Chapman University President Daniele Struppa makes case for Richard Nixon’s legacy

While Richard Nixon is infamous for the Watergate scandal, he still counts support from none other than Daniele Struppa, the Italian born president of Chapman University who is also on the Richard Nixon Foundation’s board of directors.

“I still consider President Nixon as one of the best presidents that this country has ever had, while fully aware that many would disagree with me,” he told the Business Journal.

“Our students have already been exposed to remarkable events, such as the evening we were able to offer them a few weeks ago with former secretary Henry Kissinger. I see this partnership as strategic for our university, to the great benefit for both institutions.”

While not ignoring Watergate, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum highlights several of Nixon’s accomplishments:

■ Ending the war in Vietnam: When Nixon entered office, about 550,000 Americans were serving in Vietnam, a number that fell to 24,000 by the end of 1972, just before the signing a peace treaty with North Vietnam.

“Vietnam drove everything,” Nixon Foundation CEO Jim Byron said. “It was his job to essentially unwind it.”

■ Surprising the world by opening talks with Communist China. Nixon “scared the Soviets by going to China,” Byron said.

■ Signing the first ABM treaty with the Soviet Union.

■ Ending the military draft in 1973.

■ Holding the first presidential “interplanetary conversation” when he spoke with astronauts who landed on the moon in 1969. “That’s in the official log!” Byron exclaimed.

■ Starting the Environmental Protection Agency.

“He believed in using the power of the government—that old school moderate Republican who tried to improve people’s lives. Obviously, the business community struggles with the mandates of the EPA and I would think President Nixon would be the first one to say ‘Roll those regulations back where they impede progress.’”

During his time in office, Nixon signed laws to clean water and air, protect endangered species, enact environmental impact statements, ban whale hunting and limit the dumping of waste from ships, planes and man-made platforms into oceans.

■ Orchestrating more than $1 billion in grants to fight cancer, the first president to do so. “Nobody knows that, outside of the cancer community.”

The initial research eventually led to the development of the MRNA technology used to develop a vaccine to fight COVID-19, Byron said.

■ Lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

■ Overcoming opposition from his own State Department to supply weapons to the Israelis during the 1973 Mideast War, an airlift that was eventually bigger than the Berlin Airlift of 1948.

“Nixon to this day is very popular in Israel.”

■ Signing Title IX, which mandated colleges treat women sports on an equal footing with men’s.

■ Reversing decades of federal policy regarding American Indians to help them become more self-reliant.

■ Increasing the number of women who worked in the executive branch.