7 Richard M. Nixon 7many observers questioned whether Kennedy had legally
won those states, and some prominent Republicans—
including Eisenhower—even urged Nixon to contest the
results. He chose not to, however. Nixon’s supporters and
critics alike, both then and later, praised him for the dig-
nity and unselfishness with which he handled defeat and
the suspicion that vote fraud had cost him the presidency.
Nixon then retired to private life in California, where
he wrote a best-selling book, Six Crises. After failing to win
the 1962 California gubernatorial race, he announced his
retirement from politics and criticized the press, declar-
ing that it would not “have Dick Nixon to kick around
anymore.” He moved to New York to practice law and,
over the next few years, built a reputation as a strong
leader in the Republican Party.
Presidency
Returning to politics, Nixon won the Republican nomina-
tion for president in 1968. With Maryland governor Spiro
Agnew as his running mate, Nixon campaigned against
Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candi-
date George Wallace on a vague platform promising an
honourable peace in Vietnam. Nixon won the election by
a narrow margin, 31.7 million popular votes to Humphrey’s
nearly 30.9 million; the electoral vote was 301 to 191.
Domestic Policies
Despite expectations from some observers that Nixon
would be a “do-nothing” president, his administration
increased funding for many federal civil rights agencies
and proposed legislation that created the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He responded
to persistent inflation and increasing unemployment by