Nixon was a bit of an irascible Bas—rd but he gets blamed for far far too much stuff.
Johnson really gets free pass on a lot of crap that went on in the 60’s.
Kennedy was smart but naive (sp?)
Nixon was smart but evil.
Johnson was the evil village idiot.
The one big mistake Nixon made was not ending the Vietnam war after he took office in 1969. Nixon NEVER thought Vietnam was winnable, and his gut instinct was to just withdraw the troops (a direct Kissinger quote), but he new he would never get reelected if he did that. Consequently he let the war drag on for 4 more years. Notice how quickly after Nixon was reelected he withdrew the troops? Almost immediatly.
You can blame Nixon for not doing in 1969 what he did in 1973.