Explain Richard Nixon's personality

Answer 1

Most Historians rank him close to the bottom of the list.

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I think there's a lot of passion about Nixon. He's got good and bad points. His worst points were that he was a crook, statements to the contrary notwithstanding. He was good on foreign policy, he was decent on the economy. If Nixon would have had an honest bone in his body, he would rank as one of the best presidents ever. But he belonged in prison (something he has in common with a lot of other presidents), so I'd say he was probably right in the middle. I'd say FDR, Eisenhower, Lincoln, Washington and Kennedy were the five best presidents, Nixon was number 23, and the last three Republican presidents were at the absolute bottom.

Answer 2

From all accounts from people who knew him, Nixon was a nice man who had a tremendous inferiority complex, and absolutely no people skills.

Richard was the middle son of a family that could only afford to educate one son beyond high school, and which included a baby brother.

When the baby brother, Arthur, died, Richard's mother turned to him, and when his older brother Harold died, he became the inheritor of the college education. For the rest of his life he carried around the belief that he was loved only because the beloved wasn't around, and got ahead only because the person who Should have gone on died.

A big part of his paranoia was caused by those beliefs. When he became President he was convinced that John and Bobby Kennedy were the beloved ones, and that the only reason Nixon got the chance to be president was because they both died. (Bobby was assassinated during his bid to be the Democratic nominee for President in 1968. It was generally agreed that he would have won it, and quite probably, the election against Nixon.)

On another note, there is a story about Nixon that very few people know. I confess that I cannot attribute it because It happened in the 60s when he was a private citizen - albeit a very powerful one.

This man was driving his wife to the hospital to deliver their child in heavy rain storm when the car ran off the road, down the embankment, and into a ditch. He could get out but his wife was stuck, so he went up to the road to flag down a car.

The car that came along was Nixon's limousine. He told the driver to stop, got out and asked the man what was wrong and, upon hearing that the woman in the ditch was about to have a baby, turned and told the driver to order a helicopter.

Then he slid down the embankment in his good business suit, and sat down beside the car. He took the woman's hand and told her that help was on its way. Then he tried to carry on a conversation with her in order to get her mind off her predicament. He thought, and thought, and finally said, "Hey, what about those 49ers?"

He had No idea how to talk to a woman who was in Labor, lying on her back, and stuck in an overturned car. He did continue with telling her about how he and Pat had fared with their kids, and told her that girls were the Best, but, in the beginning, he couldn't think of a thing.

I really wish that I could attribute this story, because it presents a great picture of an incredibly complex man. He never used it as a campaign gimmick, and I have never heard about it any other place than that one source that reported the story when he was a private citizen.

Answer 3

Richard Nixon rarley smiled and was always a very happy person, but took his presidential duties very seriously. HE did have time for fun sometime though.

Answer 4

he was a great president

Answer 5

A thief, Tricky, ruthless, Smart