Richard Nixon was American.
Richard Nixon . Nixon was born in Yorba Linda , California . He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower , the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election . Nixon served for eight years as vice president -- at 40 , the second-youngest vice president in history . He was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U.S. history in 1972 , when he defeated George McGovern .