President Nixon’s primacy in foreign affairs has long been acknowledged even by his harshest critics. But his domestic record has tended both to be overlooked as a result of the conventional wisdom — particularly in the academy and the media — that he was a typically troglodytic Republican conservative, and overshadowed by the myriad issues collectively known as Watergate. But, in fact, in terms of domestic policies and initiatives, the Nixon White House years — and particularly the first term from 1969 to 1973 — are among the most innovative, accomplished, and productive periods of modern Presidential history.

While Nixon was facilely classified as a conservative, his own self-characterization may perhaps turn out to have been more acute and accurate: he called himself a “pragmatic idealist.” His idealism was based on his instinctive belief in the goodness and greatness of the American nation and people; he was an unabashed American exceptionalist. His pragmatism was based on a canny sense of politics and personalities and, not least, the awareness that he was the first President since Zachary Taylor to enter office with both houses of Congress controlled by the opposition party.

Nixon’s approach was to combine his recognition of, and respect for, the limits of government’s role in the lives of its citizens with his conviction that some of the social and cultural achievements of FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society were worth preserving and even expanding.

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The establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 was one of the most important actions of Richard Nixon’s presidency, setting up an arm of the Federal government’s executive branch that now employs more than 17,000 people and operates a budget of nearly $10.5 billion. His decision to set it up was partly motivated by political...

The words pollution and environment were on many politicians mind in 1969. Improvement of the environment was an achievement during the Nixon administration. Nixon grasped issues rapidly and presented a comprehensive and broad legislative environmental agenda. A number of ingredients- including a public outcry to stop pollution, a talented and dedicated...

Environmental conservation was at the forefront of Richard Nixon’s domestic legislative agenda. In his 1971 State of the Union message, RN declared: “I will propose programs to make better use of our land, to encourage a balanced national growth–growth that will revitalize our rural heartland and enhance the quality of life in America. And not...

Introduction The Domestic Council and Office of Management and Budget were created on July 1, 1970. The result was that policy making on major domestic issues was consolidated into the Executive Office of the President. Henceforth, on domestic affairs—as had been the case on foreign affairs since creation of the National Security Council in 1947—policy...

“If the Government pays all the medical bills, then only the Government has a stake in holding down medical costs. This means that Government officials would have to approve hospital budgets and set fee schedules and take other steps that would eventually lead to the complete Federal domination of American medicine. I think this is the wrong road...

In January 2010, Dr. James Cavanaugh, one of RN’s principal advisers on health policy, spoke about the President’s early efforts at health care reform at the Nixon Library. His presentation was part of a panel of key White House officials who helped spearhead the President’s domestic policy initiatives. “I think for people who follow health...

Although Richard Nixon’s pre-presidential speeches and writings sometimes had passages referring to his love of the varied landscape of his native state of California, it still came as a surprise to many when, in his State of the Union address on January 22, 1970, he outlined the first steps in the series of programs that made his presidency...

One aspect of Richard Nixon’s presidency that still has far-reaching consequences today is his effort to deal with the issues created by America’s consumption of steadily decreasing energy sources. At the start of the Administration, in 1969, this did not seem to be much of an issue. In the late 1930s, vast oil reserves were found in Saudi...

When I first came to Washington, D.C. to work in the White House of President Richard Nixon almost 40 years ago, you could count the number of women in the House and Senate on your two hands plus one toe. And, you wouldn’t have needed any additional digits for the women sitting on the Supreme Court or in the President’s Cabinet – because...