Item: i93122

Authentic Medal of:

United States of America – Richard Nixon
Presidential Inauguration
1973 Proof Silver Medal 62mm (198.64 grams) 0.925 Silver (5.894 oz. ASW)
Nixon superimposed over Spiro Agnew, both facing right.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON VICE PRESIDENT SPIRO AGNEW INAUGURATED TO SECOND TERM OF OFFICE JANUARY 20, 1973, Seal of the President of the United States of America.

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Richard  Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States , serving  from 1969 to 1974 when he became the only U.S. president to resign the office.  Nixon had previously served as a U.S. Representative and Senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from  1953 to 1961.

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California . After completing his  undergraduate studies at Whittier College , he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and  returned to California to practice law. He and his wife, Pat Nixon , moved to Washington in 1942 to work  for the federal government . He subsequently served on  active duty in the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II . Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950 . His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a  leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower , the Republican Party  presidential nominee in the 1952 election . Nixon served for eight years as vice president . He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960 , narrowly losing  to John F. Kennedy , and lost a race for Governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962 . In 1968 he ran again for the presidency and was elected when he defeated Hubert Humphrey .

Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam in 1973 and brought the American POWs home. At the same time, he ended military draft . Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic of China   in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet  Union the same year. His administration generally transferred power from  Washington to the states. He imposed wage and price controls for a period of  ninety days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools and  established the Environmental Protection Agency . Nixon also  presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing, which signaled the end  of the moon race . He was reelected by one of the largest landslides in  U.S. history in 1972 , when he defeated George McGovern .

The year 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo , gasoline rationing, and a  continuing series of revelations about the Watergate scandal . The scandal escalated,  costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned  in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his  resignation, he was issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford . In retirement, Nixon’s work  writing several books and undertaking of many foreign trips helped to  rehabilitate his image. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81.

Spiro Theodore Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973. He is the second and most recent vice president to resign the position, the other being John C. Calhoun in 1832. Unlike Calhoun, Agnew resigned as a result of a scandal.

Agnew was born in Baltimore to an American mother and a Greek immigrant father. He attended Johns Hopkins University, and graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law. He worked as an aide to U.S. Representative James Devereux before he was appointed to the Baltimore County Board of Zoning Appeals in 1957. In 1962, he was elected Baltimore County Executive. In 1966, Agnew was elected Governor of Maryland, defeating his Democratic opponent George P. Mahoney and independent candidate Hyman A. Pressman.

At the 1968 Republican National Convention, Richard Nixon asked Agnew to place his name in nomination, and named him as running mate. Agnew’s centrist reputation interested Nixon; the law and order stance he had taken in the wake of civil unrest that year appealed to aides such as Pat Buchanan. Agnew made a number of gaffes during the campaign, but his rhetoric pleased many Republicans, and he may have made the difference in several key states. Nixon and Agnew defeated the Democratic ticket of incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey and his running mate, Senator Edmund Muskie. As vice president, Agnew was often called upon to attack the administration’s enemies. In the years of his vice presidency, Agnew moved to the right, appealing to conservatives who were suspicious of moderate stances taken by Nixon. In the presidential election of 1972, Nixon and Agnew were re-elected for a second term, defeating Senator George McGovern and his running mate Sargent Shriver.

In 1973, Agnew was investigated by the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax fraud. Agnew took kickbacks from contractors during his time as Baltimore County Executive and Governor of Maryland. The payments had continued into his time as vice president; they had nothing to do with the Watergate scandal, in which he was not implicated. After months of maintaining his innocence, Agnew pleaded no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion and resigned from office. Nixon replaced him with House Republican leader Gerald Ford. Agnew spent the remainder of his life quietly, rarely making public appearances. He wrote a novel and a memoir; both defended his actions.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million km²), the United States is the world’s third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe’s 3.9 million square miles (10.1 million km²). With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital’s federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico. The State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The extremely diverse geography, climate, and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries.

Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century. The United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, and the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776. The war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848.

During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery. By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a global military power. The United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968 outlaws discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U.S. Moon landing. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world’s sole superpower.

The United States is the world’s oldest surviving federation. It is a federal republic and a representative democracy. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations. The United States is a highly developed country, with the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP. The U.S. economy is largely post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world’s largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U.S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country.

Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank very high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, and worker productivity. The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, and is a leading political, cultural, and scientific force internationally.