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LIFE AFTER THE WHITE HOUSE, PART VI

© John S. Cooper

Few Presidents have entered the office with more promise or left it with greater disappointment than Lyndon Johnson. Majority Leader of the Senate and decorated naval officer, he had more experience, leadership and political talent than almost any other president. Lyndon Johnson became President when John Kennedy was assassinated. His term saw the Great Society, great progress in civil rights, and an increasing involvement in the war in Vietnam. After declining to run for another term in 1968, Johnson retired to the LBJ Ranch in Texas. He supervised the day-to-day operations of the ranch, and wrote his memoirs entitled “The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969.” From December 1969 to May 1970, he held a three-part series of televised interviews with Walter Cronkite. His last public appearance was six weeks before his death when he addressed a civil rights symposium at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas. He had suffered a major heart attack in 1955, and had a second one in 1972, from which he recovered slowly. After that heart attack, he rarely left the ranch. On January 22, 1973, he suffered a third heart attack and died on the way to the hospital.

Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, and re-elected in 1972 carrying 49 states. After the revelations of the Watergate Affair, he became the first and only President to resign from office. After leaving the White House in disgrace, Nixon returned to San Clemente, California. He avoided political activities, and spent most of his time playing golf and writing. As time passed, his views on international affairs were highly valued and sought by later Presidents of both parties. In 1974, he accepted from his successor, President Gerald Ford, a “full, free, and absolute pardon” for all crimes that he “committed or may have committed or taken part in” while he was President. In 1985, Nixon mediated a contract dispute between major league baseball and the umpire association. Still very popular abroad, Nixon traveled to eighteen foreign nations and met with sixteen heads of state. During the Reagan administration, he conferred with officials on a regular basis, although only rarely with President Reagan himself. Nixon published a number of books: “RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon” (1978), “The Real War” (1980), “Leaders” (1982), “Real Peace: A Strategy for the West” (1983), “No More Vietnams” (1985), “In the Arena” (1990), and “Beyond Peace” (1994). Nixon left San Clemente to live in New York City in 1980. In 1981, he moved to Saddle River, N.J., and in 1991 to Park Ridge, N.J. Nixon died in 1994. He and his wife are buried on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California, near the house in which he was born.

			President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)	President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
	President Bill Clinton (1993-2001)

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