wait a minute. Richard Nixon, Working Class Hero? No. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/53 "2009-05-04T14:51:30Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Wait a minute. Richard Nixon, Working Class Hero? No. That’s how he saw himself. Whether his perceptions were true or not is a different story, but Nixon saw himself as standing with the great majority of average Americans against the elite. As Richard Perlstein, in his introduction to Richard Nixon’s speeches put it: > [@](#): > > The trope of the “two Nixons” has been a staple of commentary about the man since the 1950s. Pundits tended to understand the problem serially: they would announce that they detected a newfound maturity in the demagogue they had called “Tricky Dick,” now making sound, nuanced, and humane contributions to the public debate; then, like clockwork, he would start talking about > “anarchy” and blame it all on the liberal elites. And the pundits would announce in rueful tones that the “old Nixon” had returned—and then the cycle (“Is there a ‘new Nixon’?”) would repeat itself a few years later. The pundits never got it > quite right. Richard Nixon was driven by a consistent passion to make sound, nuanced, and humane contributions to public debate. And he also, and > at the same time, inhabited a mental world, as his arch-foe Adlai Stevenson would put it, of “slander and scare,” of “smash and grab and anything to win.” This part of him was driven by an unstinting rage for control, a need to dominate > and even humiliate opinion-making elites—whom he also saw as architects not merely of society’s moral degradation, but of the political humiliation of Richard Nixon. > > A day in the life of Richard Nixon was never either/or when it came to this bifurcated orientation; it was always both/and. He needed elites, and hated them; he hated elites, and wanted to be accepted among them. He could be open-minded and open-hearted, and he could rage for control. It had always been so, even before his political career began, and even until his political career was ended. To many Americans—who also simultaneously revered and resented elites—it was the soul of his political appeal. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/54 "2009-05-04T16:10:07Z")
Oh, what a time it was . . . Nixon Plumber [E. Howard Hunt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hunt) was also a novelist, and, in 1972, published (writing as David St. John) _The Coven,_ a detective thriller in which a thinly-veiled Ted Kennedy character was the leader of a Satanic cult. (There’s also a telling scene where the protagonist visits a house full of hippies, one of whom is in a permanent vegetative state, his mind “destroyed by marijuana.”) This seems to have reflected his actual world-view, one he shared with much of the team. That was how polarized things were: Not just the hippies and peaceniks and counterculturalists and black militants, but the **Democrats** were viewed by Nixon and his men as Pure Evil and America’s Enemies. They seem actually to have believed that America’s survival depended on their holding the WH for a second term. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/55 "2009-05-04T18:05:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That was how polarized things were: Not just the hippies and peaceniks and counterculturalists and black militants, but the **Democrats** were viewed by Nixon and his men as Pure Evil and America’s Enemies. Aha. I see why my dad liked the guy. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/56 "2009-05-04T18:23:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > That was how polarized things were: Not just the hippies and peaceniks and counterculturalists and black militants, but the **Democrats** were viewed by Nixon and his men as Pure Evil and America’s Enemies. Much like posters around here view Republicans then. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/57 "2009-05-04T18:27:06Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Much like posters around here view Republicans then. So are you accusing Nixon of being as delusional as you’ve accused various Democrat-sympathizers of being? That is harsh. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/58 "2009-05-04T18:36:05Z")
No. The difference being, he was right. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/59 "2009-05-04T18:42:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Cheney, in fact, was in Nixon’s Administration, and spent the rest of his career hoping to restore the Imperial Presidency, and finally got the chance. You can read **that** story in [_Takeover,_](http://www.amazon.com/Takeover-Imperial-Presidency-Subversion-Democracy/dp/0316118044) by Charlie Savage. I knew that. Just like W was trying to one-up his daddy, Darth Cheney was trying to one-up his spiritual daddy, Tricky Dick. > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > All this thread goes to show is that, even 35 years after Nixon left office, attitudes about him are as hard as ever, on both sides of the discussion. :rolleyes: Actually the W interregnum left me with softened opinions on Tricky Dick. Yes he was a lawless evil genius, but compared to W, he was still a genius who didn’t _start_ any major wars. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188/60 "2009-05-04T18:53:49Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > the W interregnum An interregnum is a period when the throne is vacant–not the person occupying the throne. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-nixons-presidency/495188.md?page=4)