Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the thirty-seventh President of the United States from 1969 to 1974. During the Second World War, he served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific, before being elected to the Congress, and then serving as the thirty-sixth Vice President of the United States in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. After an unsuccessful presidential run in 1960, Nixon was elected in 1968, and re-elected to a second term in 1972. Under President Nixon, the United States followed a foreign policy marked by détente with the Soviet Union and by the opening of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. Domestically, his administration faced resistance to the Vietnam War. As a result of the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned the presidency in the face of likely impeachment by the United States House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate. His successor, Gerald Ford, issued a controversial pardon for any federal crimes Nixon may have committed. Nixon is the only person to be elected twice to both the office of the presidency and the vice presidency, and is the only president to have resigned the office. Nixon suffered a stroke on April 18, 1994 and died four days later at the age of 81.