Nixon never had much interest in monetary matters and kind of left that up to his staff to decide most things.

Although he gets blamed for going off the gold exchange standard, really it was a culmination of many years of printing money, much of it dating back to the Johnson administration and the costs of the entire Vietnam war. Basically we printed money we did not have to fund the war. The war was unpopular to begin with and to have ask the population to fund it with higher taxes was out of the question. So they took the route of the hidden tax of inflation. Problem was back then each dollar printed was backed with the promise to redeem it to any foreign government for gold (private redemption had already been repealed). Since we were printing the money freely (like now) there got to be a lot more dollars in foreign hands than could ever be exchanged for the amount of gold the Fed held in reserve at the then fixed rate. When foreign governments began demanding gold in exchange for the dollars they were holding there began a run on the Fed gold window. A few got their gold but once our government realized soon all our gold would be gone, an emergency meeting over a weekend was held in secrecy and Monday morning Nixon proudly announced to the American public that the US Dollar was so "strong" that it did not need gold backing and we went off the gold exchange standard. We defaulted on our promise that our federal reserve notes could be exchanged for gold.

The way to tell if a politician is lying is if their lips are moving.

The gold standard worked as long as our government was afraid of loosing all its gold. Once they abandoned that fear and printed anyway inflation ensued (anyone remember the 70's?). They simply defaulted on their promise of gold redemption. That is the problem with a gold backed money. Eventually politicians ignore the promise and it is repealed. In my opinion better to just let gold/silver trade freely along with paper currencies, then let the market decide which one is desired. Make them legal tender with a floating value to be used along side paper money. Good money drives bad money out.

John