Watergate
- Five men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate hotel
- Two Washinton Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, investigated the story
- They relied on an FBI informant known as Deep Throat to link the men to the Nixon White house; he said to follow the money
- This became one of a series of scandalous acts involving the Committee to re-elect the president
- Nixon downplayed the scandal and denounced the story as biased and misleading
- FBI eventually confimred that Nixon aides had attempeted to sabotage the Democrats- many began resiging and faced prosecution
- Nixon was involved by tryin gto cover up the break in (obstruction of justice) and eventually resigned from the presidency.
Assassination Attempts
- One guy brought a gun into a party
- Another guy tried to on a commercial airplane
President Gerald Ford(R)- 38th 1974-1977
- Nixon's Vice Presdient; took over when Nixon resigned
- Only Vice President and President to never be elected by the people
- Had two assassination attempts within 3 weeks of each other; 1st- California but had gun issues 2nd- shot from a crowd across the street but missed and hit the wall and bounced off and hit a taxi driver; both shooters were women
Election
- He was only in one election-1976
- Never elected by the American People
- He ran against Jimmy Carter in 1976; Carter barely one and what put him over the top was the fact that Ford pardoned Nixon
- He became president because of Nixon's resignment
- Leslie Linchking is his real name; very good athlete played football and turned down the pros to go into politics
Accomplishments
- Pardoned Nixon- "a corrupt bargain?" He did this because he didn't want to see a president have to go throught a trial and jail but a conspiracy states that him and Nixon made a deal (but this is not proven)
- Offered conditional amnesty program for Vietnma War draft dodgers who had fled to countries such as Canada- in other words he let the people that fled because they were going to have to go to war come back without punishment
- "Whip Inflation Now" called for Americans to reduce their spending and consumption in an attempt to stop inflation
- Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) established special education in school throughout the US- Special Education was started with him
- Continued to detente with the USSR
- Ford wanted to help South Vietnam when North Vietnam invaded in 1947 but Congress refused
- By April 1975, all of Vietnam became communist because the North V. invaded the South and we didn't help
- Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act was passed to allow refugees to immigrate to the US
Vietname War (1950-1975)
- Helicopters were very important during this war because their was so much jungle, it was hard to land airplanes; so it was easy to move people around, drop them off, and pick them up
- First war where journalists and photographers could be in the war zone
- It was a tough war because... 1. It was fought in a jungle 2. We couldn't tell the difference between the Viet-kong(civilians that would be innocent one sec then be bad) and good people
- Goal of the United States: stop the (North Vietnam) spread of communism to South Vietnam
- Goal of the communist North Vietnam was to spread communsim and overtake south vietnam
Beginning
- After Japan surrendered. the French fought to retain control of their former colony (Indochina) against the Viet Ming independence movement, led by communist party leader Ho Chi Minh
- After France was defeated, they withdrew and the colony was graned independence
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