Richard Nixon learned to bluff playing poker in the Navy during World War II, and he spent the rest of his career applying those skills to politics — reading opponents, calculating odds, and betting everything on moves that could either win the pot or lose it all. He opened China, created the EPA, won a forty-nine-state landslide, and then destroyed himself by covering up a burglary he did not need to order, in an election he was already winning.

This episode traces Nixon from his impoverished Quaker childhood through the Checkers speech, the Kennedy loss, the comeback, the China opening, and the Watergate scandal that made him the only president to resign.

• Nixon’s impoverished childhood, his Navy poker winnings, and his entry into Cold War politics
• The Checkers speech, the Kennedy defeat, and the “last press conference” that seemed to end his career
• The 1968 comeback, the China opening, and the foreign policy achievements of his presidency
• The Watergate break-in, the cover-up, the tapes, and the resignation that ended a presidency