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Doc's portrait hangs in the White House.
Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States. He was elected to two terms in office in 1968 and 1972, but resigned, before finishing his second term, due to the Watergate scandal in 1974. Nixon died on April 22, 1994.
Nixon was previously the 36th Vice President of the United States, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, from 1953 to 1961.
In the 1985A timeline, Nixon had been elected to four terms as president and had been seeking a fifth as of 1983, with help from Biff Tannen, who was rich and powerful. Nixon had been re-elected in 1976 and 1980, and ran again in 1984, on promises to end the war in Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War by 1985. After Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly arrived in the alternate timeline, on October 26, 1985, the information about Nixon's role in that timeline was on the front page of the Hill Valley Telegraph, whose lead story was headlined EMMETT BROWN COMMITTED.
In 1991, Doc traveled to Germany on February 27, 1969 to witness Richard Nixon's speech in Berlin for the "Doc on the March" segment of a video that would be displayed at the Institute of Future Technology.
In 1993, Doc traveled to Washington, D.C. on July 26, 1968. He replaced a portrait in the White House of George Washington with one of himself. This portrait was present when Richard Nixon met with Lyndon B. Johnson later that day.
When Doc returned to 1993, he hung a photograph of Nixon and Johnson talking to each other at the table where his portrait was placed in his chicken restaurant.
Behind the scenes[]
- The questions of whether Nixon had won the 1984A election, whether the war had ended, or whether Nixon was still President in 1985A, are left unanswered in Part II.
- In the Biff to the Future comic book, co-written by Bob Gale, it is revealed that Nixon won the presidency in 1984A, but decided against running again in 1988A. Biff announced a run for president in his stead, but was killed before the election began. The question about whether the Vietnam War had ended in 1985A was still left unanswered, however.
- Nixon ran for President in 1960, but lost to John F. Kennedy. In 1962, Nixon ran for Governor of California, but was defeated. Another future president Ronald Reagan, ran for the same office and won four years later.
- It appears that, as of 1960A, Biff, who was 23 at the time, was was not yet powerful enough to influence that year's presidential election. Whether Biff was able to help Nixon become Governor of California is not clear.
- Nixon was Vice-President of the United States in 1955, and would be re-elected to that office in 1956 along with President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
- Nixon attended Whittier High School and graduated in the class of 1930. Whittier High was used more than fifty years later as the filming location for Hill Valley High School.
- Besides portraying Clara Clayton Brown, the mother of Jules and Verne, actress Mary Steenburgen played the role of Richard Nixon's devout Quaker mother, Hannah, in Oliver Stone's 1995 film Nixon.
- Nixon is also still president in Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, which is also set in the alternate reality of October 1985.
Appearances[]
- Back to the Future novelization (Mentioned only)
- Back to the Future Part II (1985A Newspaper)
- Back to the Future: The Ride
- Doc Brown's Chicken (In the line queue)
