NIXON, 37th, 1969-

Richard Milhous Nixon's gestures — the body language, the counting of points on the fingers, the arms upstretched in the victory sign or sweeping around his body like a matador flicking a cape before a bull — always seemed a little out of sync with what he was saying, as if a sound track were running a little ahead of or behind its film. Norman Rockwell once called Nixon "the hardest man I ever had to paint. Nixon fell into the troublesome category of almost good-looking."

Nixon could trace descent from King Edward III of England through an illegitimate line. His time in the White House was called the "Imperial Presidency." At times Nixon simply ignored laws.

Nixon had a narcissistic and paranoid personality. Even so, Americans were shocked to hear the sheer amount of swearing and vicious comments on the President's White House tapes.

Nixon was an alcoholic and he used Dilantin without a prescription for several years. Long-term use of Dilantin can cause rapid rhythmic repetitious involuntary eye movements, ataxia, slurred speech, decreased coordination, mental confusion and an overgrowth of the gums. So bad was the problem, that at the height of the Vietnam War the then Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, ordered military commanders not to react to orders from the White House unless they were cleared with him or the Secretary of State.

Nixon made the world's longest long distance phone call to Neil Armstrong on the moon. He was the first President to visit all 50 states.

Nixon asked Pat Ryan to marry him the first night they went out, she refused and he escorted her on dates with her other beaus for the next two years. "It's true," she said to one reporter, "but it's mean to repeat it." By the time the Nixons reached the White House, observers characterized them as "people who have lost whatever they once had between them."

Nixon was President when Roe v. Wade was written. His favorite breakfast included cottage cheese with ketchup and black pepper.

Nixon gave his resignation speech on television and appeared calm, cool, and collected. But "furious [eye] blinking" was exhibited. Psychologist Joseph Tecce's calls episodic bursts of blinking due to negative mood states the "Nixon effect."

Nixon is the only American to have been elected twice to both the Vice Presidency and the Presidency and the only President to resign. Key figures that first entered government service in the Nixon White House include George H. W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, George Shultz, James Baker, Colin Powell, James Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld, and Casper Weinberger.

In Robert Altman's adaptation of Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone's play Secret Honor, Philip Baker Hall plays Nixon: "I'm just an unindicted co-conspirator, along with everybody else in the country," he says. "I don't owe anything to anybody, except for you, Mother."

Hunter S. Thompson described him as a man who could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He said, "He was a giant in his way."

Nixon suffered a severe stroke in his Park Ridge, New Jersey home; his last words were yelling out to a housekeeper for help.

In two centuries American history had come full circle from George Washington, who could not tell a lie to Nixon who could not tell the truth.

d. April 22, 1994 (New York, New York) at 81 of paralysis and swelling of the brain.