Compare And Contrast Nixon And Ronald Reagan

Compare and contrast Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan and Richard Milhous Nixon are two men who both joined the elite club of being president of United States, as the 40th and 37th respectively. However, Reagan and Nixon did not start off in the throes of power and privilege both men started off with poor upbringing.

Richard Nixon was born January 9th, 1913, in Yorba Linda California to Frank and Hannah Nixon. He had four brothers Harold, Donald, Arthur and Edward. However, two of his brothers Harold and Arthur died early on in life because of bouts with Tuberculosis. Nixon because of his mother’s influence was a devoted Quaker. Nixon went to east Whittier elementary school and then attended high school at Whittier high

Nixon’s first run for public office came in the way of a congressional election in 1946 against incumbent democrat jerry Voorhis which Nixon by taking the anti-communist stance and naming Voorhis as a communist beat Voorhis 65,586 votes 56% to Voorhis 49,994 votes 42.7% and would then be re-elected in a landslide in 1948. After his stint in the House of Representatives Nixon ran for the US Senate and easily secured the Republican nomination and would then easily defeat his democratic challenger Helen Gahagan Douglas 2,183,454 to 1,502,507 59% to 40%. As a result of his staunch anticommunist stance, Nixon became a favorite to become General Dwight D Eisenhower’s vice presidential nominee for Vice President and upon Eisenhower’s landslide victory became Vice president of the United States for all eight years of the Eisenhower presidency. Finally, Nixon ran for president in 1960 and in one of the closest presidential election in history was defeated by democratic Senator John F Kennedy, and would also run for Governor of California in 1962 again losing to Democrat Pat

Richard Nixon despite Watergate had a very successful presidency both in the domestic and foreign circles. In the area of Foreign Policy, Nixon had some of his greatest victories when he ended America’s long standing involvement in Vietnam, opened American industry up to new markets by bringing china out of its self-imposed isolation, and taking the first major steps to non-proliferation by signing the SALT 1 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) with the Soviet Union. After promising to end the war in Vietnam during the campaign Nixon escalated the war for a time with massive bombing raids in Cambodia and sending troops into Laos, but ultimately ended the war in the early 1970’s. Nixon was president during the cold war so the biggest threat to America and USSR its greatest enemy. The biggest fear among many was the threat of nuclear attack on either side so when it was announced that Nixon would be signing the SALT 1 Treaty with primer Leonid Brezhnev that would limit the use and creation of Nuclear weapons. Finally, probably the most controversial of Nixon’s foreign policy was his trip to