Richard Nixon: Life Before The Presidency

A president is truly affective when he is able to get his policy agenda through Congress. For him to do this, it is paramount that he has the support from the majority of the public. When a president is unpopular, members of Congress will have little incentive to pass his preferred legislation, since doing so will potentially have negative consequences (i.e. not winning reelection). It is also important that a president be a competent negotiator if he is to get his agenda passed. It would be unrealistic for a president to expect that he will get all of what he wants without making concessions. A president who oversteps and abuses his role, will face harsh backlash from the public, and thus, Congress. The abuse of power and disregard for constitutional …show more content…
A factor that proved crucial to Nixon’s victory was his linkage of incumbent and opponent, Jerry Voorhis, to a Communist backed political action committee, called the Congress of Industrial Organizations (“Richard Nixon: Life Before the Presidency”). During his time in the House from 1947 to 1950, Nixon used his anti-communist credentials as a member of the House Unamerican Activities Committee, a temporary committee tasked with exposing and warding out communistic elements in government and society (“Richard Nixon: Life Before the Presidency”). Nixon would later decide to run for the Senate against incumbent, Helen Gahagan Douglas (“Richard Nixon: Life Before the Presidency”). He would win against Douglas and would stay in the upper chamber from 1950 to 1953 (“Richard Nixon: Life Before the Presidency”). Republican nominee, Dwight E. Eisenhower, would choose Nixon as his running mate in 1952. The ticket proved to be successful, winning all but nine states and winning the popular vote by more than six million (“Election of 1952”). During his tenure as vice president, Nixon honed in his foreign policy acumen, with the Miller Center noting Nixon’s extensive foreign travel (“Richard Nixon: Life Before the …show more content…
Nixon was so adamant about improving relations with China, Hoff notes, that he took it upon himself and used the State Department and other agencies at his disposal to signal to China that the United States desired improved relations (116). Before Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, the United States did not view the communist backed government as legitimate and thus, no official diplomatic communication had taken place between the two countries (116). Seven years after Nixon’s trip, the United States government would officially recognize the Chinese government and full normalization of relations finally began (116). Détente, or the cooling of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, achieved the following treaties: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT) and the Interim Agreement on the Limitations on Strategic Arms (SALT I) (118). The ABMT “limited strategic missile defenses to 200 interceptors each and allowed each side to construct two missile defense sites, one to protect the national capital, the other to protect one ICBM field” (“Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty”). SALT I was a treaty that imposed a cap on the number of nuclear weapons each side could possess (“Strategic Arms Limitations