Did Nixon achievements in office compensate for his Watergate crimes?

Answer 1

Almost certainly yes.

His actual achievements were sadly heavily overshadowed by Watergate and ultimatelycaused most of his main accomplishments to be overlooked historically.

To list a few key examples -

Richard Nixon removed America from the gold standard as he became very acutely aware that America's gold reserves were no where near enough collateral for the basis of the value of the dollar.

Nixon opened up relations with China and Russia which were unthinkable before, incredible at the time and sadly deteriorated after his resignation.

Nixon managed to 'end' Vietnam, a war he did not declare or escalate to the high scaleas what happened under the Johnson administration, under a thin veil of negotiated 'peace with honor'. The peace was practically impossible to achieve, however through careful diplomatic work via Kissinger with Russia and China and huge bombing campaigns he managed to make the Vietnamese government recognise that America was not just going to withdraw unconditionally.

Richard Nixon recognised that desegregation was necessary, but did not agree with some children having to commute for over 50 miles to achieve this when they had a perfectly good school 100 yards down the street. He therefore attempted (without much success, but ultimately to his credit) to attempt to change the law to remove this ridiculously unflexable and impractical policy.

In brief, Nixon liked big, bold strategies to 'knock people off their feet'.

it can not be overlooked that Nixon was complicit in Watergate, but only by the means that he did not have any specific prior knowledge, was probably aware of 'questionably illegal activities', however his biggest mistake in Watergate was that he did NOT act boldly or decisively as he had done countless times in his political career and this ultimately led to the end of his presidency and tarnished all of his amazing achievements.

It could easily be argued that with the exception of FDR, Nixon was the most influential president of the 20th century, who, once again with the exception of FDR achieved the most in his presidency.