Richard Nixon him for doing little to help the ERA or their cause after his election. Nevertheless, he appointed more women to administration positions than Lyndon Johnson had. After a nearly decade-long national effort, the United States won the race to land astronauts on the Moon on July 20, 1969, with the flight of Apollo 11. Nixon spoke with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their moonwalk. He called the conversation "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House". Nixon was unwilling to keep funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the high level seen during
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