Presentation by:

Nathan Keane

&

Drew Lambert

President Richard Nixon

The Nixon Doctrine

Vietnamization

Aid to Families and Dependent Children (AFDC)

Philadelphia Plan of 1969

Environmental Protection Agency

Southern Strategy

Watergate

Key Terms

Born January 9, 1913 

Died April 22, 1994

Inaugurated on January 20, 1969

Resigned on August 9, 1974 after hearing of his near certain impeachment.

Background Info

Proclaimed that the U.S. would honor it’s existing defense commitments but that in the future, Asians and others would have to fight their own wars without the support of large bodies of U.S. ground troops.

Anti-war protestors staged a massive national Vietnam moratorium in October 1969 has nearly 100,000 people jam the Boston Common and some 50,000 filed by the White House carrying lighted candles.

The Nixon Doctrine

Undaunted, Nixon launched his own home front counteroffensive on November 3, 1969 he delivered a dramatic television appeal to the great silent majority who presumably supported the war.

Nixon himself in 1970 sneered at the student anti-war demonstrators as bums

The Nixon Doctrine (cont.)

January 1970 Vietnam conflict had become the longest in American history with 40,000 killed and over 250,000 wounded

The third most costly foreign war in the nations experience

Vietnamization- Nixon’s plan to withdraw the 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam

The war was highly unpopular. Drug abuse, mutiny, and sabotage dulled the army’s fighting edge. Ugly rumors filtered out of Vietnam that soldiers were fragging their own officers

Domestic discuss with the war was further deepened in 1970 by revelations that in 1968 American troops had massacred innocent women and children in the village of My Lai.

As president, Nixon’s response was to widen the war in 1970 by ordering an attack on Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia.

Vietnam War

April 29, 1970 without consulting Congress, Nixon ordered American forces joining with the South Vietnamese to clean out the enemy sanctuaries in officially neutral Cambodia

Nixon withdrew the American troops from Cambodia on June 29, 1970 after only 2 months

The President’s supporters argued that they captured enemy supplies and gave South Vietnamese 8 months to strengthen themselves, but the bases were not eliminated and Cambodian communist soon overran large areas of the country

Cambodia

As anti-war firestorm flared even higher, Nixon grew more daring in his search for an exit from Vietnam

Nixon concluded that the road out of Vietnam ran through Beijing and Moscow

Nixon astutely perceived that the Chinese-Soviet tension afforded the U.S. an opportunity to play off one antagonist against the other and to enlist the aid of both in pursuing North Vietnam into peace

A former Harvard professor in 1969 had begun meeting secretly on Nixon’s behalf with North Vietnamese officials in Paris to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam

1971 Nixon startled the nation when he accepted an invitation from China to visit the country. He made the journey in February 1972

Nixon then visited Moscow in May 1972 to play his China card in a game of high-stakes diplomacy in the Kremlin

Soviets, in need of American foodstuffs and worried over the possibility of intensified rivalry with the American backed China, were ready to deal

Nixon’s Relations with China and Russia

Nixon’s détente diplomacy did, to some extent, dry-ice the cold war by co-opting the two great communist powers, the President had cleverly set the stage for America’s exit from Vietnam, but the concluding act still remained to be played

Nixon’s Relations with China and Russia (cont.)

Aid to Families and Dependent Children (AFDC) targeted single mothers of young children

Nixon increased food stamps and medic aid.

Implemented a new federal program, supplemental security income (know as SSI) which gave generous benefits to the indigent age blind and disabled

1972 rose social security old age pensions and increased living cost by more than 3%

Nixon helped reduce the nation’s poverty rate to 11% in 1973

Philadelphia Plan of 1969 required construction trade unions working on federal contracts in Philadelphia to establish goals and time tables for the hiring of black apprentices

Domestic Policy

Nixon opened broad employment and educational opportunities for minorities and women

He created the Environmental Protection Agency mounting concern for the environment and air pollution in Los Angeles

Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” emphasized on appeal to white voters by soft pedaling civil rights and openly apposing school bussing to achieve racial balance

Domestic Policy (cont.)

June 17, 1972 a bungled burglary had occurred in the democratic headquarters located in the Watergate apartment office

5 men were arrested with bugging equipment

They were working for the republican committee for the re-election of the president, better known as CREEP

They were known to raise tens of millions of dollars through secretive, unethical, or unlawful means

They used dirty tricks in campaign runs such as espionage and sabotage and including fake documents directed against democratic candidates

Watergate

Watergate Scandal cause many of Nixon’s administration to be questioned and forced to quit

The attention from Watergate caused an internal investigation from the FBI and the CIA into Nixon’s affairs

Nixon claimed on national television that he knew nothing of the scandal, but on June 23, 1972 a recorded conversation of Nixon proved he had known of the scandal 6 days before it happened

This information gave the Republican party a horrible reputation and claimed that Nixon was a loose-cannon in the seat of the President

Faced with inevitable impeachment, on August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned and gave his farewell address on national television

Resignation

Gannon, Frank. "Domestic Policy Initiatives of The Nixon Years." Domestic Policy. Richard Nixon Foundation, 15 May 2010. Web. 18 Mar. 2012. <http://domestic.nixonfoundation.org/2010/05/15/the-domestic-policy-initiatives-of-the-nixon-years-2/>.

Kennedy, David M., and Lizabeth Cohen. "The Stalemate Seventies." The American Pageant. By Thomas A. Bailey. 11th ed. Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 966-76. Print.

"Nixon Resigns." Washington Post. Washington Post. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/part3.html>.

Bibliography