Richard Nixon’s Top Domestic and Foreign Policy Achievements

Domestic Policy

1. In 1973, President Nixon ended the draft, moving the United States Military to an all-volunteer force.
2. Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 as a response to the rising concern over conservation and pollution. The agency oversaw the passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Mammal Marine Protection Act.
3. Nixon ushered in a new era of judicial restraint by appointing four Supreme Court Justices: Chief Justice Burger, Chief Justice Harry Blackmun, Chief Justice Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist, who was later appointed to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan.
4. Nixon dedicated a $100-million to begin the war on cancer, a campaign that led to the creation of national cancer centers and antidotes that helped fight the deadly disease.
5. Nixon opened the doors for women in collegiate sports when he signed Title IX in 1972, a civil rights law preventing gender bias at colleges and universities receiving Federal aid.
6. Nixon initiated and oversaw the peaceful desegregation of southern schools.
7. Nixon welcomed the astronauts of Apollo XI home safely from the moon and oversaw every successful moon landing while in office.
8. A great proponent of the 26th Amendment, Nixon lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen, extending the right to vote to America’s youth.
9. Nixon authorized the joint work between the FBI and Special Task Forces to effectively eliminate organized crime, resulting in over 2500 convictions by 1973.
10. Nixon became the first President to give Native Americans the right to tribal self-determination by ending the policy of forced assimilation and returning their sacred lands.

Foreign Policy

1. In 1972, President Nixon participated in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with Soviet Secretary General Brezhnev as part of an effort to temper the Cold War through diplomatic dètente.
2. Nixon signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, helping to calm U.S.-Soviet tensions by curtailing the threat of nuclear weapons between the world’s two superpowers.
3. President Nixon was the first President to visit the People’s Republic of China, where he issued the Shanghai Communiquè, announcing a desire for open, normalized relations. The diplomatic tour de force brought more than a billion people out of isolation.
4. Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
5. In 1969, Nixon announced a groundbreaking foreign policy doctrine that called for the United States to act within its national interest and keep all existing treaty commitments with its allies.
6. Nixon established a new relationship with the Middle East, eliminating Soviet dominance in the region.
7. In honor of the POWs returning home from Vietnam, Nixon hosted the largest reception in White House history.
8. In reaction to the oil embargo of 1973, Nixon initiated Project Independence, which set a timetable to end reliance on foreign oil by 1980.
9. In 1970, President Nixon avoided a second Cuban Missile Crisis involving the Soviet submarine base by adhering to his policy of hard-headed dètente, an active rather than passive form of diplomacy.
10. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Nixon supported Israel with massive aid, which Prime Minister Golda Meir later said saved her country.