Richard Nixon

== Legacy ==
{{main|List of awards and honors received by Richard Nixon}}
[[File:Nixon Library and Gardens.jpg|thumb|right|[[Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum|Richard Nixon's Presidential Library and Museum]] located in [[Yorba Linda, California]]]]
[[File:Nixon grave 2011.jpg|thumb|The graves of Nixon and his wife Pat]]

Historian and political scientist [[James MacGregor Burns]] asked of Nixon, "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?"{{sfn|Skidmore|p=495}} According to Ambrose, "Nixon wanted to be judged by what he accomplished. What he will be remembered for is the nightmare he put the country through in his second term and for his resignation."{{sfn|Ambrose|1991|p=592}} Irwin Gellman, who chronicled Nixon's congressional career, suggests, "He was remarkable among his congressional peers, a success story in a troubled era, one who steered a sensible [[Anti-communism|anti-Communist]] course against the excess of McCarthy."{{sfn|Gellman|p=460}} Aitken feels that "Nixon, both as a man and as a statesman, has been excessively maligned for his faults and inadequately recognised<!-- not a typo --> for his virtues. Yet even in a spirit of [[historical revisionism]], no simple verdict is possible."{{sfn|Aitken|p=577}}

Nixon saw his policies on Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union as central to his place in history.{{r|Hanhimäki-Small}} Nixon's onetime opponent [[George McGovern]] commented in 1983, "President Nixon probably had a more practical approach to the two superpowers, China and the Soviet Union, than any other president since World War{{nbsp}}II ... With the exception of his inexcusable continuation of the war in Vietnam, Nixon really will get high marks in history."{{sfn|Greider|1983-10-10}} Political scientist [[Jussi Hanhimäki]] disagrees, saying that Nixon's diplomacy was merely a continuation of the [[Cold War]] policy of [[containment]] by diplomatic, rather than military, means.{{r|Hanhimäki-Small}} Historian [[Christopher Andrew (historian)|Christopher Andrew]] concludes that "Nixon was a great statesman on the world stage as well as a shabby practitioner of electoral politics in the domestic arena. While the criminal farce of Watergate was in the making, Nixon's inspirational statesmanship was establishing new working relationships both with Communist China and with the Soviet Union."{{sfn|Andrew|1995|p=384}}

Nixon's stance on domestic affairs has been credited with the passage and enforcement of environmental and regulatory legislation. In a 2011 paper on Nixon and the environment, historian Paul Charles Milazzo points to Nixon's creation of the [[United States Environmental Protection Agency]] (EPA), and to his enforcement of legislation such as the 1973 [[Endangered Species Act]], stating that "though unsought and unacknowledged, Richard Nixon's environmental legacy is secure".{{r|Milazzo-Small}} Nixon himself did not consider the environmental advances he made in office an important part of his legacy; some historians contend that his choices were driven more by political expediency than any strong [[environmentalism]].<ref name="Distillations" /> Some historians say Nixon's [[Southern Strategy]] turned the [[Southern United States]] into a Republican stronghold, while others deem economic factors more important in the change.{{r|Mason-Small}} Throughout his career, Nixon moved his party away from the control of isolationists, and as a Congressman he was a persuasive advocate of containing Soviet communism.{{sfn|Black|p=1053}}

Historian [[Keith W. Olson]] has written that Nixon left a legacy of fundamental mistrust of government, rooted in Vietnam and Watergate.{{r|Olson-Small}} During the [[impeachment of Bill Clinton]] in 1998, both sides tried to use Nixon and Watergate to their advantage: Republicans suggested that Clinton's misconduct was comparable to Nixon's, while Democrats contended that Nixon's actions had been far more serious than Clinton's.{{sfn|Frick|pp=211–214}} For a time, there was a decrease in the power of the presidency as Congress passed restrictive legislation in the wake of Watergate. Olson suggests that legislation in the aftermath of the [[September 11 attacks]] restored the president's power.{{r|Olson-Small}}

According to his biographer Herbert Parmet, "Nixon's role was to steer the Republican party along a middle course, somewhere between the competitive impulses of the Rockefellers, the Goldwaters, and the Reagans."{{sfn|Parmet|p=viii}}
Description	What you type	What you get
Italic	''Italic text''	Italic text
Bold	'''Bold text'''	Bold text
Bold & italic	'''''Bold & italic text'''''	*Bold & italic text*
Description	What you type	What you get
Reference	Page text.<ref>[https://www.example.org/ Link text], additional text.</ref>	Page text.^[1]
Named reference	Page text.<ref name="test">[https://www.example.org/ Link text]</ref>	Page text.^[2]
Additional use of the same reference	Page text.<ref name="test" />	Page text.^[2]
Display references	<references />	↑ Link text, additional text. ↑ Link text