People

===**T**he 1970’s had a powerful impact on the course of Twentieth Century American history. It was a time when the American people lost confidence in their government and their leaders. It was also a time when the U.S. was really involved deeply into affairs with countries such as China and Russia and of course, there was also Vietnam.=== ===Richard Nixon became the 37th president on January 20th, 1969 until August 9th, 1974 when he resigned from the office in the face of likely impeachment by the United States House of Representatives as the result of the Watergate Scandal. He was the only person to be elected twice to the offices of President and Vice President and he has the distinction of being the only president who has resigned from office as well. He shocked the country and caused many Americans thereafter to lose confidence in their government. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein became very rich and famous when they documented his wrongdoings and downfall with their journalism in the Washington Post and in their book, //All the President's Men//. He was also plagued by investigations into an underpayment of over $432,000 in back taxes.===

===Nixon's foreign policy was marked by detente with the Soviet Union. **In 1972 Nixon visited Beijing and Moscow to try and maintain world stability.** He was successful in his talks with Russian leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev to limit the number of nuclear weapons that the country could have in their possession.=== ===His precidency was also marked by the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. His centrist domestic policies combined conservative rhetoric and liberal action in Civil Rights, environmental and economic initiatives. He esablished the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Drug Administration Agency, the Supplemental Security Income Program the Office of Minority Buisiness Enterprise, and reorganised the Post Office.=== ===He was also marked by the opening of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. His centrist domestic policies combined conservative rhetoric and liberal action in Civil Rights, environmental and economic initiatives. He established the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Drug Administration Agency, the Supplemental Security Income Program the Office of Minority Buisiness Enterprise, and reorganised the Post Office.===

===Henry A. Kissinger was another of the great American statesmen of the twentieth century and an important person in the 1970’s just like Richard Nixon. Early in his career, he served as an enlisted person in the U.S. Army. He served as a foreign policy guide for presidents such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1969 he became an assistant of national security for Nixon. He followed Nixon to China and the USSR. He also represented the U.S. in agreements toward decision of the war in Indo-China.=== ===In January 1973, there was an agreement making the cease-fire in the Vietnam War a reality, all due to the efforts of Henry A. Kissinger. He was later made Secretary of State by Richard Nixon; he served as Secretary of State for Gerald R. Ford. He negotiated problems between Israel and Egypt. He used a method of diplomacy called the “Shuttle Diplomacy”; he went back and forth from Israel and Egypt functioning as a third party settler. This resulted in a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. He worked without success to make a racial agreement in southern Africa, Rhodesia, which is present day Zimbabwe. He left office in 1977. He went on writing books on his services in the government.===