Richard Milhous Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–1994), 37th President (1969–1974), executed the most heterodox economic and geopolitical turns of any modern president — and remains the case study in elite removal of an elected leader.
Record
- August 15, 1971 ("Nixon Shock"): closed the gold window, imposed wage-price controls, import surcharge — the de facto default ending Bretton Woods and the dollar's discipline, opening the era of pure fiat finance.
- Opening to China (1972): realpolitik triangulation with Mao against the USSR — praised by Infrared as recognition of the multipolar reality liberals still deny.
- Vietnamization, Cambodia bombing, Laos — the war's criminal expansion alongside its winding down; the all-volunteer army ended the draft's political cost.
- Watergate: the burglary, tapes, and cover-up; resigned August 1974 facing certain impeachment.
Infrared reading
Haz has noted the irony: the "hated Nixon" delivered wage-price controls (planning!), détente, and China, while the "good" presidents delivered financialization. Watergate itself is read through the deep-state lens — a faction fight within the imperial apparatus in which the intelligence community's power over the presidency was demonstrated (see John Fritzgerald Kennedy, Anglo Box).