Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon overall as a president had a shaky career that may have had some successes, such as opening trade with China and improving relations between the USSR and the US, but these successes were marred by the lies and espionage tactics he used to try to maintain power.

Among some of the lies that Nixon told were how he claimed after his coming to power he would try to withdraw the US from Vietnam. While the majority of the public was somewhat satisfied with the Vietnam War at this point, Nixon's order to send troops into Laos and Cambodia to try and flush out the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops was seen as an expansion of the war. This made the public opinion on Nixon drop as they saw this as a lie about Vietnam and what his plan was.

Another dark cloud on Nixon's reputation was the Watergate Scandal. While initially it was viewed as unrelated to the president and was not taken very seriously. But, after money was discovered to have come from the Republican party and funded the criminals, some began so suspect that Nixon had some involvement with the whole scandal. Nixon also refused to release tapes that had recorded the conversations that had been in the Oval Office, making it seem as if Nixon was trying to hide something from public knowledge. And after Nixon was required to release an edited transcript of his conversations did his popularity drop dramatically. This eventually resulted in Nixon having to leave his presidential position in shame with dark clouds covering the good deeds he had fulfilled as president.