316 Nixon, Richard President Richard Nixon speaks with guests during his daughter Tricia’s wedding at the White House looked terrible in some of his television appearances, many people who listened to the debates on the radio felt that he did better than Kennedy The election was close, with Nixon losing by fewer than 120,000 votes, with queries about the voting in Illinois and Texas Nixon chose not to challenge the results too much, and his dignity won him the support of many Retiring to private life in California, Nixon then wrote a book, Six Crises, in which he described his role facing six crises in his career as a congressman, senator, and then vice president It was influential, and Mao Zedong was to read it in preparation for Nixon’s 1972 visit to China Nixon contested the governorship of California in 1962, losing to the incumbent, Democrat Edmund G (“Pat”) Brown He then again retired from politics and went to New York, where he practiced law as the senior partner in Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie and Alexander He was disappointed when Barry Goldwater was chosen as the Republican Party choice in the 1964 elections, writing that Goldwater lost the entire campaign when he (Goldwater) declared that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” By contrast, Nixon built up a reputation as a moderate and an expert in foreign policy, which contributed to the Republican Party choosing him as their candidate in 1968 By 1968 Nixon had put together a coalition of supporters that managed to ally itself with Southern conservatives led by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina Nixon promised to name a Southerner to the Supreme Court, oppose court-ordered “busing” urged by the civil rights movement, and chose a hard-line vice-presidential candidate who would have Southern support His choice was Maryland governor Spiro Agnew Nixon stood against a disunited Democratic Party, which was split between supporters of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy who opposed the Vietnam War, and Hubert Humphrey, choice of the mainstream Democratic Party Robert Kennedy’s assassination had resulted in Humphrey being chosen as the candidate after a torrid party gathering at Chicago which led to fighting in the streets Nixon promised that he would get “peace with honor” in Vietnam but was not specific about how he was going to achieve this It did not stop him criticizing Vice President Humphrey, who, as part of the Lyndon B Johnson administration, was blamed for the increasing casualties there, especially with the Tet Offensive at the start of the election campaign Nixon, however, was more worried that the candidacy of George Wallace, as a pro-segregationist party, might split his vote in the South Nixon won comfortably with 301 electoral college seats to Humphrey’s 191 and Wallace’s 46 However, the popular vote was far closer: Nixon, 31.7 million, and Humphrey, 30.9 million After the election, Nixon was determined to introduce a number of reforms As soon as he became president, he changed the civil rights and law enforcement legislation He established the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Office of Minority Business Enterprise Nixon pushed through the space project, with Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, and speaking to Nixon from the Moon In January 1972 Nixon also approved the Space Shuttle Program He also launched, in his State of the Union speech in January 1971, an additional $100 million to be added to the National Cancer Institute budget for cancer research, inaugurating his “War on Cancer.” He had also proposed the Family Assistance Program (FAP) to replace the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which