7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

one of the largest landslide victories in the history of
American presidential elections: 46.7 million to 28.9 mil-
lion in the popular vote and 520 to 17 in the electoral vote.
Despite his resounding victory, Nixon would soon be forced
to resign in disgrace in the worst political scandal in United
States history.
Nixon’s second term was overshadowed by the
Watergate scandal, which stemmed from illegal activities
by Nixon and his aides related to the burglary and wiretap-
ping of the national headquarters of the Democratic Party
at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C.
Eventually it came to encompass allegations of other
loosely related crimes committed both before and after
the break-in. Faced with the near-certain prospect of
impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate,
Nixon announced his resignation on the evening of Aug. 8,
1974, effective at noon the next day.

Retirement and Death

Nixon retired with his wife to the seclusion of his estate in
San Clemente, California. He wrote RN: The Memoirs of
Richard Nixon (1978) and several books on international
affairs and American foreign policy, modestly rehabilitat-
ing his public reputation and earning a role as an elder
statesman and foreign-policy expert. He died of a massive
stroke in 1994.

Menachem Begin

(b. Aug. 16, 1913, Brest-Litovsk, Russia [now in Belarus]—d. March 9,
1992, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel)

M

enachem Begin, Israel’s sixth prime minister (1977–
1983), along with Egyptian president Anwar
el-Sādāt, was the corecipient of the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize