January 20, 1969 Richard Nixon is sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he resigned from office, the only American president to do so. He had previously served as the 36th vice president of the United States from 1953 to 1961, and prior to that as both a U.S. representative and senator from California.
Richard Nixon enters the presidency convinced “that a clear-cut victory in Vietnam [is] no longer possible.” ( Kissinger, Diplomacy, 1994, p. 676.) In his inaugural address Nixon proclaims that Americans “cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another.” And he says, “the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America.”