ABSTRACT
The administration of President Richard Nixon (served 1969-1974) im-ploded in 1974 when the president’s role in the imbroglio known as the Watergate scandal became known. Nixon resigned in disgrace on August 9, 1974. More recently, new perspectives have emerged on Nixon’s domestic policy leadership. In her reassessment of the former president, historian Joan Hoff Wilson wrote that Nixon accomplished far more than many people thought: “During his first term in office, Nixon acted as an agent of change in five areas of domestic reform: welfare, civil rights, economic policy, environmental policy, and reorganization of the federal bureaucracy.”1 Has Nixon, the first of the low-opportunity presidents, been overlooked and underrated as a domestic policy president?
