Why Every President Sucked

No. 37 · The Presidents

Richard Nixon’s Biggest Failures

1969–1974

He won in a landslide, then wrecked it by lying about a break-in. Historians rank him high on China and low on character.

Who was Richard Nixon?

Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from January 20, 1969 until his resignation on August 9, 1974. Born in Yorba Linda, California in 1913, the son of a Quaker grocer, he was a congressman, a senator, and Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president. He lost the presidency to John F. Kennedy in 1960 and the California governorship in 1962, then staged a comeback in 1968. In 1972 he won reelection in one of the biggest landslides in American history, 520 electoral votes to 17.

Why is Richard Nixon considered one of the worst presidents?

Nixon is a split verdict. C-SPAN’s 2021 survey of historians ranked him 31st out of 44 overall, and Siena’s 2022 survey of presidential scholars put him 28th of 45. The category data explains why he is not at the very bottom. C-SPAN’s historians ranked him 12th on international relations but 41st on moral authority. In Siena’s survey, only one president scored lower on integrity.

In short: he opened China and signed major environmental laws, and he also turned the machinery of government against his political enemies and lied about it. In my book, Nixon’s entry is about Watergate, the scandal that ended his presidency. What follows is the record around it, with the song I wrote for him threaded through.

Chords: Em, G, D/F♯

You sent five guys to spy then lie
About the DNC
In the Watergate hotel

1. The 1968 “monkey wrench”

The record of Nixon’s failures starts before he was president. In October 1968, with Lyndon Johnson trying to open peace talks in Vietnam, Nixon’s campaign worked to keep South Vietnam away from the table. Notes by Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman of an October 22 call read: “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN” and “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN can do.” Biographer John Farrell identified the notes, which were opened at the Nixon Library in 2007. Johnson called it “treason” on a taped call to Senator Everett Dirksen.

Most historians treat Nixon’s personal involvement as established. Some scholars, such as Luke Nichter, dispute what the notes prove. Nixon denied it for the rest of his life.

2. Secret bombs and the “madman” theory

In March 1969, Nixon began secretly bombing Cambodia, an operation code-named Menu that lasted until May 1970. In his memoir, Haldeman describes Nixon’s “madman theory,” his idea that he could scare North Vietnam into concessions by letting them believe he might do anything. The war dragged on. National Archives counts show more than 21,000 U.S. service members died in Vietnam in 1969 through 1972, though the Archives calls those counts informational and not official. In December 1972 he ordered the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam.

3. Building the machine

After the Pentagon Papers leaked in June 1971, Nixon’s aides created the “Plumbers,” a secret unit to stop leaks. On September 3, 1971, the Plumbers broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. In 1970 the White House had approved, then rescinded within days, a plan to expand surveillance of domestic radicals after J. Edgar Hoover objected. Article II of the impeachment would later cite the misuse of the IRS, the FBI and the Secret Service.

One correction for fairness: COINTELPRO, the FBI’s program against dissidents, began in 1956 and ended in 1971, so it was not Nixon’s invention.

Water gate
You must really hate
Your enemies
The democreeps

4. Watergate and the cover-up

On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate complex. Two more, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, were indicted with them. Nixon’s role was in the cover-up. On a June 23 tape, which was released on August 5, 1974, Nixon and Haldeman agreed to have the CIA tell the FBI to back off.

You tried to slaughter them
But people liked you then?
What were you so afraid of?

The timeline from there is short and brutal:

  • January 1973: the first seven men are convicted.
  • April 30, 1973: Haldeman and Ehrlichman resign, and John Dean is fired.
  • July 16, 1973: aide Alexander Butterfield tells the Senate committee Nixon has been taping his conversations. The system recorded some 3,700 hours between February 1971 and July 1973.
  • October 20, 1973: the Saturday Night Massacre, in which Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigns rather than fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, his deputy William Ruckelshaus follows, and Solicitor General Robert Bork fires Cox.
  • July 24, 1974: the Supreme Court rules unanimously in United States v. Nixon that he must turn over the tapes.
Oh, irony
How can it be?
These same devices would be
The same ones that caught you planning it

5. Impeachment and resignation

The House Judiciary Committee voted three articles of impeachment in late July 1974: obstruction of justice by 27 to 11, abuse of power by 28 to 10, and contempt of Congress by 21 to 17. The full House never voted. After the “smoking gun” tape was released on August 5, his remaining support in Congress collapsed, and he announced his resignation on August 8, effective at noon on August 9. Ford pardoned him on September 8, 1974.

The courts delivered the rest. Grand juries indicted 69 people in the Watergate investigations, and 48 were found guilty, according to the Hoover Institution. On January 1, 1975, a jury convicted John Mitchell, H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Robert Mardian, the last of whom later had his conviction overturned.

So scared of the opposition
Such big risks at the Watergate hotel

6. Wage controls and stagflation

On August 15, 1971, Nixon imposed a 90-day wage and price freeze and ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold, a move known as the Nixon Shock. Inflation came back after the controls ended, and the 1973 oil shock produced stagflation. It is a contributing failure, not the core of his ranking.

In fairness

Nixon’s defenders have real achievements to point to. He created the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air Act, opened relations with China in 1972, signed the SALT I and ABM treaties with the Soviet Union, ended the draft, and signed Title IX. Those are the reasons he ranks 12th on international relations. They are also why his overall ranking sits in the low 30s rather than the bottom five.

After the White House

In 1977, in interviews with David Frost, Nixon said, “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” He spent the next two decades rebuilding himself as a foreign-policy elder statesman. He died on April 22, 1994, and five living presidents attended his funeral.

I am not a crook you say
Then you just might be insane

Hear the song

Read the full lyrics, browse all 43 songs, read more articles, or head to the book.

Sources

By Eric Olsen · Published