Nixon WAS a hero! With what he was up against--an intransigent, liberal, commie press, he still managed to "triangulate" the stalled Paris Peace Talks--a mission that couldn't have been accomplished if he hadn't first opened channels with the Chinese, set "detente" with the Soviets. He had brains (intellectually & practically), guts, a sense of America's place in the world as well as its nobility, and what turned out to be a tragic sense of his purpose in office. He's still one of MY heroes.
Damned straight. True-blue American hero.
He was effective, no question. He possessed all of the qualities you mentioned. He was also paranoid, conniving, narcissistic, anti-semitic... I reiterate, Nixon was no hero.
He put the country's best interest first, in the stolen 1960 election and in Watergate as well.