Julie Nixon Eisenhower

Julie Nixon Eisenhower (born July 5, 1948) is an American author who is the younger daughter of former U.S. president Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat Nixon.

Her husband, David, is the grandson of former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie Eisenhower.

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1948, while her father was a Congressman, Julie and her older sister, Tricia Nixon Cox, grew up in the public eye.

Her father was elected U.S. Senator from California when she was two and Vice President of the United States when she was four.

As a child, one of her favorite pets was a cocker spaniel named Checkers, who figured prominently in one of her father's most famous speeches, given during his 1952 campaign for Vice President of the United States.

While her father was vice president, she attended the private Sidwell Friends School in Washington along with her sister Tricia.

Julie Nixon was born at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C. while her father, Richard Nixon, was a Congressman, but much of her childhood coincided with her father's term as Dwight Eisenhower's vice-president (1953–1961).

She recalled her father as being romantic, while her mother was "practical and down to earth".

Her mother tried to "seal" her and her sister from much of her father's political career.

At his second inauguration, President Eisenhower suggested to eight-year-old Julie as their photograph was being taken, to hide a black eye (which she had acquired in a sledding accident) by turning her head.

She turned her head towards David, which made it appear that he had been staring directly at her.

Her grandmother Hannah Nixon would come to watch her and her sister whenever her parents traveled.

After her father lost the presidential election of 1960 to John F. Kennedy, Julie felt "battered" by the results and felt that the votes had "been stolen".

After her father lost his presidential bid in 1960 the family returned to California, where her father ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1962.

The Nixons moved to New York after the gubernatorial race, and Julie attended Smith College after her graduation from the Chapin School.

She began to date David Eisenhower in the fall of 1966 when both were freshmen at Smith College and Amherst College, respectively.

They became engaged a year later.

Both Julie and David have said that Mamie Eisenhower played a major part in their relationship.

In 1966 during the funeral for Raymond Pitcairn, a friend of the Nixons, Julie mentioned to Mamie that she would be attending Smith College.

Mamie told her of David's plans to go to Amherst College, and soon started trying to get David to call on her.

In 1966, Julie Nixon was presented as a debutante to high society at the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

David Eisenhower was her civilian escort at the International Debutante Ball.

Her 1968 marriage to David Eisenhower was seen as a union between two of the most prominent political families in the United States.

Julie and David married on December 22, 1968, after her father was elected president but before he took office.

The happy couple decided they did not want the publicity of a White House wedding.

The Reverend Norman Vincent Peale officiated in the non-denominational rite at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City.

Throughout the Nixon administration (1969 to 1974), Julie worked as the assistant managing editor of The Saturday Evening Post while holding the unofficial title of "First Daughter".

She was widely noted as one of her father's most vocal and active defenders and was named one of the "Ten Most Admired Women in America" for four years of the 1970s by readers of Good Housekeeping magazine.

The couple left Massachusetts in 1970 when their classes there were canceled after the Kent State shootings.

After her father resigned from office, the two lived in California near Julie's parents and later in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

She received a master's degree in education from The Catholic University of America in 1971.

When she was at Smith, David Eisenhower, the grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, attended Amherst College nearby.

Julie and David were both invited to address the Hadley Republican Women's Club.

The club learned that the two were only seven miles apart, and invited them to be featured speakers.

They discussed the invitations and both chose to decline, but would come in contact again when David visited Julie with his roommate from Amherst and took her and a friend out for ice cream.

David reflected: "I was broke, my roommate forgot his wallet. The girls paid."

After her father resigned from the presidency in 1974, she wrote a biography of her mother, the New York Times best-seller Pat Nixon: The Untold Story.

She continues to engage in works that support her parents' legacies and is on the board of directors of the Richard Nixon Foundation.

She is the mother of two daughters, Jennie Eisenhower and Melanie Catherine Eisenhower, and a son, Alex Eisenhower.

The Eisenhowers have three children: actress Jennie Elizabeth (born August 15, 1978), Alexander Richard (b. 1980), and Melanie Catherine Eisenhower (b. 1984).