The Challenges We Face:Edited and Compiled from the Speeches and Papers of Richard M. Nixon

Overview
Published in the heat of the 1960 presidential campaign, The Challenges We Face gathers Richard Nixon’s recent speeches and policy papers into a single statement of priorities for the United States at midcentury. The collection sets out a program of pragmatic, anti-Communist internationalism and moderate Republican reform at home, arguing that American purpose, technological vigor, and disciplined government can steer the nation through an era of rapid change. Rather than a memoir or academic treatise, it is a curated platform, emphasizing continuity with the Eisenhower years and the need for steadiness under pressure.

Cold War Strategy and World Leadership
Nixon frames the central challenge as a long, global contest with Soviet Communism. He calls for negotiation from strength, pairing military readiness and alliance solidarity with a willingness to engage in serious talks if backed by verification. NATO is treated as indispensable, but he widens the lens to Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, warning that newly independent nations are battlegrounds for influence where economic development, respect, and patient diplomacy count as much as missiles. He favors an energetic foreign aid program as an investment in stability, integrates trade policy into strategy, and supports the United Nations as a forum that can spotlight aggression and support peacekeeping. He cautions against panic over shifting military balances while insisting on sustained investment in deterrence, civil defense, intelligence, and science.

Prosperity, Discipline, and Opportunity
Domestically, the book argues for growth anchored in fiscal responsibility. Nixon defends a balanced budget over the business cycle, anti-inflation vigilance, and a tax and regulatory climate friendly to entrepreneurship and small business. He embraces a “modern Republican” acceptance of core social programs while urging administrative efficiency and waste-cutting. On labor and management, he stresses the legitimacy of unions within a framework of responsible bargaining and disclosure. Farm policy should stabilize incomes and modernize agriculture without perpetual price supports that misallocate resources. Public works and infrastructure are cast as productivity investments that also strengthen national security.

Science, Education, and the Space Age
Responding to the Sputnik shock, Nixon puts science education, research, and language training at the center of national competitiveness. He supports federal assistance that sets goals and supplies resources while leaving curricula and control at the local level. The space program is presented not as spectacle but as the spearpoint of innovation with spillovers to industry, defense, and communications. He links scholarship support to national needs in engineering, physics, and area studies, arguing that the free world must win the race of ideas and technology as well as the race of arms.

Civil Rights and the National Community
The compilation affirms equal opportunity as a moral and constitutional imperative. Nixon endorses vigorous enforcement of voting rights and the authority of federal courts in desegregation, backing the civil rights advances of the late 1950s while appealing for order and respect for law. He promotes fair employment practices, expanded housing opportunity, and the use of federal leverage to open doors without sprawling new bureaucracies. The tone aims to reconcile urgency with national unity, contending that progress and social peace are mutually reinforcing.

Executive Leadership and Civic Character
Threaded through the volume is a case for experienced, measured leadership. Nixon points to lessons from eight years as vice president: crisis management, interagency coordination, anticorruption standards, and the importance of clear chains of responsibility. He emphasizes youth engagement, the dignity of public service, and the nation’s moral resources, faith, family, volunteerism, as strategic assets. The closing notes blend toughness with optimism: confidence in American ingenuity, a belief that freedom’s strengths compound over time, and a conviction that, with disciplined policy and resolute purpose, the United States can meet the tests of a turbulent era.