27. The Nixon Years

I. Election of 1968 – most heated political season in history
A. Democratic convention has mass riots – mobs bait officers – feces, shouts
    1. Eventually police riot breaks out
    2. Robert Kennedy had been killed – leaves pro-war Humphrey in power
B. Republicans – victory in Vietnam and strong anticrime policy
C. George Wallace – segregation campaign – gets 45 electoral votes from South
C. Nixon wins – doesn’t win one city – Democrats vote cities, blacks vote cities

II. Johnson remembered – Vietnam failure, but done more for Civil Rights than Lincoln    

III. Nixon-Kissinger Foreign Policy
    A. Vietnam – escalation and then pull-out troops
        1. Asians and others have to fight own wars
        2. Vietnamization – train Vietnamese to fight war for selves
        3. Bomb Cambodia to clear out Vietnamese
    B. China – restoring relations – road to getting out of Vietnam requires help of China
        1. China starting to clash with Soviets – take opportunity
        2. 1972 makes journey to China
    C. Soviet Union – détente – relaxed tension – slowing of arms race
        1. Soviets need U.S. food and are afraid of US supported Chinese
            a. $750 million in wheat, corn
        3. Anti-ballistic missile treaty – limited nations to defensive weapons
            a. SALT – freeze number of missiles for 5 years

IV. New Federalism- Expands welfare programs – not liked by Conservatives
    A. Increases for food stamps and Medicaid
    B. Supplemental Security Income for disabled
    C. Poverty rate reduced to 11% - lowest in modern history
D. Attack on racial discrimination – affirmative action – protection for groups not just individuals
    1. Supreme Court prohibits intelligence or other tests that hurt women/blacks
E. Environmental Protection Agency – dealt with smog, pesticides and pollution

V. Supreme Court – Roe v. Wade – prohibited states from passing laws against abortion
    A. Warren Court of previous two decades had changed face of nation - reformist
1. Rights of accused, legality of contraception, sue for libel if you could prove malice, support black people in civil rights cases, redraw district lines

VI. Watergate Crisis and resignation
    A. Nixon paranoid – believes liberals of Kennedy/Johnson destroyed political career
    B. Wins 1972 election by landslide but actions come back to haunt him
1. Plumbers supposed to seal “leaks” after Pentagon Papers show fault in previous presidents
2. Group caught in Watergate Hotel at Democratic Party
3. CREEP – committee to reelect president has tons of money to play “dirty tricks” on opposition
    C. Reports Woodward and Bernstein uncover story – eventually traced to Nixon
    D. Nixon resigns before impeachment – later pardoned by Ford – only
    E. John Dean states that Nixon had bugged rooms to record conversations
        1. Eventually Nixon tapes asked for, but denied – minutes “lost”