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United States History & Government 11
Date: ______________________________________
Period/Day: ______________________
The Presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
I.
In 1968, after Lyndon Johnson declined to run for re-election, Republican Richard Nixon—an
experienced politician who made his name as a Cold War-rior and anti-Communist.
A.
Nixon’s Presidency would be marred by his personal short-comings that led to a shameful
downfall that left deep scars for the country.
1. Nixon was paranoid about enemies out to get him, a feeling fueled by his immense
insecurity.
2. This also drove him to his obsession with power and being in control.
B.
These qualities were also responsible for his successes. Nixon was a strong foreign policy
President. But true to his character, his approach was based on secrecy and double dealing.
1. For instance, to get elected in 1968, he promised the American people a “secret plan” to
end the war in Vietnam. But in reality, he wanted to keep it going.
a. So while publicly vowing to end the conflict, he secretly escalated it further by bombing
the neighboring country of Cambodia, and invading another, Laos.
b. At the same time, a Pentagon report known as the Pentagon Papers was published by
the New York Times.
(1) The report showed that the Johnson administration systematically lied to the
American public and to Congress about Vietnam in order to get more support for
the war.
Summary
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The Presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford [1/4]
(2) While this happened during the previous administration, it reflected poorly on
Nixon’s White House too, by association.
(3) Nixon attempted to stop the Times from writing about the report. Nixon had the
Attorney General seek a court injunction to stop the paper from publishing any
more articles about the Pentagon Papers.
(4) This resulted in the Supreme Court case of New York Times v. the United States
(1971). The government argued that the classified document was a threat to
national security. The newspaper claimed its reporting was protected by the First
Amendment.
(5) The Court sided with the Times because the government’s case did not prove the
need for “prior restraint” of the information contained in order to protect national
security.
c. In retaliation for this and for press uncovering the attacks on Cambodia and Laos, Nixon
ordered wire-taps—the illegal taping of phone conversations—of key reporters and
government workers to find out who exposed it.
2. Nixon did have a plan for getting out of Vietnam. He called it the “Vietanmization” of the
war. And it was part of the Nixon administration’s larger Cold War plan, called Détente.
a. Vietnamization was the gradual shifting of the responsibility for fighting the conflict
from American soldiers to South Vietnamese. We would support people fighting
communism, but because the war was so unpopular and Americans wanted to bring
troops home.
b. This plan started because Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, decided that
containment of communism was not possible. Instead, to give the United States the
upper hand in world politics, they sought to pit the communist nations of China and the
USSR against each other.
c. In 1972, Nixon famously visited China, the first official visit to a communist country by
an American President. By improving relations with China, he made the Soviets
nervous, forcing them to also improve relations with the United States.
Summary
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The Presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford [2/4]
d. Later that year, the strategy helped produce the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT),
an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce their nuclear
arsenals.
e. This era of the Cold War, which is characterized by an easing of tensions between the
superpowers, is called Détente—sometimes called a thawing of the Cold War.
f.
C.
Improved relations with China also paved the way for a cease-fire in Vietnam (the
Chinese supported Ho Chi Minh’s war). Secretly, however, Nixon and Kissinger
promised to give South Vietnam support if the cease-fire was broken—something they
fully expected to happen.
With the successful trip to China, the historical arms limitation agreement with the Soviets and
an end to the war in Vietnam all under his belt, Nixon easily won re-election in 1972. But a
scandal of epic proportions was uncovered in 1973 that would ruin it all—Watergate.
1. The break-in to the Democratic head quarters at the Watergate Hotel was only the tip of the
iceberg. The way Nixon ran things involved widespread abuse of Executive power, such as
wire taps by the CIA.
2. Nixon spied on Americans like no other President before. He had government agents
infiltrate the black power movement, the anti-war movement, etc. Nixon thought he was
above the law—yet he told the American people, “I am not a crook.” Nixon recorded all
meetings and phone conversations in the White House.
3. Two reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reported on
the unfolding scandal, receiving an inside tip about Nixon’s involvement and taped
conversations to prove it. As the Watergate investigation began to collect evidence,
investigators sought these tapes.
a. Nixon attempted to block the release of tapes and documents, citing “executive
privilege”—claiming that these documents contained classified information that
threatened national security.
Summary
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The Presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford [3/4]
b. In the ensuing Supreme Court case, the Court decided 8-0 that the White House must
turn over the evidence.
c. Famously, one tape the investigators were looking for had an eighteen minute gap. This
further led to people thinking that Nixon was coving up his involvement in the scandal.
Later, another tape was uncovered where it became clear that he had abused his power
to cover it up.
4. Consequently, the House of Representative began articles of impeachment. Before they
could vote—and even more importantly before the Senate would try the case and uncover
all of bad things his administration had done—Nixon resigned from the Presidency,
disgraced.
II.
Gerald Ford became Vice-President when Nixon’s original running mate had to resign for cheating on his
taxes. Ford now became President at one of the tensest moments in American political history.
A.
The country was still a mess as a criminal indictment of Nixon loomed, widespread public
distrust of government was rampant and Congress eagerly awaited to take back power it felt
was usurped by the heavy-handed Nixon.
B.
Watergate and Nixon threatened to rip the country apart. Ford made an unpopular decision to
grant Nixon a full, Presidential pardon for any crimes he committed. Ford saw this as the only
way to let the country move on from the whole catastrophe.
C.
To further damage Ford’s Presidency, Vietnam became a problem again. North Vietnam broke
the cease-fire and attacked the South. The South needed assistance—as promised by Nixon—to
defend themselves. But tired of the war, Congress refuses to send aid. Vietnam fells to
Communists in 1975, leading to what most characterize as America’s greatest military failure.
D.
The combination of the pardon and the crisis in Vietnam, compounded further by an inflationary
economy, Ford lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election.
Summary
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The Presidencies of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford [4/4]