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Thirty years after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, his legacy remains a jumbled collection of contradictions and paradoxes. History looks at Nixon in almost Shakespearian terms: a great and powerful leader whose foibles and weaknesses led to a tragic and pathetic downfall.
On the one hand, Nixon was a visionary, opening long closed doors to China and Russia. On the other, it was his hunger for power and control that led Nixon down a path that would end with the Watergate crisis and, ultimately, with his decision to resign the presidency in the face of a near certain impeachment.
After serving as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower for two terms, Nixon took on John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. While Nixon would lose that race, he would return in 1968 with a convincing victory over Hubert Humphrey.
Though Nixon had failed to deliver on his promise of getting America out of Vietnam, he was still able to get re-elected in a landslide victory over George McGovern. It was a series of illegal activities committed during the re-election campaign (most notably the break-in at the Watergate Hotel and the attempted cover-up) that led to Nixon's 1974 resignation.
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