Richard Nixon is arguably one of the most hated presidents of recent years. The Watergate Scandal that ended his presidency is still one of the worst presidential scandals to date.
However, before the presidency, Nixon was an accomplished politician. He had a distinguished career as a Californian Congressman and US Senator, later on, he also served as the Vice-President too!
This got me thinking: What was he really like? What are some interesting facts about Richard Nixon besides just the Watergate Scandal he is remembered for?
15. He Was an Avid Musician
As with many parents, Nixon’s mother wanted Nixon to learn how to play the piano. As such, Nixon would practice every afternoon on the family’s upright piano, to a point where he got quite good at it.
Due to this, Nixon’s mother sent a young Richard over 200 miles away to live with his maternal aunt, who studied Music in Indianapolis. His aunt would help to refine Nixon’s piano playing abilities.
Whilst staying with his aunt, Nixon would also pick up a number of other instruments. This would include the clarinet, saxophone, violin and accordion.
Nixon would continue to play even whilst a senator, vice president, president, and well into his seventies and eighties.
But here’s the weird thing: Nixon never learned to read music. He committed all of his pieces to memory, and when he played, he played from memory, not from reading a piece of music.
14. Skilled Bowler
Whilst a US Senator, Nixon was introduced to the sport of bowling. Over time, this would become one of his favorite pastimes, especially when he had just passed a crucial piece of legislation.
Becoming Vice-President did not stop this, with Nixon continuing to play several times a week. He even managed to convince President Eisenhower to play with him on a couple of special occasions too!
Once Nixon became president in 1969, he continued to play, even despite his copious workloads. However, as president, it was a logistical nightmare to secure any of the local bowling alleys in DC.
Still wanting to play, Nixon decided to build a bowling alley in the White House. In fact, by the time Nixon left office, he had built two at opposite ends of the White House, both of which are still there today!
13. Royal Heritage
According to Richard Nixon, his maternal grandfather Franklin Milhous was a direct descendant of King Edward III of England, who reigned between 1327 and 1377.
Whilst this has been called into question on a number of occasions, the Nixon family does vehemently defend this. Regardless of this, Nixon’s mother Hannah clearly took this to heart.
All of her children, minus her middle child, were named after members of the Royal Family. For her second eldest son, Richard, his namesake was the famed Richard the Lionheart.
Her eldest son, Harold, was named after Harold Godwinson. Her second youngest, Arthur, was named after the mythical King Arthur. And her youngest son, Edward, was named in honor of King Edward III.
However, her middle son, Francis, was named after his father.
12. The Nixon-Eisenhower Family
From 1953 until 1961, Richard Nixon served as President Eisenhower’s vice president. However, that’s not just where their relationship ended. Even prior to become president and VP, both Nixon and Eisenhower were friends.
In 1968, the bond between President Eisenhower, and the newly-elected President Nixon was strengthened monumentally. Nixon’s youngest daughter, Julie, and Eisenhower’s grandson, David, got married.
In the picture above, Julie is the daughter on the left, with her husband, David, stood behind her to the left. In most Nixon family portraits, both former presidents Nixon and Eisenhower are present.
As with many couples, David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon have three children together. These children are technically directly descended from two completely unrelated presidents of the US!
11. Founded The EPA
In recent years, Republican candidates have come to question global warming and other environmental issues. So it may surprise you that it was Republican president, Richard Nixon, founded the EPA.
The late 1950’s saw an increase in the use of pesticides. Many of these pesticides worked miracles for the country’s farmers. At least initially. Over time, the farmers realized it was making their fields fallow. Permanently.
On top of this, scrap yard dealers were burning car batteries, which was releasing clouds of toxic gases into the atmosphere. This created a lot of worry for the federal government, as different states had different laws.
To prevent this, Richard Nixon signed into law the EPA. This would protect the US from bad pesticides and toxic gases. Subsequent presidents would expand the scope of the EPA, to what it is today.
10. Never Saw Combat in WWII
In 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. In essence, this dragged the US into WWII, with the US declaring war on Japan and later Nazi Germany. With this, millions of young men were drafted or volunteered to serve their country.
Among these men were a number of future presidents, such as George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and yes, Richard Nixon. At the time, Nixon was already working for the US Government in the Office of Price Administration (OPA).
This technically meant that Nixon did not need to volunteer, however, he did so anyway. In 1942, Richard Nixon was commissioned in the US Navy reserve as a junior Lieutenant.
In 1943, Nixon joined the active service in the navy. Despite his personal wishes, the Navy deemed that Nixon would be more valuable behind a desk, serving in a number of administrative roles throughout the war.
9. He Almost Joined The FBI
Nixon graduated third in his class from Duke University in June 1937. Graduating third gave Nixon a number of job offers from a number of different potential employers. One of these potential employers was the FBI.
Interested, Nixon sent his application into the FBI. However, Nixon never heard back from the Bureau, and subsequently returned back to California. From here, he would then pass the bar, and start practicing law.
Years later, whilst serving as a US Senator, Nixon would find out that he was actually accepted into the Bureau. However, budget cuts as a result of the Great Depression saw his job get slashed before they ever formally accpeted Nixon into the Bureau.
This is rather ironic, as the FBI would be one of the agencies that would help to investigate the Watergate Scandal that ended his political career. In an alternate universe, perhaps Nixon was remembered for being the FBI director, not the president!
8. He Was on The Ticket Five Times
This may shock you, but Richard Nixon was on the ticket for the highest office in this country, a grand total of four times! Sadly, however, this was not always for president, but also for vice-president.
In 1952, Republican candidate for president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, would pick then-relatively unknown US Senator, Richard Nixon as his Vice-President candidate. The pair would subsequently win that election.
Four years later, in 1956, Eisenhower was up for reelection. Once again, he would pick Richard Nixon to be his running mate. The pair would win also that election too.
In 1960, Richard Nixon attempted to use his base as Vice-President to launch a bid for the presidency. Here, he’d come up against JFK, and would lose.
Eight years later, the Republicans would choose Nixon once again, where he’d face Hubert Humphrey. He’d win that election and become president. He’d similarly run in 1972, although would resign in 1974.
7. Lee Harvey Oswald
On November 22 1963, former US Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald, famously shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. According to his widow, however, the president may not have been his target. Nixon was.
Months prior, Oswald allegedly heard that Nixon was driving through Dallas back to Washington after attending a Pepsi Co board meeting. Oswald allegedly quipped that he wanted to go and “have a look” at Nixon.
However, Nixon’s wife locked Oswald in a bathroom, until he agreed to surrender his pistol. This however, would not stop him from shooting a police officer and the president on that fateful day, months later.
Oswald’s wife would later testify about this during the Warren Commission following Kennedy’s assassination. With that being said, there’s no evidence that Nixon was actually in Dallas at the specificed time!
6. First President to Visit China
Prior to becoming president, Herbert Hoover had spent a lot of time in China, whilst he worked as a mining engineer. However, prior and following WWII, China was engulfed in a civil war.
The civil war was being fought between the communists and the nationalists. In 1949, the civil war ended, with the communists controlling much of mainland China, and the nationalists being on Taiwan.
Both sides declared themselves the victors and the official “China”. The West only recognized Taiwan as China, whilst the Soviet Union only recognized the communists as China. Naturally, this created a lot of tension during the Cold War.
In an attempt to create a thaw in the Cold War, Nixon agreed to travel to China. Mainland China. This makes him the first (and only!) president to travel to a country that the US does not recognize!
5. He Was a Quaker
Both Richard Nixon and Herbert Hoover also share another thing in common, besides just visiting China. They were both also Quakers, being the only two presidents to date who were Quakers.
Nixon’s mother, Hannah Milhous Nixon, was a devout Quaker. When she married Francis Nixon, Richard’s father, he was a Methodist, but quickly adopted his new wife’s Quaker faith.
Growing up, the Nixon family lived in an extremely religious Quaker community. In particular, the Nixon children were raised to be devout Quakers, including their son Richard.
As a child, Richard was particularly pious, attending church at least four times every Sunday. During church services, a young Richard Nixon would use his passion for music and play the organ in church, every Sunday.
4. Declined Harvard
After graduating high school, Nixon would go to the Quaker-ran Whittier College, in California. After graduating Whittier in 1934, Nixon was offered a full-tuition grant to go to Harvard.
However, his father came down with tuberculosis that same year, which required that Richard Nixon live at home and work in his father’s grocery store.
Later that same year, other members of Nixon’s extended family stepped up and helped to run the family grocery store. This freed up a young Richard Nixon to go to university, however, the Harvard offer had expired.
Instead, Nixon received a full scholarship to go to Duke University Law School. Nixon would graduate Duke in 1937, and begin his life as a lawyer, before eventually becoming a politician.
3. Failed Entrepreneur
Nixon’s father had made his money as a grocer. Whilst Richard Nixon was only a small child, Nixon’s father had a small grocery empire, consisting of a number of grocery stores around the county.
As a grocer, Nixon’s father noticed that orange juice was one of his best-selling products. However, natural orange juice goes off quite quickly, especially in the hot Californian summers.
This was something that early refrigerators helped, but did not completely fix it.
As an adult, Richard Nixon, alongside several investors, would attempt to fix this issue through pre-frozen orange juice. Nixon would incorporate and become the president of the Citra Frost Company, in 1938.
However, Nixon’s business idea was flawed from the start, and the company would file for bankruptcy only 18 months after it started.
2. He Saved Israel
In 1973, a coalition of Arab states led by Syria and Egypt started the Yom Kippur War against Israel. Their stated intention was beat the Israelis back, and re-establish the Arab state of Palestine (among other things).
Within three days, Israel had mobilized practically all of its military to halt the Egyptian advance. At the same time, they also pushed back to Syrians to the pre-war borders, and begun shelling the outskirts of Damascus.
The Arab coalition eventually managed to push back and into Israel. The Israelis turned to the US, as the Arabs were being backed by the Soviets. Nixon would subsequently agree to help the Israelis.
To do this, Nixon ordered the largest airlift in human history, transporting millions of dollars worth of tanks, artillery, ammunition, and other supplies. This saved Israel from almost certain defeat, with the Israelis saying as much.
Nixon’s airlift also inadvertently led to the 1973 Oil Crisis, which crippled the US.
1. Wrote 11 Books
Nixon resigned as president in 1974. Following this, Nixon had very little to do. He flew back to his family home in California, vowed never to enter politics again, spending his days doing literally nothing whatsoever.
To fill the time, Nixon sat down and wrote a series of books. From 1974 until his death in 1994, Nixon wrote ten books as well as his memoirs, averaging at about one book every two years or so.
Nixon’s ten books have been written on a vast array of political subjects, mostly issues he faced whilst he was president, but also a few he faced whilst he was vice president.
After publishing a number of his books, Nixon decided to sit down and write his memoirs, as many former presidents do. Nixon would publish this in 1994, only a few months before his death.
Which are your favorite facts about Richard Nixon? Tell me in the comments!