Presidential Libraries

The pre-White House Years

Nine-year old Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, 1922. 

National Archives Identifier: 306-PSD-68-3769.

Richard Nixon, age 15, holding his violin, ca 1927-1928.  Richard Nixon learned to play the violin, clarinet, saxophone, piano, and the accordion. When he was 12, Richard was sent to live and study music with his mother’s sister in central California.  He returned home six months later and eventually discontinued his studies, but his love of music continued. 

Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum.

Richard Nixon with two friends, Fullerton High School, Fullerton, CA, circa 1929.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum Identifier: WHPO-B-0199.

1945 photograph of Lt. Commander Richard Nixon wearing his Navy uniform.  When Richard Nixon ran for Congress in 1946 he wore his Navy uniform as he declared at the time that he did not have a civilian suit.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Richard Nixon, with wife Pat and daughters Tricia and Julie, watch the antics of their pet cocker spaniel "Checkers" while on a weekend visit to the Jersey Shore in Mantoloking, NJ, August 16, 1953.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the White House before the Vice President’s Ambassador of Goodwill tour departure to the Far East, October 5, 1953.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

Vice-President Nixon spars with Premier Khrushchev before reporters and onlookers, including Politburo member Leonid Brezhnev at the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park, in Moscow, 1959.  Nixon and Khrushchev are photographed in front of a kitchen display – the impromptu exchanges came to be known as the Kitchen Debate, July 24, 1959.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, used with permission of the Richard Nixon Foundation and Julie Nixon Eisenhower.

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