# Was Richard Nixon That Bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 6, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508 "2010-03-06T04:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/1 "2010-03-06T04:49:49Z")
In light of similar threads relating to George W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson I will ask: was Richard M. Nixon that bad a President as some people claim. If you look at Richard Nixon’s presidency objectively (without the “Watergate EVIL EVIL EVIL” bias) he was not that bad a President and even a good or (dare I say this) a great President who issued forth far more concrete improvements than JFK or Bill Clinton. A quick look at the Wikipedia article on Richard Nixon shows the following accomplishments: -He withdrew the US from Vietnam while still trying to secure a peace where South Vietnam could fight on and survive -He took the US off the gold standard and his economic policies helped allevate the '70s recession. -He established the EPA, OSHA, Office of Management and Budget, and Consumer Safety Product Commission. -He signed the Clean Air Act of 1970 -He oversaw the final desegregation of schools in the South. -He opened up China and established diplomatic relations. -He pursued detente with the Soviet Union All in all Richard Nixon had an overwhelming number of accomplishments which easily exceed whatever mistakes Nixon made in Watergate. He is a President liberals ought to admire (he supported UHC for instance) yet liberals hate his guts for not being a radical like McGovern. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/2 "2010-03-06T05:12:51Z")
I was there in the 60s, and yes Nixon was that bad. He ran and won against two opponents of the war who presumably would have gotten us out of there faster. In the end the Communists won anyway and now they make our shoes; the soldiers who died are still dead. Watergate was no little thing. He established a shadow govt that spied on Americans and used blatantly illegal acts that made a mockery of the Democratic process. Nixon also morphed the Republican party into what it is today by courting the southern racists. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/3 "2010-03-06T05:21:23Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > I was there in the 60s, and yes Nixon was that bad. He ran and won against two opponents of the war who presumably would have gotten us out of there faster. McGovern wanted to get out even before the POWs were released by the Vietcoms and as I had said in the LBJ thread had we actually did what we threatened during the Paris Peace Accords North Vietnam wouldn’t have dared invade South Vietnam. > [@](#): > > Nixon also morphed the Republican party into what it is today by courting the southern racists. He actually strongly supported civil rights. ---
**Author:** ![Camus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ba8739/32.png) [@Camus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Camus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/4 "2010-03-06T05:24:28Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > If you look at Richard Nixon’s presidency objectively (without the “Watergate EVIL EVIL EVIL” bias) he was not that bad a President and even a good or (dare I say this) a great President who issued forth far more concrete improvements than JFK or Bill Clinton. > > All in all Richard Nixon had an overwhelming number of accomplishments which easily exceed whatever mistakes Nixon made in Watergate. He is a President liberals ought to admire (he supported UHC for instance) yet liberals hate his guts for not being a radical like McGovern. Do you even know what Watergate refers to? And that Watergate stands for far more than simply Nixon having his plumbers break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters and then covering it up after it had been bungled? Watergate represents a vast array of paranoid, overly-secretive, arrogant abuses of power by Nixon and his inner circle. Nixon is the original imperial president, obsessed with secrecy (despite leaving reams of tapes of his own oval office conversations with staffers) and willing to employ almost any means, legal or illegal, to silence his critics and opponents. Such as having his plumbers break into the Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office to try and find anything to discredit him after he leaked the Pentagon Papers (in the end, the burglars couldn’t even find his file). [Nixon’s infamous quote](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejvyDn1TPr8) that “if a president does it, then it’s not illegal” is pretty scary and has paved the way for future abuses of presidential power. We elect an executive, not a king or emperor. The notion that “Caesar can do no wrong” belongs firmly in the ancient past. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/5 "2010-03-06T05:25:44Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Nixon had an overwhelming number of accomplishments which easily exceed whatever mistakes Nixon made in Watergate What about the deliberate lawbreaking by Nixon and his aides? You haven’t mentioned any of that, only some vague “mistakes in Watergate.” What do you think the mistakes you’re willing to forgive him were, and which of his actions were actually criminal? You forgot Nixon’s #1 accomplishment too. Bringing inflation under control by instituting federal wage and price controls. [http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm](http://www.econreview.com/events/wageprice1971b.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/6 "2010-03-06T05:31:57Z")
> [@Camus](#): > > Do you even know what Watergate refers to? And that Watergate stands for far more than simply Nixon having his plumbers break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters and then covering it up after it had been bungled? Watergate represents a vast array of paranoid, overly-secretive, arrogant abuses of power by Nixon and his inner circle. Nixon is the original imperial president, obsessed with secrecy (despite leaving reams of tapes of his own oval office conversations with staffers) and willing to employ almost any means, legal or illegal, to silence his critics and opponents. Such as having his plumbers break into the Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office to try and find anything to discredit him after he leaked the Pentagon Papers (in the end, the burglars couldn’t even find his file). > > [Nixon’s infamous quote](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejvyDn1TPr8) that “if a president does it, then it’s not illegal” is pretty scary and has paved the way for future abuses of presidential power. We elect an executive, not a king or emperor. The notion that “Caesar can do no wrong” belongs firmly in the ancient past. > [@Squink](#): > > What about the deliberate lawbreaking by Nixon and his aides? You haven’t mentioned any of that, only some vague “mistakes in Watergate.” > What do you think the mistakes you’re willing to forgive him were, and which of his actions were actually criminal? Well he covered up an attempted break-in and stop an FBI investigation. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/7 "2010-03-06T05:34:19Z")
> [@](#): > > as I had said in the LBJ thread had we actually did what we threatened during the Paris Peace Accords North Vietnam wouldn’t have dared invade South Vietnam. And if we had supported Vietnam’s legitimate desire to end colonization by the French then they wouldn’t have been communist at all. Neither of those has fuck-all to do with Nixon. > [@](#): > > He actually strongly supported civil rights. Listen to the tapes. He was a bigot. > [@](#): > > There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape. > … > All right, I want a look at any sensitive areas around where Jews are involved, Bob. See, the Jews are all through the government, and we have got to get in those areas. We’ve got to get a man in charge who is not Jewish to control the Jewish … do you understand? > … > There’s a Jewish cabal, you know, running through this, working with people like [Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur F.] Burns and the rest. And they all—they all only talk to Jews. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/8 "2010-03-06T05:38:38Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Well he covered up an attempted break-in and stop an FBI investigation. It was a break-in, not an attempted break in. A break-in on behalf of a sitting president to help throw an election. We real Americans like the idea of Democracy. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/9 "2010-03-06T05:46:22Z")
If you think about it, there are few things worse than having the President of the United States use criminal acts to influence an election. The only worse thing I can think of is to lie about the nature of a threat to justify putting our military in harms way. ---
**Author:** ![Camus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ba8739/32.png) [@Camus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Camus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/10 "2010-03-06T05:49:40Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Well he covered up an attempted break-in and stop an FBI investigation. Read the [Church committee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_committee) reports. While they cover a time span and abuses far earlier and greater than Nixon alone, Nixon certainly oversaw and benefited from many of these abuses during his tenure. Namely using CIA operatives in domestic operations (targeting domestic political opponents), treating the FBI and the Department of Justice in general as his own private fiefdom (by seeking to control and direct FBI investigations and firing special prosecutors whose own investigations got too close to him and his cronies), having FBI and other government agents open people’s mail and wiretap phones without warrant or any kind of responsible oversight, obstructing justice by withholding and tampering with key evidence such as his oval office tapes, secretly expanding the Vietnam war into Cambodia (which would eventually cause the rise of the Khmer Rouge) and then lying about it, and keeping an illegal slush fund from his re-election effort to bankroll the illegal activities of the plumbers. Let’s be clear - these aren’t simple “mistakes” that Nixon made. These are abuses of power and crimes to such an extent that he resigned rather than face an almost certain impeachment and removal from office. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/11 "2010-03-06T05:51:21Z")
He was a bigot, but it was something that never affected his actions. As VP he supported Civil Rights, and that cost him quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/12 "2010-03-06T06:00:25Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > McGovern wanted to get out even before the POWs were released by the Vietcoms and as I had said in the LBJ thread had we actually did what we threatened during the Paris Peace Accords North Vietnam wouldn’t have dared invade South Vietnam. Nixon was his own liability, thanks to the anti-war movement Nixon realized that he could not continue his Vietnam policy without the support of the public, so he had to undermine that growing movement. And so we got an incident with some Joe the Plumbers 🙂 of those days. According to the former chief of staff to Nixon. Robert Haldeman said that “Without the Vietnam War there would have been no Watergate,” > [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > He actually strongly supported civil rights. The Nixon tapes also showed that in reality Nixon was full of prejudice, in the end what counts is action, Nixon did good with some items here, but his bigotry also showed with the use of the southern strategy. ---
**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:** [March 6, 2010, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/13 "2010-03-06T06:04:25Z")
In my opinion, Nixon is the second worst President of the United States ever, after GW Bush. And Nixon had some positive accomplishments, such as on the environment and opening China, which are huge good accomplishments. He didn’t start the war in Vietnam, but he was one of those “who lost China” jerks that “forced” Johnson’s hand. He continued the war for his entire term of office without getting a “peace with honor” or better terms, he wiretapped relentlessly, did break-ins, was an anti-Semite and racist, ramped up nuclear alerts for political gain and was generally a paranoid, drunken nut. Also brilliant mind. And he gave Dick Cheney his political start. He was such a bad President that Republicans turned on him. So for bad Presidents, Bush II is first and Nixon second. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/14 "2010-03-06T06:31:14Z")
Nixon was an extraordinarily smart man, and sometimes he used his intellect to benefit the American people and the whole world. However, most of the time, he was powerhungry paranoid son of a bitch (no offense to any dogs out there) who abused his power and authority to further his mad schemes. He had enormous potential, and possibly he had SOME good intentions. However, he did things that greatly harmed the US. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/15 "2010-03-06T06:51:45Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > … The only worse thing I can think of is to lie about the nature of a threat to justify putting our military in harms way. So you and I agree that GWB gets the Worst Ever ranking, uncontested? > [@AK84](#): > > He was a bigot, but it was something that never affected his actions. As VP he supported Civil Rights, and that cost him quite a bit. I think this is an important point. Many people have flaws, even Presidents. I don’t have a clear idea how Nixon, with modest background, lack of charisma and obvious character flaws, rose to power as he did. (I do know he accumulated a lot of “political markers” during the mid-60’s.) A friend of mine, whose views are very far to the left, insists that Nixon was the best President since FDR! I think of Nixon as a Jekyll and Hyde, with the Jekyll and Hyde each too extreme to come to a single verdict on the man. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/16 "2010-03-06T07:01:20Z")
To this day the peoples of Laos and Cambodia love the guy. Can’t get enough of him. Millions of them enjoyed the illegal bombing that made him a de facto war criminal and from which they still suffer every day now. In South American - even during his Vice-Presidency - local populations in Peru and Uruguay and Venezuela adored his visiting support of their dictatorships. In the Middle East, his support of the murderous Shah of Iran paid huge dividends for policy in the region. Et cetera, et fucking cetera in most corners of the world. But lets concentrate on a visit to China, and the ‘peace deal’ that culminated in the helicopter airlift from the roof of the Saigon embassy. Genius foreign policy guy. ---
**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:** [March 6, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/17 "2010-03-06T07:06:27Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > He ran and won against two opponents of the war who presumably would have gotten us out of there faster. Nixon was the anti-war candidate in 1968. Humphrey campaigned on continuing Johnson’s policies, i.e. increased support to South Vietnam until a negotiated peace guaranteeing free elections can be carried out. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/18 "2010-03-06T07:39:02Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Nixon was the anti-war candidate in 1968. Humphrey campaigned on continuing Johnson’s policies, i.e. increased support to South Vietnam until a negotiated peace guaranteeing free elections can be carried out. 1968 Democratic Platform: > [@](#): > > In our pursuit of peace and stability in the vital area of Southeast Asia we have borne a heavy burden in helping South Vietnam to counter aggression and subversion from the North. > … > We strongly support the Paris talks and applaud the initiative of President Johnson which brought North Vietnam to the peace table. We hope that Hanoi will respond positively to this act of statesmanship. > … > Recognizing that events in Vietnam and the negotiations in Paris may affect the timing and the actions we recommend, we would support our Government in the following steps: > > Bombing: Stop all bombing of North Vietnam when this action would not endanger the lives of our troops in the field… > Troop Withdrawal: Negotiate with Hanoi an immediate end or limitation of hostilities and the withdrawal from South Vietnam of all foreign forces—both United States and allied forces, and forces infiltrated from North Vietnam. 1968 REpublican Platform > [@](#): > > We pledge to adopt a strategy relevant to the real problems of the war, concentrating on the security of the population, on developing a greater sense of nation-hood, and on strengthening the local forces. It will be a strategy permitting a progressive de-Americanization of the war, both military and civilian. > > We will see to it that our gallant American servicemen are fully supported with the highest quality equipment, and will avoid actions that unnecessarily jeopardize their lives. > > We will pursue a course that will enable and induce the South Vietnamese to assume increasing responsibility. > > The war has been conducted without a coherent program for peace. > > We pledge a program for peace in Vietnam—neither peace at any price nor a camouflaged surrender of legitimate United States or allied interests—but a positive program that will offer a fair and equitable settlement to all, based on the principle of self-determination, our national interests and the cause of long-range world peace. > > We will sincerely and vigorously pursue peace negotiations as long as they offer any reasonable prospect for a just peace, We pledge to develop a clear and purposeful negotiating position. The Democrats were running on a platform to stop bombing and negotiating to withdraw our troops. Kissinger, who was involved in the Paris peace talks fed information to Nixon about the South’s willingness to sign a peace treaty. Nixon surreptitiously encouraged the South to wait until he was in office when they would get a better deal. So to call Nixon the ant-war candidate is simple untrue. He characterized the Democrats at settling for “peace at any price” rather than continuing the war to reach a more ideal conclusion. Nixon did not end the bombing, he expanded it. He ended the draft because he thought it would weaken the anti-war protests. The doves and the hawks knew which candidate to support. The hawks went with Nixon and the doves reluctantly backed Humphrey after Eugene McCarthy failed to get the nomination. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/19 "2010-03-06T09:06:57Z")
> [@](#): > > **Curtis** : -He oversaw the final desegregation of schools in the South. In so many cities desegregation led to white flight to private schools. You could plan to bus in white students, but sometimes they just didn’t come. Now in Nashville, the new zoning plan has whites zoned to white neighborhoods and blacks zoned to black neighborhoods. Amazing. At any rate, the South wasn’t the only area of the country to need desegregation. > [@](#): > > **Curtis** : He is a President liberals ought to admire (he supported UHC for instance) yet liberals hate his guts for not being a radical like McGovern. Nixon was a liberal, BTW. And it wasn’t just liberals who “hated his guts.” He was a corrupt and whiny man who tried to use the powers of the presidency for his own purposes. His own party was about to throw him out of office. **Nobody liked Richard Nixon by August 1974.** For two years he had kept the country in a state of constant turmoil. By the time he left office, he was losing his mind. He wandered around the White House at night mumbling to the portraits on the walls. His Enemies List was a big deal back then. It got to be so ridiculous that it even listed the names of Paul Newman and Bill Cosby. The man had become totally paranoid and he was still in power. Was he for civil rights? How many women and non-white men were in positions of counsel on his staff? You might enjoy the movie **All the President’s Men**. I think it may have won the Oscar for the Best Film the year it came out. It will give you a quick and entertaining overview of how the story of Watergate was hushed up and then finally broken. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508/20 "2010-03-06T09:56:19Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > In light of similar threads relating to George W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson… You say that as if this thread is meant as a response, but one of those threads was also started by you. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-richard-nixon-that-bad/531508.md?page=2)