>>961008
Nah.
>>961012
>>started trade relations with China
There were no bilateral relationships at all with the PRC before Nixon's visit and the main reason he did it was to capitalize on the Sino-Soviet split and THAT has had a huge return because it effectively ended the possibility of reconciliation and a Sino-Russian bloc in the post-Mao era.
>>created the EPA
Nigger, the midwest used to have rivers that caught on fire and there was so much smog in major cities that they looked like Beijing. There are plenty of things that the EPA has done that are questionable at best but the EPA has had a hand in a number of significant improvements to environmental health in the US. Nixon also signed the Endangered Species Act, which was huge.
>became a raging, corrupt alcoholic who betrayed his Quaker roots
Corrupt? A little. Not excusing that. Raging alcoholic? No. He drank too much from time to time but was hardly an alcoholic. "Betrayed his Quaker roots"? He had a miserable childhood and got away from it as quick as he could. He had made full partner in a law firm years before he decided to sign up for the Navy despite not only not being drafted but being married and having two exemptions from his Quaker birthright and his government job at the time.
>corrupt as all hell
Again: not really. His corruption just got an exceptional amount of time in the spotlight.
>terrible international policy
As opposed to who, exactly? Clinton, who made his bones covering for the CIA's coke business and sold out what was left of American industry to Mexico via NAFTA? Reagan and Iran-Contra? Bush I, who sold out to China and launched Desert Storm? Bush II with the
ongoing debacle in the middle east and the great recession? Barack "YEAH DRONE 'EM" Obama? Carter hanging the Shah out to dry and leading to the clusterfuck everyone has been dealing with ever since? Just the fact that Nixon presided over SALT I and got US troops out of Vietnam is enough to place him above everyone I mentioned.
>relied on fucking Henry Kissinger
Kissinger was a Jewish rat but he was also an exceptionally capable negotiator and mediator.
Nixon made a lot of ugly and sometimes questionable decisions at the arguable nadir of American history. I'm not putting him in the winner's circle but (as I said originally) compared to those who came after him he comes out looking pretty good. You could argue that a lot of the things that Nixon created or had a hand in are AIDS but, again, you have to look at who was sitting in the big chair when those things actually happened instead of playing the retroactive blame game.