Friday May 3

Today we are discussing about what we are gonna do today and next week. We have a lot of notes to take today so here we go.

Watergate

Five men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate hotel
Two Washington 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 confirmed that Nixon aides had attempted to sabotage the Democrats- many began resigning and faced prosecution
Nixon was involved by trying to cover up the break in (obstruction of justice) and eventually resigned from the presidency.

Assassination Attempts

President Gerald Ford(R)- 38th 1974-1977

Nixon's Vice President; 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 reassignment
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 through 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 Vietnam 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

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