Nixon
1969-1974
Election of 1968
- Hubert Humphrey, Democrat
- Vietnam War was main issue
- Republican Party supported war
- Democratic Party split because opposition to war prominent in their party
- Humphrey supported continuation of war
-Nixon appealed to conservative voters in South and campigned on a vague plan to end to Vietnam War
-Third party candidate George Wallace (American Independent Party) ran well in the Deep South promoting segregation; won the the state Alabama's vote
- Reagan won narrowly
Election of 1972
–George McGovern, Democratic
- McGovern based his campaign on pulling out of Vietnam in 90 days
- Nixon won in a landslide
Vietnam War
-"Vietnamization"; gradually withdraw the 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam funding the South Vietnamese to take over the war
- Nixon Doctrine -United States would honor current defense commitments but would make foreign countries fight independently in future
- November 3, 1969, Nixon issued a televised speech to the "silent majority," Vietnam a War supporters; he hoped to gain supporters
- Cambodia = North Vietnam and VC's springboard for troops, weapons, and supplies
-On April 29, 1970, President Nixon ordered American forces to join with the South Vietnamese to eliminate the enemy in neutral Cambodia and widen the war
- anti-war protests became violent in America
- June 1970 Nixon withdrew the troops from Cambodia but violence due to differing war opinions between the "hawks" and the "doves" increased
- 1971, 26th Amendment , lowered voting age to 18
-anti war sentiment = eruption of mass rallies and marches in spring of 1971
- Americans were told that Cambodia's neutrality would be respected, but it t was discovered America had secretly been bombing North Vietnamese in Cambodia since March of 1969
-the public to questioned and did not rust of the government=Nixon ended bombing June 1973
-dictator Pol Pot took over Cambodia, later committed genocide of over 2 million people over a span of a few years.
- War Powers Act, November 1973, required the president to report all commitments of U.S. troops to foreign exchanges within 48 hours
- New Isolationism- discouraged U.S. troops in other countries- emerged but Nixon continued war
Policy of “détente”
- the Soviet Union and China, were clashing due to differing interpretations of Marxism
- Chinese-Soviet tension gave the United States an opportunity to enlist the aid of both in pressuring North Vietnam into peace.
- 1969 Dr. Henry A. Kissinger had begun meeting secretly with North Vietnamese officials in Paris to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam
-1972, Nixon US visited China, initiating diplomatic relations between United States and Beijing.
- 1972, Nixon traveled to Moscow
- Nixon's visits led to an era of détente, or relaxed tensions between the Soviet Union and China
- great grain deal of 1972 - a 3-year arrangement by which the United States agreed to sell the Soviets at least $750 million worth of wheat, corn, and other cereals
- anti-ballistic missile (AMB) treaty, limited defensive missiles U.S. & Soviet Union to two clusters
-SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), froze the numbers of long-range nuclear missiles for 5 years
Watergate Scandal
-June 17, 1972, five men working for the CREEP caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel and bugging rooms
- Lengthy hearings headed by Senator Sam Erving proceeded
- John Dean III testified of all the corruption, illegal activities, and scandal
- Nixon denied participation in scandal
- Watergate scandal conversations discovered on tapes, but Nixon quickly refused to hand them over to Congress
- 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew forced to resign due to tax evasion
-In accordance with 25th Amendment (1967), Nixon's new Vice President =Gerald Ford
- October 20, 1973 ("Saturday Night Massacre"), Archibald Cox, the prosecutor of the Watergate scandal case fired
- attorney general and deputy general resigned because they did not want to fire Cox
- July 24, 1974, Nixon ruled to submit all tapes to Supreme Court
- July 1974, discussed impeachment of Nixon for obstruction of justice.
- August 5, 1974, Nixon released most crucial and damaging tapes -had been "missing"
- August 8, 1974 Nixon resigned keep the privileges of a president.