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History Q & A

Firsts: Presidents Who Made History Because They Were the First to Do Something

by HNN Staff
President Bush, Sunday, in anticipation of his planned visit to Normandy on Memorial Day:"For the first time ever, if I'm not mistaken, the president of the United States will not be in the United States on Memorial Day."

Turns out, as the NYT reported Monday, President Bush was mistaken. His own father as president was absent from the United States on Memorial Day thirteen years before. Condoleezza Rice took the fall."It was my fault," she told the Times. She'd gotten"a little ahead of my fact-checkers."

Ah, firsts! What president doesn't like firsts? Of recent presidents, Richard Nixon was the champ. Observed Nixon biographer, Melvin Small:"Nixon constantly looked for opportunities to appear on television in one or another precedent-shattering activity, whether it was the first visit to a communist country or talking to men on the moon Many of his speeches began, 'This is the first time in history that ...' When on 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin announced that the 'Eagle has landed' on the moon and that the Apollo 11 mission had been successful, the president called them: 'Hello Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office in the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House.'"

Nixon Firsts

First president to make crime a chief campaign issue.

First president to visit China.

First president to have full-time staffers do outreach to special groups (Jews, Catholics, etc.).

First president to have a full-fledged PR team on staff at the White House.

First president to hire a full-time television producer; Mark Goode in the White House Television Office (1971).

First president to use the hotline with the Soviet Union (December. 12, 1969).

First president to declare war on cancer (1971).

First president to submit an energy plan to Congress (1971).

First president attacked by a mob; in San Jose (October 29, 1970).

First president to install a voice-activated taping machine in the Oval Office.

First president to visit Israel (1974).

First president to regularly impound funds appropriated by Congress.

First president to resign.

SOURCE

Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (1999).