The Richard Nixon Experience
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
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The Richard Nixon Experience
RICHARD NIXON (Bonus Edition) With Foreign Leaders After the Presidency - Anwar Sadat, The Shah of Iran, and Leonid Brezhnev
In this episode we look back on President Nixon's relationships with three world leaders who were very important to the United States during his administration. No world leader in history was as well traveled as President Richard Nixon and few if any knew the world better. During President Nixon's retirement years Nixon was often called upon to comment upon the passing of several World Leaders and their impact on the world stage.
In one case, it was Nixon who wanted to send a message to the current American President , Jimmy Carter, and the rest of the western world, that we should never forget our friends in their time of need. This was very much true in the case of the Shah of Iran. The Shah was deposed in January of 1979, and the region he had helped stabilize was thrown into chaos. Carter's treatment of the Shah was in a word, shameful , and Richard Nixon held his feet to the fire. It was only after the Shah was diagnosed with cancer that he was allowed to seek refuge here for treatment which led to the Embassy in Tehran being overrun by militant Islamic terrorists and our diplomats being taken as hostages.
It was Nixon that went to Mexico to see the Shah and then went personally to his funeral in Egypt to say to the world that America never forgets a friend. It was Richard Nixon showing the foreign Policy leadership lacking by the current leadership in the White House at the time.
Then after the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat Richard Nixon was called on again by the new President Ronald Reagan to represent the United States to the world. Reagan tapped all three former living Presidents, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter to attend the Sadat funeral but it was clearly Nixon that was the towering figure to the world. It marked Nixon's return to the world stage and he was greeted by grateful world that had always revered him and marveled at just how the United States could have ever deposed such an extraordinary leader.
Finally we will take a look at the man who was on the other side of the Cold War for much of the most important years of the struggle. For two decades the Soviet Union was dominated by Leonid Brezhnev. Here we will look back at him, his leadership, and his impact on the world stage. Then we will hear from President Richard Nixon on Nightline the night the Soviet leader died and listen to his thoughts on this formidable leader who represented the other side of the Cold War for so long.
