It has been 50 years since the Administration of Richard Nixon. In that time, the left has waged a war on history to define Richard Nixon as a failure as President. For much of the half century Richard Nixon's name was synonymous with corruption and Government overreach. Podcasts, Documentaries, Cable Network specials have all controlled a narrative that cast Richard Nixon as the 20th centuries great American Villain.
But all of that has changed. First in 2013, Geoff Shepard, Richard Nixon's youngest Watergate Defense team member, petitioned the National Archives for access to sealed Watergate materials. What he found was a treasure of exculpatory material that has sent shock waves throughout the world of serious historians and legal scholars. Was there more to the story of Watergate? The documentation he exposed certainly seems to say so and that is not the only area where scholars are finding that there was way more to Richard Nixon's tenure than had ever been appreciated.
Richard Nixon worked to protect civil rights, advance women in government, protect the environment, set new higher standards for workforce safety, share revenues with local government, restructure the inner workings of the Federal Government, with plans to make it work more efficiently and more effectively and he even worked to provide a better healthcare and welfare system some 40 years ahead of his time. He opened up women's sports, lowered the voting age, ushered in an era of Judicial restraint, desegregated the Southern School system, poured millions into entrepreneurial programs for minorities, passed tough laws on organized crime, ended the draft and passed billions of dollars into cancer research that has led to most of the advances against the wide variety of deadly diseases we see today.
And that list does not even get into the Foreign Policy achievements we associate with his incredible five and a half years as President.
We thought it was time to tell that story and over the next year and half we will tell that story on this podcast. The story of the experience of a nation, at war in Vietnam, and often under siege, and at war with itself, here at home. An experience that created a great gash in the body politic that we are still healing from today. It is the story of the man who saved our Union from the growing disaster an upheaval experienced in this era.
The story of the experience of a nation as it wrestled with titanic changes in culture, the experience of a nation ripped from its foundations, and the experience of the historic leader that set that nation back on course to its rightful place as the beacon of light for freedom and prosperity to a troubled world . The experience of the late 1960's and early 1970's, the experience of the most divisive era in American history, other than the Civil War, the experience of the United States of America and the leader who fixed it all.
Welcome to "The Richard Nixon Experience" Podcast
(FAIR USE NOTICE : This presentation contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The use of this footage is for educational and historical commentary. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material.)
While Richard Nixon served as President at the height of the Cold War. He was also President when terrorism exploded on to the World stage as a tool of the extreme Islamic World.
In thi…
The 1972 conventions are over and the candidates hit the campaign trail. It is a year where major events seem to be happening every time you turn your head around. President Nixon has …
The final night opens with actor Jimmy Stewart and First Lady Pat Nixon. Then Congressman Gerald Ford introduces Vice President Spiro T. Agnew who will in turn bring out Richard Nixon f…
If the McGovern campaign had been a textbook example of what could go wrong would, the Nixon campaign ran like a well oiled machine.
If you listen to the journalist covering the convent…
In this episode we open with the real power player in the Democratic Party of 1972, Senator Ted Kennedy. He would step up to nominate George McGovern.
Then George McGovern will step up …
This episode starts off the conventions of 1972 with the Democrats. While 1972 was not 1968, it was still a textbook example of what not to do. Poor George McGovern was in a campaign be…
President Richard Nixon's Address to the nation and to a joint session of Congress on June 1, 1972, would mark the arguable high point of his amazing political career. Fresh off two suc…
SUMMIT IN MOSCOW.
On May 22, 1972 Richard Nixon was the first American President to set foot inside the Kremlin as he and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev would hold the first Summit meeti…
After President Richard Nixon returned from China he would have to catch up on all he missed as the Democratic Party began its campaign to challenge him in earnest. It would be a race …
In this episode we witness President Richard Nixon's triumphant return to the United States. But it was not without real worry about how the trip and the Shanghai Communique would be re…
While China represented mystery, exotic locales, and an entirely different cultural experience for Americans watching back home on television. There was still a lot of work being done …
Chairman Mao was the great father figure of China. But it was Zhou Enlai who was the great diplomat of China. He was a man of enormous vision and also he was a man of an extraordinary …
During the week that President and Mrs. Nixon were in China there were several staged tours arraigned for the party and at those events there were often staged people too. This is the …
Somethings never change, and one of those things that will never change is the troublesome issues the press can create by trying to get into mischief and question everything they see. T…
In a trip planned and choreographed to the minute, an enormous surprise happened with in hours of the President's arrival. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai showed up at the guest house where…
"One story about the famous meeting with Richard Nixon remained a secret for many years, until Nixon’s memoirs appeared.
The story began in the mid-50’s, when America and China had no di…
Finally the door has been opened to China. President Nixon would send a group of young men under the supervision of 34 year old Ron Walker to China to lay the groundwork for the histori…
In this episode we look backwards at how the China initiative came together. Richard Nixon had envisioned reaching out to China long before he became President of the United States. He …
The opening of our Season 2 look at the Administration of Richard Nixon begins with the signature event of his time in office., the opening to China. It marks the beginning of a season…
In our Season 1 finale we look at several of the initiatives that Richard Nixon began at the end of 1971 that we are still benefitting from or are impacted by today.
In 1971 Richard Nix…