USA: Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving...

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. Nixon is the only president to have resigned the office. Nixon inherited the Vietnam War from his predecessors Kennedy and Johnson. American involvement in Vietnam was widely unpopular; although Nixon initially escalated the war there, he subsequently moved to end US involvement, completely withdrawing American forces by 1973. Nixon's ground-breaking visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he initiated detente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. Nixon's second term was marked by crisis, with 1973 seeing an Arab oil embargo as a result of US support for Israel in the 1973 War, and the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. During 1973 and 1974, a continuing series of revelations about the Watergate scandal diminished Nixon's political support. In early August 1974 he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office.