Richard Nixon1969-1974

Nixon was born into a devoutly religious Quaker family in Yorba Linda, Calif. His family attended an evangelical Quaker meetinghouse every Sunday, prayed silently before each meal, and observed strict prohibitions on drinking, gambling and swearing. While in middle school, Nixon played piano for Sunday school services and sang in the church choir. He taught Sunday school services throughout the majority of his undergraduate years in college. According to Nixon, in his youth he accepted the "literal correctness of the Bible, the miracles, even the whale story."
In 1933, while an undergraduate at Whittier College, which was founded by Quakers at the turn of the 20th century, Nixon attended lectures on "The Philosophy of Christian Construction" by Dr. J. Herschel Coffin. The course -- and the death of Nixon's elder brother, Harold, that same year -- had a profound effect on the young man's religious beliefs. In a series of essays written for the class, he declared that many of his childhood religious ideas had been "destroyed but there are some which I cannot bring myself to drop. ... I still believe that God is the creator. ... I still believe that He lives today, in some form, directing the destinies of the cosmos. ... For the time being I shall accept the solution offered by Kant, that man can only go so far in his research and explanations; from that point on we must accept God." While Nixon professed that he no longer accepted as fact many of the miracles mentioned in the Bible, he still expressed admiration for Jesus' message and noted that it would be his purpose in life "to follow the religion of Jesus as well as I can."
While president, Nixon regularly attended Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church and reportedly told H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff, that he prayed every night. Nixon also maintained a close relationship with the Rev. Billy Graham. The evangelical preacher acted as Nixon's spiritual adviser and became a White House regular, preaching on several occasions at White House worship services instituted by the president. Nixon would occasionally mention God and religion in his public speeches, although not with the same frequency as some of his successors.
In a speech at the 1974 National Prayer Breakfast, Nixon discussed the necessity of tolerance, stating that it was imperative to "recognize the right of people in the world to be different from what we are. Even some may have different religions. Even some, we must accept, may not have a religious belief, as we understand a religious belief, to believe."
Despite this appeal, Nixon himself has been accused of intolerance. Since 1996, the National Archives has periodically released taped conversations between Nixon and his aides in which the president is heard making a variety of anti-Semitic remarks