Richard Nixon Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974 and the only president to resign from the position. He had previously served as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961, and prior to that as both a U.S. Representative and Senator from California. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate studies at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat
Richard Nixon of his mighty will, tenacity, and diligence, he would ultimately prevail. Biographer Elizabeth Drew summarized Nixon as a "smart, talented man, but most peculiar and haunted of presidents". In his account of the Nixon presidency, author Richard Reeves described Nixon as "a strange man of uncomfortable shyness, who functioned best alone with his thoughts". Nixon's presidency was doomed by his personality, Reeves argues: He assumed the worst in people and he brought out the worst in them ... He clung to the idea of being 'tough'. He thought that was what had brought him to the edge of greatness. But