History 156 16: Nixon and Watergate

1. History 156 16: Nixon and Watergate “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” The Who (1971)

2. Street justice during the Tet offensive, 1968

3. April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis Tennessee by a white escaped convict, James Earl Ray

4. Robert Kennedy with King shortly before King’s assassination Kennedy dies two months after King, June 5th 1968, in a LA hotel after being shot by Sirhan Sirhan

5. Nixon’s Appeal • The growing conservative coalition certainly prefers him to Humphrey • Impeccable anti-communist credentials • Plays on white racial resentments • Appeals to the so-called “silent majority” alarmed by chaos and violence of 1968 • Promises to restore “law and order • Promises “peace with honor” in Vietnam • Has a “secret plan” to end the war • Ironically, promises new “openness and honesty” in the White House

6. Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger

7. Wounded American Soldiers in Vietnam, 1970

8. South Vietnamese victims of U.S. napalm attack, 1972

9. Freed American POW greeted by his family, 1973

10. Last minute evacuation of Americans and some South Vietnamese before the fall (“liberation” from the NVA perspective) of Saigon, April 30, 1975

11. Desperate Vietnamese trying to escape on American helicopters

12. The homicidal dictator of Cambodia (1973-78), Pol Pot, and a small sample of the remains of the approximate 2 million victims of the Khmer Rouge

13. In 1978 a unified Vietnam successfully invades and deposes the blood-thirsty Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge of Camboida • War between Vietnam and China breaks out shortly thereafter

14. Laos also becomes openly communist under the Pathet Lao, which was largely subservient to Hanoi

15. So was the domino theory right? • No • There was no monolithic world communism—various communist nations fighting amongst themselves • The communist regimes in Cambodia and Laos were a direct product of the chaos and instability caused by the American role in the Vietnam War • The secret American wars in both these nations had the effect of radicalizing the populations • Remainder of Southeast Asia did not go communist, much less all of Indochina and Australia • Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia moved towards western-style capitalism • By mid-1970s, Henry Kissinger himself admits that the Domino Theory had been wrong, at least in its simplistic form

16. The Legacy of Vietnam • 2 million combatants and civilians killed on both sides • Does not include the two million more who died subsequently in Cambodia and Laos • 58,000 Americans killed, 300,000 wounded • 100,000 returned missing one or more limbs • Deeply eroded American respect for Military • Eroded American trust in its Government • Massive political realignment: • Moderate liberal Democrats badly damaged • Aids the growing conservative/Republican ascendancy • Enduring questions about America’s proper role in the world and wisdom of nation building efforts • So-called “Vietnam Syndrome”: Government and military very reluctant to commit troops globally • Perhaps ended by the Persian Gulf Wars—depending on what happens in Iraq

17. Nixon and Kissinger’s Foreign Policy: • “Realpolitik”—realized that American vital interests were not truly threatened in Vietnam • Main goal was to improve relations with Soviet Union and China • Abandon old method of containment through military force in favor of diplomatic engagement (more like what George Kennan had argued for in the 1950s) • Came to be known as detente

18. Nixon Goes to China: The extraordinary meeting with Mao in 1972 as Nixon begins to implement his strategy of detente

19. Old Cold War enemies toast each others health: Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev meet in Moscow, 1972

20. Old Glory flies next to the Soviet hammer and sickle in Moscow, while Nixon and Brezhnev sign the first ever Soviet-American strategic arms limitation agreement, May 1972

21. The openly Marxist Salvador Allende, who was elected to the presidency of Chile in 1970

22. The last known picture of Allende before he was murdered in a military coup supported by the CIA

23. Augusto Pinochet who seized power in Chile in a violent 1973 military coup • Establishes a dictatorship in Chile, arguing “democracy is the breeding ground of communism” • Institutes a system of torture, murder and repression • Despite this, Nixon and US support his administration into the 1980s • Currently under house arrest in Chile and charged with human rights abuses

24. Nixon at Home • Unlike Johnson, Nixon’s main interest was foreign policy rather than domestic issues • Struggled with the declining economic growth and rising inflation caused by large government deficits • Did not significantly rollback the New Deal/Great Society • In part, because he was still dealing with a Democratic-controlled house and senate • Responding to growing American concerns about environmental degradation, signed National Environmental Policy Act (1970) • Created the Environmental Protection Agency • Required all federal agencies to take into account environmental impacts of their activities

25. Daniel Ellsberg, a former Marine and Defense Department analyst in Vietnam, who leaked the so-called “Pentagon Papers” to the New York Times

26. Some of the President’s Men Kissinger Haldeman Ehrlichman

27. Nixon’s description of his ideal candidate for IRS commissioner in 1971: “I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do what he’s told, that every income tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends.”

28. Throw-away Nixon and George McGovern Dixie Cups from the 1972 election

29. The soon-to-be-infamous Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, home to the Democratic Party Headquarters in 1972

30. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters whose dogged investigation of the Watergate break-in helped expose Nixon’s crimes to public scrutiny

31. The Nixon-appointed special investigator, John Dean, who not surprisingly concludes that, "no one on the White House staff was involved in this very bizarre incident."

32. James McCord, security director for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) and one of the Watergate burglars. Facing a long jail sentence, McCord admits top Nixon aides approved the break-in and were trying to keep them quiet with bribes and threats.

33. John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman aboard Air Force One, 1973

34. The Watergate scandal moves ever closer to Nixon as John Dean agrees to testify in 1973

35. Senate Watergate hearings begin in May of 1973

36. G. Gordon Liddy, a former CIA agent and one of the original Plumbers and planners of the Watergate break-in • As leader of CREEP’s illegal attacks on the Democrats in 1972, asked for $1 million secret money to hire prostitutes to seduce and then blackmail Democratic candidate

37. Editorial cartoon of Nixon with the so-called “Smoking Gun”

38. Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor who subpoenaed Nixon’s secret tapes • Saturday Night Massacre, October 20th, 1973: • Desperate to keep the tapes from becoming public, Nixon demands that Attorney General Eliot Richardson fire Cox • When Richardson refuses, Nixon fires him • When the Deputy Attorney General refuses, Nixon fires him as well

39. Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew, resigns after it is revealed he had accepted bribes as governor of Maryland and cheated on his income taxes, October 10, 1973

40. Gerald Ford, a senator from Michigan, becomes Nixon’s new VP

41. August 9, 1974, Nixon resigns the presidency and departs the White House for the last time in the presidential helicopter

42. August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford is sworn in, promising, “Our long national nightmare is over.”

43. Nixon’s Crimes • Used the federal power of the FBI and the CIA to illegally wiretap, spy-on, and manipulate legitimate political groups and individual citizens opposed to his administration’s policies • Used the IRS and Department of Commerce to coerce campaign donations to CREEP • Diverted campaign funds to sponsor the illegal activities of the White House Plumbers, to steal documents of the Democratic party, and to bug their offices in order to guarantee his own re-election • Used every power at his disposal--from the Attorney General on down--to cover-up White House involvement in all of these activities, including threats and bribery to force those involved to perjure themselves in order to protect the President and to limit Congressional oversight of his administration

44. Watergate in Retrospect • Demonstrated the importance of a free, vigorous, and independent press • Demonstrated the dangers of allowing extra-constitutional powers, even in emergency situations • Despite a serious threat to constitutional order, the American system of separation of powers did work • A forceful and hopefully enduring reminder of the founding fathers’ fundamental belief that too much secrecy and power in the hands of one man was dangerous • Perhaps it is true that, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

45. Questions?