Nixon from China to Watergate

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Nixon from China to Watergate
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Nixons personality

• Paranoia!
• Highly regarded for his experience, but people
  were open about disliking and distrusting him
  personally
• Mean willing to say anything to vanquish his
  enemy
• Nixon believed in concentrating power in the
  executive branch of government

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Nixons staff

• Nixon had a few close advisors
• Chief of Staff Haldeman
• Chief Domestic Advisor Ehrlichman
• Both served as a Berlin Wall between Nixon and
  those who wanted access to him
• Henry Kissinger Secretary of State
• Made sure that foreign policy was managed from
  the White House, not the State Department

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Nixons domestic policies

• Inflation economy shaky due to spending on
  Vietnam war
• Consumer prices rising 10-15 a year
• Today inflation is around 3
• Deficit spending hoped that spending money we
  didnt have would jump start the economy
• 1971 freeze on wages, prices and rents for 90
  days
• Pressure forced Nixon to lift these, inflation
  roars back to life

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Nixons domestic policies

• Oil Crisis US oil output starts to decline
• Coal is disfavored too polluting
• US depended on cheap imported oil for 1/3 of
  energy needs
• Middle East crisis in 1973 War between Israel
  and Arab neighbors
• US supports Israel, Arab members of OPEC announce
  an embargo against the US

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Embargo

• OPEC quadruples oil prices
• Higher oil prices cause inflation to spike more
• Bread in 1972 cost 28 cents, by 1974 cost 89
  cents
• Gasoline goes from 25 cents to 65 cents a gallon
  hits 1.00 in 1979
• Consumers stop spending, US goes into recession

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Appeal to southerners

• Nixons Southern Strategy
• Appeal to conservative, blue collar Democrats in
  the south by rolling back desegregation
• Tried to block renewal of Voting Rights Act
• Supreme Court says busing is one way to integrate
  schools
• Nixon disagrees and refuses to enforce court
  ruling on busing

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Nixons Foreign Policy

• Henry Kissinger
• Wrote his doctoral dissertation on Metternich
• Realpolitik policy grounded in reality,
  practical politics
• Based on strength rather than moral principles
• Kissinger understood how to talk to Nixon
• Amassed amazing amount of power in determining
  foreign policy
• Managed to end Vietnam War (eventually) and won a
  Nobel Peace Prize for his work

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Détente

• Relaxing of tensions - in this case between US
  and the two communist superpowers China and
  USSR
• Rivalry between those two was a chance for the US
  to get more of an upper-hand
• China becomes focus
• Ally of Vietnam, Nixon hoped to use China to get
  Vietnam to sign peace treaty
• Despite being a strong anti-communist, Nixon goes
  to China first US president ever to go to China
• Eventually leads to diplomatic relations which
  had been frozen since 1949

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Nixon in China
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Détente

• Limiting nuclear arms
• Nixon goes to USSR
• Negotiations to limit nuclear weapons
  proliferation had been going on for years
• SALT I treaty Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
• Nixon signs it in Moscow in 1972
• It had failings, but was a huge step forward in
  decreasing tensions abroad

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Nixon and Brezhnev
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Watergate Scandal

• Nixons enemies list prominent people seen as
  unsympathetic to the Nixon administration
• People like Senator Ted Kennedy, as well as
  actors like Jane Fonda, Steve McQueen
• Wiretapping Nixon fond of listening in on
  conversations. Some wiretaps were legal at the
  time (for national security reasons) but Nixon
  later abuses this
• Pentagon Papers former State Department
  employee leaks a top-secret study on the Vietnam
  War to the New York Times
• Culture of wiretapping and spying

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Watergate Scandal

• Nixons advisors plan to wiretap at the
  Democratic convention in 1972 to learn about
  their strategies
• Decide instead to wiretap phones at the
  Democratic National Committee offices at the
  Watergate apartment complex in DC
• Break-in to install the wiretaps foiled
• Perpetrators had money on them that could be
  linked to Nixons re-election campaign
• Nixon tries to persuade the CIA to try and stop
  the FBIs investigation of the break-in
• While Nixon never ordered the break-in, he orders
  the cover up

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Watergate Scandal

• More cover up Nixon advisors pay out hush money
  to Watergate defendants
• Meanwhile, Nixon gets re-elected (most of whats
  going on is unknown to the public)
• Eventually investigators (and the reporters
  Woodward and Bernstein from the Wash Post)
  discover the secret fund to re-elect Nixon
• Advisors testify, expose cover-ups at the White
  House
• Discovery of a tape-recording system, evidence
  that Nixon had possibly erased evidence of cover
  up
• House of Representatives votes to start
  impeachment proceedings against Nixon

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Watergate Scandal

• House then ready to vote to remove him from
  office
• Nixon gives in, releases tapes but many are
  altered (further evidence of a cover up)
• Nixon resigns from office August 9, 1974
• Vice President Ford takes office
• Dark chapter in US history, but it showed the
  resiliency of the constitutional process and
  foundation.
• Our constitution works. Our great republic is a
  government of laws, not men